A key feature of language that helps explain anthropologists' continued interest in studying it
is that it is always changing.
Which of the following statements about chimpanzee call systems is not true?
Like language, they include displacement and cultural transmission.
Research on communication skills of nonhuman primates reveals their inability to refer to objects that are not immediately present in their environment, such as food and danger. The ability to describe things and events that are not present is called
displacement
Recent research on the origins of language suggests that a key mutation might have something to do with it. Comparing chimp and human genomes, it appears that
the speech-friendly form of FOXP2 took hold in humans around 150,000 years ago, thus conferring selective advantages (linguistic and cultural abilities) that allowed those who had it to spread it at the expense of those who did not.
Language and communication involve much more than just verbal speech. The study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and facial expressions is known as
kinesics.
Linguistic anthropologists are also 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?
morphology
What term refers to the arrangement and order of words into sentences?
syntax
What are phonemes?
the minimal sound contrasts that distinguish meaning in a language
Just like 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
universal grammer
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
changes in American economy, society, and culture have had no impact on the use of color terms, or any terms, for that matter.
What term refers to the specialized set of terms and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups?
focal vocabulary
Which of the following statements about sociolinguists is not true?
They are more interested in the rules that govern language rather than the actual use of language in everyday life.
What is the term for the variations in speech due to different contexts or situations?
style shifting
What terms are used to convey or imply a status difference between the speaker and the person being referred to or addressed?
honorifics
What is an example of what Bourdieu called symbolic domination in the context of language use?
In a stratified society, even people who do not speak the prestige dialect tend to accept it as "standard" or superior.
What term refers to the languages that have descended from the same ancestral language?
daughter languages
What is a pidgin?
a mixed language that develops to ease communication between members of different cultures in contact, usually in situations of trade or colonial domination
One aspect of linguistic history is language loss. When a language disappears
cultural diversity is reduced as well.
Animal call systems exhibit linguistic productivity.
F
Linguistic productivity refers to the fixed linguistic structures that prevent the creation of new expressions.
F
Kinesics is the study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and facial expressions.
T
All human nonverbal communication is instinctive, not influenced by cultural factors.
F
Phonology is the study of speech sounds.
T
Syntax refers to the rules that dictate the order of words in a language.
T
Sapir and Whorf argued that all humans share a single set of universal grammatical categories.
F
Focal vocabularies are found only in non-Western societies like the Eskimo and the Nuer.
F
In this chapter, Kottak suggests an alternative to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis by stating that cultural changes lead to changes in language.
T
Ethnosemantics is concerned with studying how different members of different linguistic groups organize, categorize, and classify their experiences and perceptions.
T
Sociolinguists study linguistic performance by categorizing speakers as inadequate, competent, or highly proficient.
F
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.
False
All languages and dialects are equally effective as systems of communication.
True
Bourdieu argues that languages with the highest symbolic capital are those that are better systems of communication.
False
In all languages, the same honorifics have the same meaning, regardless of context.
True
Sociolinguistics has demonstrated that men lack the linguistic capacity to distinguish between slight changes in color.
f
Studies investigating differences in the way men and women talk are examples of sociolinguistics.
t
Black English Vernacular is an incomplete linguistic system that is only able to express thoughts and ideas related to life in inner-city communities.
f
Creole languages are commonly found in regions where different linguistic groups come into contact with one another.
t
Historical linguists use linguistic similarities and differences in the world today to study long-term changes in language.
t
The world's linguistic diversity has been cut in half (measured by number of distinct languages) in the past 500 years, and half of the remaining languages are predicted to disappear during this century.
t
