Deck 15: Communication and Language

Question 1

A set of sounds that make a difference in language.

A) phone
B) phoneme
C) morph
D) morpheme

Answer 1

phoneme

Question 2

Children have developed an innate sense of grammar by what age?

A) 12 months
B) 16 months
C) 12 to 18months
D) 18 to 24 months

Answer 2

18 to 24 months

Question 3

The earliest writing systems are about _____ years old.

A) 5,000
B) 10,000
C) 3,500
D) 6,000

Answer 3

6,000

Question 4

Children learn spoken language

A) at a relatively later age in simpler societies.
B) at about the same age in all cultures.
C) at a surprisingly wide range of ages, but with no observable correlation with societal complexity.
D) at a relatively later age in more complex societies.

Question 5

Michael Krauss, a linguist who tracks disappearing languages, estimates that __________ percent of the world's languages are endangered.

A) 30
B) 50
C) 70
D) 90

Question 6

A __________ is a sound to a linguist.

A) phone
B) phoneme
C) morph
D) morpheme

Question 7

The study of communication by nonverbal or non-vocal means is ______________.

A) morphology
B) language acquisition
C) grammatology
D) kinesics

Question 8

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that

A) societies are heavily influenced by their languages.
B) language is a force in its own right, that it affects how individuals in a society perceive and conceive reality.
C) culture is the molder of language. Languages reflect the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the society.
D) language is neutral to society. It is the society that forms the language.

Question 9

Some grammar theoreticians have suggested that there may be a __________ in the brain, as innate to humans as call systems are to other animals.

A) lobe
B) critical area
C) language acquisition device
D) logical center

Question 10

The word "communicate" comes from the Latin word meaning

A) to transmit.
B) to share.
C) equality.
D) to travel.

Question 11

The smallest unit of language that has meaning is a

A) phone.
B) phoneme.
C) morph.
D) morpheme.

Question 12

____________ refers to all optional vocal features or silences that communicate.

A) Body language
B) Language
C) Symbolic language
D) Paralanguage

Question 13

A __________ language is one which developed from a pidgin language.

A) dialect
B) Creole
C) native
D) dominant

Question 14

Words that are similar in sound and meaning are

A) phones.
B) phonemes.
C) morphs.
D) cognates.

Question 15

How many mutually unintelligible languages have been identified?

A) None
B) 2000
C) 4000-5000
D) 8000-10000

Question 16

A pidgin language

A) is a symbolic system of communication used by certain birds.
B) resembles language spoken by early humans.
C) is a simplified language based on the language of a dominant group.
D) is a Creole language to which additional, key grammatical forms have been added.

Question 17

When we say that a communication is __________, we mean at least two things. First, the communication has meaning even when the referent is not there, and second, the meaning is arbitrary.

A) understandable
B) symbolic
C) representative
D) rhetorical

Question 18

___________ is/are variant forms of language.

A) Syntax
B) Inductive
C) Dialects
D) Descriptive grammar

Question 19

The language family that English belongs to is called __________.

A) Indo-European
B) Indo-Iranian
C) Latin
D) Sanskrit

Question 20

For which animal have researchers demonstrated the symbolic meaning of certain forms of communication used naturally in the wild?

A) ants
B) bees
C) hyenas
D) vervet monkeys

Question 21

The idea that language influences culture

A) has been rejected by most anthropologists.
B) is accepted by most anthropologists, but not by linguists.
C) is supported by a comparative study of gender identity learning among Hebrew, Finnish, and American children.
D) is accepted by most linguists.

Question 22

Children in the U.S. take English classes in school, but an interesting fact is

A) these classes are rarely helpful.
B) they do not need to be taught 'grammar' to learn how to speak.
C) these classes are essential to the ability to communicate.
D) unless the person is a native speaker, they will not learn much from the classes.

