chapter 9 (linguistic anthropology)

Question 1

How are language and culture related?

Answer 1

• Patterns
  
  • Comparative
  • Similarities in symbols used
  • Making initial connections

Question 2

examples of non verbal communication. how much of human communication is nonverbal? Are non-verbal signals culture specific?

Answer 2

gestures, postures, facial expressions, non-verbal vocalizations, use of space
• Over 60% of human communication is non-verbal
• Many non verbal signals are culture specific

Question 3

how is body language studied? use of space?

Answer 3

Body language is studied through kinesics
• Use of space can also send
non verbal messages, studied through proxemics

Question 4

how is language connected to culture?

Answer 4

Languages are cultural products with embedded meanings and behavioral patterns

Question 5

how is language biocultural?

Answer 5

• Language is a biocultural phenomenon

* The human brain and anatomy of the mouth and throat give humans the capacity for language

Question 6

what six features make human language distinctive? (important, on final)

Answer 6

• Openness
  
  • Arbitrariness
  • Duality of patterning
  • Displacement
  • Semanticity
  • Prevarication

Question 7

what does openness refer to?

Answer 7

Openness refers to the ability of speakers to create and understand new messages

Question 8

why is non human primate communication closed?

Answer 8

• They can only emit a call in the appropriate context

* They cannot mix calls to created new calls (possibly false)

Question 9

what is displacement?

Answer 9

the ability to talk about absent or non existent objects or future and past events

Question 10

what is arbitrariness?

Answer 10

the fact that there is no necessary link between linguistic sounds and their meaning

Question 11

what does duality of patterning mean?

Answer 11

• Sounds of a language (phonemes) are organized into the smallest meaningful units (morphemes)
  
  • Morphemes are then organized into larger units (sentences) through the rules of grammar (syntax).
  • Patterning also includes semantics (meaning)

Question 12

what is prevarication?

Answer 12

• Prevarication is the ability to make false, nonsensical, and contradictory statements

Question 13

what does learning a language involve?

Answer 13

• Learning a language involves linguistic competence, or the master of adult grammar
  
  • It also involves communicative competence, or the master of adult roles for socially and culturally appropriate speech

Question 14

what is an example of linguistic inequality?

Answer 14

residential schools meant children were forbidden to speak their native languages.