Exam 4: Language

In their study of "Spoken Soul," Rickford and Rickford concluded that

In 1996,the Oakland School District proposed

Linguistic anthropologists have shown that languages are disappearing at an unprecedented rate.Many argue that efforts should be made to preserve these endangered languages by documenting their lexicon and grammar.Why are anthropologists interested in preserving languages? Do you agree with these efforts? Why or why not? Which types of knowledge are embedded in language that might make them worthwhile to preserve? What are some of the techniques or strategies that have been used to either preserve or revitalize less-prominent languages? Discuss two examples where anthropologists have been involved in preserving endangered languages,and reflect on how information technology may be used in language revitalization.

The work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics presents a challenge to anthropology due to its work being

The Summer Institute of Linguistics

What types of evidence have anthropologists drawn on to approximate when humans first began to use language? Using examples,analyze how genetic and archaeological information have been used to determine when the human capacity for speech evolved.How did language enhance the ability of humans to survive and adapt to inhospitable environments?

When individuals speak in a manner that does not conform to what is known as "Standard English," there is often an implicit association with

The recent turmoil in the Middle East,what some have termed the Arab Spring,was driven in part by the extensive use of social media and has led to the creation of a new kind of

Deborah Tannen's research into the ways that boys and girls speak demonstrates that

Consider a used car salesperson.This individual must be highly skilled at using words to persuade people to part with a chunk of money.This illustrates the way that linguistic skills as a form of cultural capital

Chinese,spoken by about 1.2 million people,is the most common native language in the world.At the same time,many Chinese students are sent abroad to English-speaking countries to learn English.This may be in part because

Laura Bohannon's work in West Africa among the Tiv led her to try and explain Shakespeare's Hamlet to members of a small village.The text tells us that her attempts were met with significant challenges due simply to the different meanings carried by words.The concept of the dead among the Tiv,for example,made no sense to them because they do not have any concept of a ghost.They interpreted this part of the play as Hamlet being beset by witchcraft.Consider that in the play,Hamlet first sees the ghost of his dead father,who relates the details of his death at the hands of Hamlet's father-in-law.Hamlet then feigns mental illness in his quest for revenge,something that might easily be considered being "beset by witchcraft." If language does shape our reality,explain how Bohannon's discovery,despite the similarity in meaning in these ways,is so confounding to the village elders.How does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis relate to Bohannon's work in this context? Can you offer other examples of how the way people think may or may not be affected by their native languages?

Sociolinguistics is defined as the study of

Efforts to enforce the use of "Standard English" in a school setting frequently evoke major controversy,and the erosion of what many perceive as "national identity" is touted as one major reason why "Standard English" should be the norm.When "Ebonics" was introduced in Oakland Schools,it sought to

Based on evidence from Benjamin Whorf's research with the Hopi,a Native American group in the southwestern United States,the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that

Dialect is defined as a nonstandard variation of a language that

A nonstandard variation of a language is referred to as a

Words that have what we might consider an obvious meaning can often hold completely different meaning to others.The word dead,for example,might seem obvious to us,but signify an affliction to others,which demonstrates how language is

"Digital native" might be understood by an anthropologist as

According to the textbook,human languages are being