Question 23

Research on young children has revealed interesting insights into language acquisition. They include

A) a child is equipped from birth with the capacity to reproduce all the sounds in the world's languages.
B) at six months, a child can distinguish hundreds of consonants and vowels.
C) by one year old, a child will recognize the sound clusters of their caretakers.
D) all of the above.

Question 24

Research has shown that English people from higher-class backgrounds tend to have more __________ speech, conforming more to what is considered standard English.

A) heterogenous
B) inductive
C) deductive
D) homogeneous

Question 25

___________ of the world's people speak Indo-European language.

A) Only about 5%
B) Less than 1%
C) About 50%
D) Approximately 10%

Question 26

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is an interesting way of looking at how language influences culture and it is

A) very difficult to test because of other cultural issues.
B) widely accepted by linguists today.
C) irrelevant to the study of language.
D) constantly been proven wrong.

Question 27

The use of more than one language in the course of conversation is

A) spangles.
B) code switching.
C) annoying.
D) bilingual.

Question 28

Without a written language, knowledge is passed on to the next generation through

A) stories.
B) legends.
C) myths.
D) all of the above.

Question 29

Which society would probably have the fewest basic color terms?

A) a relatively "primitive" society
B) a society located near the north pole
C) a society whose people have darker eyes
D) a more complex society

Question 30

Compared to people in simpler societies, people in complex societies

A) commonly have fewer terms for basic colors.
B) commonly can give a larger number of general, or life-form, terms for plants and animals.
C) commonly have the same number of general terms for plants, but more terms for specific plants.
D) usually have more names for specific plants, but the same number of general plant terms.

Question 31

Languages can easily be lost for many reasons, but mostly because

A) it's not written enough.
B) all lost languages were actually lost thousands of years ago.
C) they are not passed on to children.
D) the language is continued by only a small number of people.

Question 32

There are numerous ways to make a point to another human. They include

A) facial expressions.
B) body stance.
C) gestures.
D) all of the above.

Question 33

What makes it difficult for a non-native speaker to learn English?

A) you have to be able to read the dictionary first.
B) what we say and how we say it are not predictable by the rules of the English language.
C) very few opportunities exist to learn English.
D) there is very little interest in learning English today.

Question 34

Anthropologists are not sure when spoken language began, because

A) written records contradict one another.
B) it has never been studied.
C) the evidence of exactly when is very slim.
D) cultural anthropologists are more interested in other aspects of human life.

Question 35

Communication occurs among other animal species as well. Sound is used to

A) develop complex languages that all humans understand.
B) communicate that "this is my territory."
C) blend in to the noise background in nature.
D) none of the above.

Question 36

Languages are not stagnant, they do change over time. The evidence for this exists in

A) the ancient languages that were never written down.
B) cross-cultural studies of schools.
C) written words.
D) languages that are never shared between cultures.

Question 37

The roles that determine how phrases and sentences are formed make up a language's

A) morphology.
B) descriptive grammar.
C) syntax.
D) phonology.

Question 38

Historical linguists reconstruct changes that have occurred

A) primarily through the study of children's speech.
B) primarily through the use of written records.
C) by noting how modern languages are undergoing change and extrapolating these tendencies into the past.
D) by comparing contemporary languages that are similar.

Question 39

Lexical content means

A) diversity.
B) vocabulary.
C) dialect.
D) syntax.

Question 40

If a language has a basic color term for "yellow," it is most likely also to have a color term for

A) green.
B) chartreuse.
C) brown.
D) red.

Question 41

How does human communication differ from chimpanzee communication?

Question 42

What is the proposed language-acquisition device? How does it lead to the learning of a language by children?

Question 43

How does a Creole language develop?

Question 44

How do animals use odor to communicate? What are the limits of this type of communication?

Question 45

State the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in your own words. Give an example of how this
hypothesis may be applied using the concept of time as your model. Give an example of how you use speech in various social contexts.

Question 46

Why are differences in pronunciation difficult to hear for native speakers and yet simple for non-native speakers?