Q&A Hero

Q: Contrast generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity. Describe how negative reciprocity differs from the market principle.

Q: Define an adaptive strategy. Identify the five adaptive strategies in Cohen's typology of societies. Discuss how Cohen links economy and social features.

Q: Noam Chomsky used the term adaptive strategy to describe a society's system of economic production.

Q: Most modern foragers live in remote areas, completely cut off from other modern, agricultural, and industrial societies.

Q: Describe how economic specialization in industrial nations differs from specialization in nonindustrial societies.

Q: Describe how people in all societies maximize, and identify what they maximize. Determine if maximization is a cultural universal, and explain your answer.

Q: Sociolinguistics has demonstrated that men lack the linguistic capacity to distinguish between slight variations in color.

Q: Studies investigating differences in the way men and women talk are examples of sociolinguistics.

Q: Most English speakers recognize the phonetic contrast between the [ph] in pin and the [p] in spin.

Q: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that speakers of simple languages are unable to think in sophisticated ways.

Q: Historical linguists study similarities and differences between languages spoken today in order to make inferences about long-term linguistic change.

Q: A close relationship between languages does not necessarily mean that their speakers are biologically or culturally related.

Q: The term protolanguage refers to the limited communication systems of nonhuman primates.

Q: Nonhuman primate call systems demonstrate linguistic productivity, combining calls to produce new expressions.

Q: Discuss what anthropologists mean when they say that nonindustrial economies are embedded in society.

Q: Historical linguists study linguistic performance by categorizing speakers as inadequate, competent, or highly proficient.

Q: The term diglossia refers to linguistic groups that use only two basic color terms (black and white or dark and light).

Q: Define BEV, and compare it to SE.

Q: Explain what historical linguists study, and discuss how historical linguistics is relevant to anthropology.

Q: BEV is a distinct language.

Q: All human nonverbal communication is instinctive and thus not influenced by culture.

Q: Syntax refers to the rules that dictate the order of words in a language.

Q: Creole languages are commonly found in regions where different linguistic groups came into contact with one another.

Q: Kinesics is the study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and expressions.

Q: Identify the key structures of language, and explain why it is important to know and understand these features.

Q: Define the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Analyze the extent to which the hypothesis is valid.

Q: Analyze how socioeconomic, ethnic, and gender differences are reflected in language. Give specific examples.

Q: __________ refers to languages that have descended from the same ancestral language. A. Descendant languages B. Sibling languages C. Daughter languages D. Brother languages E. Protolanguages

Q: After being spoken for generations, pidgins may develop into A. focal vocabularies. B. syntaxes. C. protolanguages. D. creole languages. E. diglossias.

Q: The Romance languages (e.g., French, Spanish) belong to the ________ language families. A. Mixe-Zoque B. Indo-European C. North Caucasian D. Dravidian E. Austro-Asiatic

Q: The statement, ___________ describes the use of language by apes. A. "only humans are capable of learning and using language" B. "apes use American Sign Language in the wild" C. "apes cannot be taught to use American Sign Language" D. "only chimpanzees can learn American Sign Language" E. "apes can learn American Sign Language and have shown the capacity for cultural transmission, productivity, and displacement"

Q: A mutation in the ___________ has been found between humans and chimpanzees that is likely responsible for the human capability for speech. A. FOXP2 gene B. microcephalin gene C. hyoid D. lungs E. tongue

Q: One of Penelope Eckert's findings about California accents is that when people want to stay, involved in their home community, they A. develop a unique accent. B. tend to adopt a speech pattern with less accent. C. copy the English they hear on radio. D. tend to talk like locals. E. often develop extended versions of nonverbal communication among peer groups.

Q: List the three key characteristics of human language. Discuss whether call systems and ASL-using nonhuman primates display these characteristics.

Q: __________ argued that all human languages have a common structural basis and that all humans have similar linguistic abilities. A. Edward Sapir B. Benjamin Lee Whorf C. William Labov D. Noam Chomsky E. Deborah Tannen

Q: In a stratified society, people who do not speak the prestige dialect still tend to accept the prestige as standard or superior, which is A. diglossia. B. creolization. C. symbolic domination. D. hypercorrection. E. style shifting.

