Week 4 Quiz

In the running fieldwork site's illustrative vendor interview, the vendor gives 5 answers, and 4 of them carry an emic term in quotation marks. What share of the answers carry an emic term?

Select one.

• 20 percent, because 1 of the 5 answers has no emic term
• 40 percent, because there are 4 terms in 10 interview lines
• 80 percent, because 4 ÷ 5 = 0.8
• 4 percent, because the excerpt holds 4 emic terms

Which statement matches this course's distinction between language and communication?

Select one.

• Language and communication are two names for the same thing, since both pass information along.
• Communication is any passing of information, and language is one kind of it: a learned symbolic system that can say new things, including things not present.
• Language is any passing of information, and communication is the special human kind that uses words.
• Communication belongs only to animals, and language belongs only to humans, so the two never overlap.

At the market, a bin of bruised tomatoes is marked "Seconds", and a first-time buyer cannot guess what the word means. Which of Hockett's (1960) design features explains why the buyer has to be taught the word?

Select one.

• Displacement, because the tomatoes are not here and not now
• Productivity, because the vendors made up a sentence never heard before
• Duality of patterning, because the word is built from sounds
• Arbitrariness, because there is no natural link between the word and its meaning

Asked how the work has changed, the illustrative vendor talks about the years of hauling crates behind them. Which design feature lets a speaker talk about years that are not here and not now?

Select one.

• Displacement
• Arbitrariness
• Traditional transmission
• Duality of patterning

A vendor greets a regular with "The usual?" and gives a first-time buyer a full explanation of the produce, what seconds are, and the price. What does this shift show?

Select one.

• A change of dialect, because the vendor sounds like a different region with each buyer
• Code-switching, because the vendor moves between two languages
• A change of register, because the same speaker shifts style for a different listener
• Linguistic relativity, because the vendor's words decide what each buyer can see

In an illustrative family, the parents and teenagers talk about school in one language at dinner, then move into the grandparent's first language when the grandparent joins the table. What is this called?

Select one.

• A register shift inside one language
• Code-switching
• Language endangerment
• A nonstandard dialect

A classmate says, "People cannot perceive anything their language has no word for." How does this course classify that claim?

Select one.

• The weak form of linguistic relativity, which has limited support
• A definition of arbitrariness, which explains why words need glosses
• The weak form of linguistic relativity, which is not supported
• The strong form of linguistic relativity, which is not supported

In a short coffee-shop line people leave a gap, while in a packed stadium crowd strangers stand shoulder to shoulder and nobody minds. Which concept, named by Hall (1966) in The Hidden Dimension, describes this?

Select one.

• Proxemics, the cultural use of personal space
• Displacement, talking about things not here and not now
• Code-switching, moving between varieties in one conversation
• Duality of patterning, combining sounds into words

Which statements agree with what this course teaches about dialects, gestures, and the world's languages? Select every statement that applies.

Select every option that applies.

• Every dialect is rule-governed, so a nonstandard dialect is not broken language.
• A nonstandard dialect is a lazy version of the standard one.
• Counts of the world's languages differ by source, so the figure is said in words and never treated as exact.
• A gesture carries the same meaning in every community.

At the running fieldwork site, the vendors' word "seconds" is an emic term, and an observer's "lower-grade produce sold at a discount" is its etic counterpart.

True or false.

• True
• False