1. Human language is found in all cultures:
a. that have writing.
b. that have had significant contact with Europe.
c. across the world.
d. where there is a formal educational system.
e. that use technology.
2. The meanings attached to any given word in all languages are totally:
a. specific.
b. arbitrary.
c. culturally-based.
d. displaced.
e. organic by nature.
3. Displacement, a feature of human communication, means:
a. combining one or more sounds to create new meanings.
b. the capacity to convey information about a thing or event that is hypothetical in nature.
c. not understanding the meaning of nonverbal communication.
d. an inability to place all morphemes in their proper grammatical place.
e. an arbitrary use of words.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
4. The approximate number of discrete languages that exist in the world today is:
a. 100.
b. 550.
c. 1,400.
d. 7,000.
e. 10,000.
5. Alanguagethatis“moribund”isonethat:
a. no longer has any living speakers.
b. is spoken by only a handful of people.
c. has no speakers that are bilingual.
d. has lost its capacity to communicate nonverbally.
e. uses metaphors of death in other aspects of life.
6. Non-human primates and humans share which features of communication?
a. Non-verbal forms of communication
b. An open call system
c. A closed call system
d. Vocal speech
e. Use of language from tradition and not experience
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
7. Research on chimpanzee communication shows that they:
a. possess the physical means of speaking like humans.
b. can communicate subtle shades of meaning.
c. use a closed communication system.
d. can combine one or more sounds to create a large number of meanings.
e. can express opinions about abstract ideas.
8. Which statement about communication among nonhuman primates is FALSE?
a. Gorillas use calls and facial expressions to communicate.
b. Nonhuman primate call systems are inflexible.
c. Nonhuman primates use closed systems of communication.
d. Animal call systems are based on tradition and not genetics.
e. Communication among primates is more complex than scientists used to think.
9. The study of the sound structure of a language is called:
a. phonology.
b. morphology.
c. the study of grammar.
d. the study of syntax.
e. displacement.
10. The word “hats”:
a. contains one morpheme.
b. contains a bound morpheme.
c. does not contain a bound morpheme.
d. contains three morphemes.
e. does not contain a morpheme.
11. Which of the following is an example of a free morpheme?
a. -ly
b. co-
c. car
d. -ist
e. -s (plural marker)
12. Which of the following is an example of a bound morpheme?
a. art
b. sun
c. paint
d. -ist
e. cat
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
13. The highly complex set of rules that regulates the formation of morphemes into words that convey meaning is called:
a. grammar.
b. dialogue.
c. phonology.
d. syntax.
e. metaphor.
14. Which of the following is the best example of a synchronic analysis of language?
a. How greetings have changed in English during the past 200 years
b. Analyzingthewordoriginsof“percussion”
c. Interpreting the colonialist legacy in the Swahili language
d. Separating out English words that have been borrowed from other languages
e. Comparative analysis of conjunctions in English and Spanish
15. Which of the following languages has had the most influence on English?
a. German
b. French
c. Spanish
d. Kurdish
e. Italian
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
16. English is a member of which language family?
a. Celtic
b. Indic
c. Slavic
d. Germanic
e. Latin
17. The language most efficient at expressing abstract ideas:
a. is Navajo.
b. is Chinese.
c. is German.
d. is English.
e. does not exist; no single language is most efficient.
18. Cultural emphasis refers to:
a. the major nonverbal forms of communication in a society.
b. the favorite forms of argument in a society.
c. the one language most members of society learn better than any other.
d. the group of words in a language that are considered more adaptively important in that culture.
e. certaintypesofwordsthatarefoundrepeatedlyindifferentlanguages,suchas“mama.”
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
19. Standard American English’s cultural emphasis in middle-class culture is on words referring to:
a. sports.
b. weather.
c. cows and crops.
d. religious artifacts.
e. the past (history).
20. Nuer terminology reflects the importance of _________in their society.
a. women
b. bracelets and necklaces
c. cattle
d. grain
e. witchcraft
21. Which of the following statements about language change is FALSE?
a. Language is constantly changing.
b. Linguistic borrowing occurs because of both need and prestige.
c. The study of language change over time is an example of synchronic analysis.
d. Historical linguists are interested in studying how a language changes over time.
e. Changes in the meanings of words reflect changes in cultural values in the society.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
22. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues that language:
a. influences perception.
b. is genetically based.
c. is solely a means of communication.
d. helps people adjust to their environment.
e. is a system of communication that is as much verbal as nonverbal.
