Chapter 4 Comunication Flashcards
Animal forms of verbal communication are called
Call systems
A linguistic capacity to describe things that are not present is called
Displacement
When anthropologist say that human language is “conventional” they mean that
the words in human languages have no inherent relationship to the things they stand for
Human speech is infinitely productive. This means that
Human speech is deliberate and accomplishes and specific purpose
Charles Hockett argues that _____ and _____ were critical in the evolution of human language
blending ; duality of patterning
When learning language, the human instinct is to ____
Learn the language of the group in which you are socialized
The case of Genie shows that human children appear to be programmed to learn language instinctively before the age of ____
6 years
Displacement is the human ability to do which of the following?
Speak about different times and places
Studies of the ways in which children learn language show that _____.
Humans beings have an inborn predisposition for learning language and will speak grammatically even if not taught to do so
Which statement about language development is true?
Human speech must be learned through a speech community
A universal grammar is ____.
a set of principles, conditions, and rules that underlie all language
When anthropologists examine language across different cultures, they find that ____
children learn to speak at the same time in all cultures and with equal competence
Which concept describes a system of rules for combining words into meaningful sentences?
Syntax
The International Phonetic Alphabet is a means of _____
Writing all of the sounds of all human languages
In English, bit and pit have different meanings. Thus, the /b/ and /p/ of these words are _____
Phonemes
In linguistic studies, phonemes are _____
The set of sounds used in any particular language
Bound morphemes differ from free morphemes in which way?
The former never stand alone as complete words; the latter do
The English word cats has how many morphemes?
2 morphemes: cat-s
“The dog food under the table he fed” is not correct in English grammar. What kind of error does it contain?
Syntax
The relationship between language and culture is illustrated by the fact that ____
The vocabulary of language emphasizes those features of the environment that are culturally most significant
According to Ferdinand de Saussure, language can best be represented into language (langue) and speech (parole). The difference between language and parole is ____
Language is an arbitrary and abstract system of signs that exist independently of any speaker; speech is the actual performance of language by an individual speaker
Which of the following concepts is used to explain why signs for an object itself? For example, a flower is more than a flower; it is often taken as a sign for the arrival of spring and fertility
Signifier
Sociolinguistic is helpful to anthropologist in understanding culture because ____
People’s speech varies depending on their position in a social structure or social relationship
A dialect is ____
A version of language that is used by less powerful groups in society
A study of speech norms in the United States by Labov indicated that ____
Variation of speech patterns is most characteristic of upwardly mobile social classes
Linguistic view African American vernacular English (AAVE) as _____
Neither superior nor inferior to SSAE
Which of the following is an example of code-switching?
Conversations in which people talk to some people in one language while talking to others in a different language
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that ____
The vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers perceive reality
One aspect of language that appears to contradict the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that human languages are similar in which way?
Anything that can be said in one language can be translated into every other human language
A Tuareg man wears his veil at different positions on his face in different social situations. This is an example of ___
Nonverbal communication
Haptics refers to ____
The study and analysis of touch
Researches who study interpersonal space refers to three different ranges of space. They are ____
Intimate distance, personal distance, and social distance
Which of the following best characterizes the cross-cultural meaning of smiling?
The meaning of smile varies from culture to culture
A pidgin is ____
A language of contact and trade that includes a mixture of other languages
A fundamental principle of language is that ____
Language always reflects the history of those who use it
Which of the following does glottochronology examine?
A. Vocabulary
B. Syntax
C. Morphology
D. Kinesics
Vocabulary
An important method comparative linguistic use to draw conclusions about the relationship between two languages is ___
Determining the amount of core vocabulary they share
Which of the following statements best reflects the diversity of languages spoken in the world today?
A majority of the world’s languages are spoken by a minority of the world’s population
Which of the following is a reason why language is being lost today in such great numbers today?
It is more profitable and advantageous to speak languages that are more popularly spoken
What is the most popular language in the world for people to speak as their primary language ?
Mandarin Chinese
True/False
Communication among nonhuman animals can be as complex as human language.
False
True/False
All children, regardless of culture, go through the same basic stages and sequence for language learning.
True
True/False
Even a child brought up in isolation will automatically be able to speak the language of his or her parents.
False
True/False
Some languages do not have syntactic structure.
False
True/False
The vocabulary of language reflects the culture of the people who speak it.
True
True/False
The actual performance of a language by an individual speaker is what Saussure called parole.
True
True/False
In some cultures, the speech form used depends on the relative social status of the individuals speaking.
True
True/False
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues that because the human brain is similar regardless of cultures, then all language is similar as well.
False
True/False
Wearing clothes with designer labels on them can be considered a form of nonverbal communication.
True
True/False
There is one language spoken by the majority of the world’s people.
False
