Exam 14: Language and Communication

This chapter's "Appreciating Anthropology" section discusses research on the ancient syntax of a "proto-human language," thought to be ancestral to all contemporary languages. This research suggests that

Focal vocabularies are found only in non-Western societies like the Eskimo and the Nuer.

Discuss some common interests of linguistics and ethnography. Of what use can knowledge of linguistic techniques and principles be to the ethnographer?

Syntax refers to the rules that dictate the order of words in a language.

Linguistic stratification can occur between dialects when one is considered a prestige dialect, as is the case with High German and Low German, or with Standard English (SE) and Black English Vernacular (BEV).

According to some estimates, the world's linguistic diversity has been cut in half in the past 500 years, and half of the remaining languages are predicted to disappear during this century. Why does this matter? Isn't this just a natural result of globalization, something we should actually celebrate, because it makes communication among diverse groups much easier?

Phonology is the study of speech sounds.

Cultural, including linguistic, diversity is alive, well, and thriving in many countries. Local entrepreneurs and international companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft that capitalize on that diversity are positioned to succeed. That success depends, however, in large part on

Sociolinguists study linguistic performance by categorizing speakers as inadequate, competent, or highly proficient.

Diglossia refers to linguistic groups, like those in Papua New Guinea and Australia, that distinguish between only two colors: black and white or dark and light.

What are phonemes?

Which of the following statements about sociolinguists is NOT true?

Just as in other areas of anthropology, the study of language involves investigating what is or isn't shared across human populations and why these differences or similarities exist. The linguist Noam Chomsky has argued that the human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language, so that all languages have a common structural basis. He calls this set of rules

Sociolinguistics has demonstrated that men lack the linguistic capacity to distinguish between slight changes in color.

Creole languages are commonly found in regions where different linguistic groups come into contact with one another.

Linguistic anthropologists also are interested in investigating the structure of language and how it varies across time and space. What is the study of the forms in which sounds combine to form words?

Sapir and Whorf argued that all humans share a single set of universal grammatical categories.

Discuss factors that increase linguistic diversity among speakers of the same language.

What is the term for the ability to create new expressions by combining other expressions?

Sapir and Whorf argued that the grammatical categories of different languages lead their speakers to think about things in particular ways. However, studies on the differences between female and male Americans in regard to the color terms they use suggest that