23. Language, according to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis:
a. causes all people to perceive the world in the same way.
b. causes all humans to construct reality in similar ways.
c. establishes in our minds categories that affect our perception.
d. determines how well-formed our brain will be.
e. is the sole force of cultural innovation.
24. Opponents of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argue that:
a. language simply reflects, rather than determines, culture.
b. culture reflects language.
c. culture determines language.
d. language and culture are independent of each other.
e. language and culture are one and the same, so there is no need to distinguish them.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
25. What is the theoretical significance of linguistic systems such as Ebonics?
a. It shows how difficult it is to unite a country linguistically.
b. It is an example of cultural linguistics and diachronic change.
c. It is an example of what causes racism and poverty.
d. It is an example of displacement and diachronic change.
e. It is a form of synchronic change and shows us the legacy of slavery.
26. The linguistic rules that determine how phrases and sentences are constructed is called:
a. phonology.
b. morphology.
c. lexicon.
d. grammar.
e. syntax.
27. Monolingual Navajo speakers have a greater tendency to categorize things by:
a. shape.
b. size.
c. color.
d. origin.
e. authenticity.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
28. All of the following reflect the linguistic style of English speakers from the U.S. EXCEPT:
a. English relies very heavily on nonverbal cues and social context.
b. English speakers use a minimal amount of silence as part of their communication patterns.
c. Commercials in the U.S. tend to be more verbal because of the emphasis we place on words.
d. English speakers put a great deal of emphasis on the words they use.
e. English speakers try to speak in ways that are straightforward and unambiguous.
29. Which statement best describes the difference in linguistic style between speakers of Japanese and speakers of
American English?
a. Japanese is direct while English is indirect.
b. Japanese is indirect while English is direct
c. Japanese tends to use exaggeration.
d. Japanese tends to be confrontational.
e. Japanese does not express cultural values.
30. Sociolinguistics concentrates on variations in language that:
a. are likely to become extinct in the next 50 years.
b. do not change over time.
c. have a majority of bilingual speakers.
d. depend upon the social situations or contexts in which the speaker operates.
e. are caused by colonialism or political systems of oppression.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
31. Diglossia refers to:
a. fluency in two languages.
b. an inability to speak.
c. a practice of using more than one form of the same language within the same language community.
d. a speech problem that causes a person to not be able to associate words with meanings.
e. the inability of a person to learn more than one language during a lifetime.
32. Sociolinguists:
a. study the structures (phonology and morphology) of a language.
b. focus on how people actually speak in any given social situation.
c. study language change over time.
d. study language families and the relationships between different lexicons.
e. study how non-standardized forms of language are related to other languages.
33. When he is at school, a Hispanic teenager will likely use English as his primary language. At home, his family
encourages him to speak Spanish. This linguistic process is known as:
a. linguistic borrowing.
b. language doublespeak.
c. cultural emphasis.
d. diglossia.
e. code switching.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
34. Which of the following is normally associated with low-form English?
a. TV programs
b. University lectures
c. Political speeches
d. Newspapers
e. Religious services
35. All of the following are true about the “high form” of a language EXCEPT:
a. it is usually associated with religion.
b. it is associated with the upwardly mobile.
c. it is spoken by every member of a society.
d. it is associated with the elite.
e. it is usually the form in which much of the literature of a language is written.
36. Long-distance truck drivers have developed a specialized vocabulary. This is a form of:
a. diglossia.
b. code switching.
c. dialects.
d. cultural emphasis.
e. arbitrary nature of language.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication
37. Regionalisms, such as many words that are associated with Southerners, are a form of:
a. dialect.
b. diglossia.
c. code switching.
d. phonology.
e. grammar.
38. All of the following are reasons for the decline of dialects recently in the U.S. EXCEPT:
a. regionaldialectsaresoassociatedwithclassstatusthattheyaredroppedassomeone“movesup”thesocial
ladder.
b. regional dialects have become less noticeable because of mass media.
c. regional dialects are disappearing because of geographic mobility.
d. regional dialects have declined because so much of the culture itself is being lost.
e. regional dialects have changed because of changing immigration patterns.
39. When Tanzania became independent in the 1960s, there were some 120 mutually unintelligible languages spoken
there. How did Tanzania address this challenge?
a. They outlawed all tribal languages and chose to speak French instead.
b. They adopted Swahili as a neutral official language for everyone.
c. They mandated the language of the majority of their citizens to be their national language.
d. They declared no official language and instead encouraged people to become multilingual.
e. They selected two national languages as a way of accommodating many citizens.
Chapter6—LanguageandCommunication