Question 1

What can we conclude about the accuracy of speech production?

Accepted Answer

A) People frequently make errors that include phoneme combinations rarely found in English. 
B) For most speakers,their language production is only about 45% accurate. 
C) Speech production is far more accurate than language comprehension. 
D) Even high-status speakers may produce a large number of speech errors.

Question 2

In discussing the social aspects of language,psycholinguistics researchers sometimes use a metaphor of two people dancing.Why is this metaphor appropriate?

Accepted Answer

A) Because one person must lead and the other must follow 
B) Because two people must coordinate their efforts 
C) Because one person is usually a novice and the other is an expert 
D) Because each person is trying to impress the other person

Question 3

Suppose that you want to say,"red bugs," and instead you say,"beg rugs." This kind of slip-of-the-tongue error is called a

Accepted Answer

A) sound error. 
B) morpheme error. 
C) word error. 
D) pragmatic error.

Question 4

Suppose you have a 22-year-old friend who came to North America from Korea when he was 15 and then began to learn English.If he is like the participants in Flege's study on bilingualism,he will find that

Accepted Answer

A) he will develop trouble in Korean with verb tenses and the gender of nouns,but will maintain his Korean vocabulary. 
B) he will lose a substantial percentage of his Korean vocabulary. 
C) he will have difficulty mastering English vocabulary. 
D) he will master English grammar as well as a Korean speaker who learned English as a 10-year-old child,as long as they both have the same amount of U.S.education.

Question 5

What can we conclude about age of acquisition and mastery of a second language?

Accepted Answer

A) We cannot draw any conclusions until we have researched using the experimental method. 
B) For speakers of first languages similar to English,it's better to learn English early; for speakers of first languages that are different from English,it's better to learn English late. 
C) The research shows quite clearly that children acquire a second language more rapidly than adults do. 
D) The research is not clear-cut; instead,the findings seem to depend upon factors such as the similarity between the first language and the second language.

Question 6

Sara has spoken English all her life.In high school and college,she takes French and eventually becomes fluent in that language.This is an example of

Accepted Answer

A) simultaneous bilingualism. 
B) sequential bilingualism. 
C) the dual-route approach 
D) multilingualism.

Question 7

What can we conclude about the relationship between attitudes and proficiency in a second language?

Accepted Answer

A) After becoming proficient in French,English Canadians are no more positive about French Canadians. 
B) A student's attitude toward a group that speaks another language is not related to his or her ability to learn that language. 
C) People who are positive toward speakers of another language are likely to learn that language more quickly than those who are neutral or negative about that group. 
D) Because attitudes are a topic from social psychology,and second-language proficiency is a topic from cognitive psychology,this kind of interdisciplinary research has not yet been conducted.

Question 8

Imagine that an elementary teacher has two classes,one monolingual and the other bilingual-though their other characteristics are similar.The bilingual class is more likely to

Accepted Answer

A) have a better understanding of the structure of their first language. 
B) believe that a moon must be called "moon"; it could not have another name. 
C) have difficulty with the pragmatic aspects of language. 
D) perform poorly on tests of nonverbal intelligence.

Question 9

On which of the following tasks is a bilingual child likely to have some difficulty,compared with a monolingual child?

Accepted Answer

A) Understanding the structure of his or her native language. 
B) Awareness that names are arbitrarily assigned to concepts. 
C) Sensitivity to the pragmatics of language conversation. 
D) Processing language quickly.

Question 10

Which of the following statements about language production is correct?

Accepted Answer

A) Roughly the same amount of research has been conducted on language comprehension and language production. 
B) It is easier to conduct research on language comprehension than on language production. 
C) During the past decade,psychologists have grown even less interested in language production than in previous years. 
D) There is much more research on written language production than on spoken language production.

Question 11

What can we conclude about the comparison between experts and nonexperts,with respect to writing?

Accepted Answer

A) An expert writer is more likely to approach a revision one sentence at a time. 
B) An expert writer is more likely to have a global sense-rather than a specific sense-that something is wrong with a sentence. 
C) An expert writer spends longer looking for spelling errors. 
D) An expert writer pays more attention to transitions between ideas.

Question 12

Stephen is describing an explosion in an action film,and pushes his open-fingered hands violently into the air to simulate the outward force.Stephen has made a(n)

Accepted Answer

A) deictic gesture. 
B) iconic gesture. 
C) beat gesture. 
D) formal gesture.

Question 13

Sarah is trying to say the phrase "big blue bird," and it comes out "big blue blird." She has made a

Accepted Answer

A) linearization error. 
B) pragmatic error. 
C) slip-of-the-tongue. 
D) prosody error.

Question 14

Suppose that you have a summer job in which you work with both monolingual and bilingual children,although the two groups are otherwise similar.You would expect to find that

Accepted Answer

A) the monolingual children would typically be better at following directions. 
B) the bilingual children would learn the pragmatics of only one language,so if English is their second language,they would be likely to make pragmatic errors. 
C) the bilingual children would usually be better at following complex instructions. 
D) the bilingual children would generally perform better at all language tasks except for tasks requiring metalinguistic expertise.

Question 15

Researchers have compared people's spoken language with their written language.When people speak,they are:

Accepted Answer

A) more likely to use complex syntax. 
B) more likely to refer to themselves. 
C) less likely to create common ground. 
D) less likely to use high-frequency words.

Question 16

Suppose that you decide to adopt the advice suggested in the discussion of writing in Chapter 10.You are likely to write a better paper if you

Accepted Answer

A) generate sentences prior to the prewriting phase. 
B) construct a written outline before beginning. 
C) make certain that the stages in writing do not overlap with each other. 
D) try to avoid using the active-voice form of every verb.

Question 17

You are testing the cognitive abilities of three groups of bilingual French-English speakers in Montreal,whose native language is French: university students,English teachers,and French-English interpreters.On a test of reading span,administered in English,you would expect that

Accepted Answer

A) The teachers would perform the best,followed by the interpreters and the students. 
B) there would be no significant differences between the groups. 
C) the interpreters would perform significantly better than the teachers and students. 
D) the interpreters and teachers would perform similarly,and would outperform the students significantly.

Question 18

Which of the following students provides the most accurate statement about the specific kind of discourse known as a narrative?

Accepted Answer

A) Tonya: "In a narrative,a speaker talks for a while without interruption,in order to describe a series of events." 
B) William: "A narrative is the listener's ongoing interpretation of the speaker's utterances." 
C) Skip: "A narrative is the verbal response that the listener is silently constructing; this narrative will be presented as soon as the speaker's turn has been completed." 
D) Guillermo: "A narrative is a series of sentences that the speaker develops in order to present a specific logical argument."

Question 19

Suppose you are testing children who are monolingual English speakers and children who are fluent in both English and Spanish.Assuming that their other characteristics are similar,you are likely to find that

Accepted Answer

A) the monolinguals are more polite than the bilinguals. 
B) the bilinguals are more aware of situations in which a listener might require additional information. 
C) the monolinguals are better at following your instructions. 
D) the two groups are similar in their pragmatic and syntactic skills,but not in their metalinguistic skills.

Question 20

According to the discussion of writing in Chapter 10,

Accepted Answer

A) the stages of writing do not overlap with one another,unlike the situation in spoken language. 
B) the components of writing are relatively simple; they seldom strain the limits of attention. 
C) good writers are more likely than poor writers to spend time carefully planning a writing assignment. 
D) the prewriting phase is a relatively automatic component of language.

Exam 10: Language II: Language Production and Bilingualism