chapter 3

Question 1

Historical Linguistics

Answer 1

The study of how languages develop and change over time and how different languages are related to one another.

Question 2

Descriptive Linguistics

Answer 2

The study of specific features of individual languages, such as patterns of grammar and sounds, as they are actually used by a given language community.

Question 3

Sociolinguistics

Answer 3

The study of how language is used by people in society.

Question 4

Social Judgments of Languages and Dialects

Answer 4

Dialects are distinct but mutually intelligible forms of a single language.
In language hierarchies, some languages or dialects are ranked in political, economic, and social status.
Linguists believe there is no such thing as superior or advanced languages.

Question 5

Multilingual Societies

Answer 5

Societies with various languages always have political dynamics in which the use of the languages becomes hierarchically arranged.

Sociology of language is a field devoted to studying how people negotiate the relationships between languages and their use.

Question 6

Creole

Answer 6

a type of language formed when speakers of different languages combine their languages.

Question 7

Pidgin

Answer 7

a language formed when speakers in a multilingual context use a simplified form of one language (often a colonial language) as a common language across a region or group

Question 8

how language and culture affect each other

Answer 8

focus on contextual factors like ethnic stratification, social inequality, and political representation.

Question 9

Structuralism

Answer 9

A theory of language that posits language is an arbitrary collection of signs arranged according to rules of opposition.

Question 10

The Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis

Answer 10

Language shapes people’s perceptions, thoughts, and views of reality.

Many anthropologists add that culture not just a reflection of language; culture changes language.

Question 11

linguistic morphology

Answer 11

the patterns and structures of words in a language

Question 12

language family

Answer 12

a group of languages that derives from a common ancestor language.

Question 13

protolanguage

Answer 13

the ancient language from which all the members of a particular language family are derived.

Question 14

methods linguist use

Answer 14

comparative method is used to trace a language’s family tree

identifies related words, establishes sound correspondences, and identifies correspondences between words.

Question 15

diachronic research

Answer 15

allowed scholars to consider how changes in social life, politics, and so forth were reflected in language

Question 16

philology

Answer 16

study of societies through their texts

Question 17

Phonetics

Answer 17

study of the production, transmission, and perception of speech sounds, including all possible sounds in all human languages.

Question 18

morpheme

Answer 18

a minimal unit comprising sound, meaning, and function. For example, the word “singing” consists of two morphemes: sing and -ing, each with a distinct sequence of sounds and an associated meaning or function.

Question 19

phonology

Answer 19

study of how a single language’s distinctive sounds are patterned and used in its phonemic system.

Question 20

phonemes

Answer 20

The distinctive sounds in any particular language

Question 21

Descriptive grammar

Answer 21

to analyze and describe a language as it is actually used by a group of people

would find flaws

Question 22

Prescriptive grammar

Answer 22

specifies rules or conventions about how language ought to be used

how this usage is understood by speakers of the language

Question 23

Semantics

Answer 23

study of literal linguistic meanings

Question 24

Pragmatics

Answer 24

study of linguistic meaning in context

Question 25

paralanguage

Answer 25

the tone

Question 26

kinesics

Answer 26

body language

Question 27

official languages

Answer 27

sanctioned by a ruling body and defined and protected by powerful interests such as royal courts or other governmental institutions, tend to change more slowly than those used by populations less strongly tied to the state, such as rural and poorer groups.

Question 28

William Labov social influences on language

Answer 28

He observed that American racism perpetuated the segregation of African Americans in neighborhoods, workplaces, and churches, and that segregation contributed to the development of distinctively African American forms of speech.

Question 29

dialects

Answer 29

Distinct but mutually intelligible forms of a single language

Question 30

linguistic nationalism

Answer 30

use of language to promote nationalist ideologies

Question 31

languages are

Answer 31

never static, they are born, they grow, change and they die

Question 32

ethnosemantics

Answer 32

the study of the culturally and linguistically specific ways people make sense of the world.

Question 33

"Word of God"

Answer 33

it is important to retain the supremacy of the Trinity