Q: Most professional linguists regard BEV as a(n) A. protolanguage. B. distinct language. C. linguistic anomaly. D. dialect of English. E. inferior version of English.

Q: Deborah Tannen's research on the speech habits of men and women has revealed that A. there are no discernible differences between the way men and women use language. B. men tend to make eye contact more frequently than women. C. women tend to recite information in an attempt to solidify their position in a social hierarchy. D. men rely more on nonverbal gestures than do women. E. women tend to use language to build social connections with others.

Q: In his study of New York department store employees, Labov found that A. /r/was pronounced most frequently by workers in the upper-middle-class store (Saks). B. /r/was pronounced most frequently by workers in the middle-class store (Macy's). C. /r/was pronounced most frequently by workers in the lower-middle-class store (S. Klein's). D. workers in all three stores pronounced/r/with the same frequency. E. none of the workers pronounced/r/.

Q: __________ refers to all of a language's morphemes and their meanings. A. Syntax B. Lexicon C. Ethnosemantics D. Ethnoscience E. Phonology

Q: Linguists believe that A. only 120 languages are now spoken in the world. B. the number of languages spoken in the world is increasing rapidly. C. nothing can be done to preserve linguistic diversity. D. all people should study English in order to facilitate cross-cultural communication. E. the world's linguistic diversity has been cut in half over the past 500 years.

Q: Minimal pairs are used to identify A. phonemes. B. phones. C. aspiration. D. allomorphs. E. bound morphemes.

Q: The study of sounds used in speech is A. historical linguistics. B. sociolinguistics. C. phonology. D. morphology. E. ebonics.

Q: _________ refers to the arrangement and order of words in phrases and sentences. A. Syntax B. Lexicon C. Grammar D. Phonology E. Morphology

Q: The study of the forms in which sounds combine to form words and their meaningful parts is A. phonology. B. syntax. C. morphology. D. lexicon. E. grammar.

Q: Linguistic displacement is the A. ability to use the rules of language to produce entirely new expressions. B. lexical difference between a protolanguage and a daughter language. C. ability to respond to environmental stimuli. D. linguistic dimension of culture shock. E. ability to talk about things that are not present.

Q: __________ refers to the specialized set of terms and distinctions that are particularly important to certain groups. A. Syntactical vocabulary B. Spatial vocabulary C. Focal vocabulary D. Vernacular vocabulary E. Temporal vocabulary

Q: Berlin and Kay's (1969/1992) cross-linguistic study of color terminology revealed that A. women tend to use fewer color terms and men tend to use more color terms. B. color terminology was least developed in areas with a history of using dyes and artificial coloring. C. all languages included sixteen basic color terms. D. the languages of cultivators in Papua New Guinea and foragers in Australia had more basic color terms than did European and Asian languages. E. there are only two basic color terms, black and white.

Q: Sociolinguists study A. bipedalism B. speech in its social context. C. the universal grammar of language. D. cognitive capacity for language. E. cross-cultural phonemic distinctions.

Q: Longitudinal ethnographic research is the long-term study of a particular culture or society, frequently based on repeated visits.

Q: Anthropologists need to get permission from the community they are studying only when they intend to take photographs or make recordings.

Q: The Human Terrain System is a GIS-based program to map the location of all living communities on Earth.

Q: __________ refers to the minimal sound contrasts that distinguish meaning in a language. A. Morphemes B. Phonemes C. Syntax D. Grammar E. Diglossia

Q: The word pair, _________, is a minimal pair in Standard American English. A. pit/bit B. fat/get C. goof/off D. ped/pedal E. gal/legal

Q: In the __________ region of the United States, people do not speak with an accent. A. New England B. West Coast C. Southeast D. Midwest E. Regional speech variations exist throughout the United States.

Q: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis argues that A. the degree of cultural complexity is related to the effectiveness of languages as systems of communication. B. the languages people speak influence the way they think. C. the Hopi do not use three verb tenses; thus, they have no concept of time. D. culture determines what language is able to describe. E. all humans are endowed with the ability to use language.

Q: The statement, __________, is not true. A. "nonhuman primate calls occur in response to environmental stimuli." B. "nonhuman primate calls demonstrate linguistic productivity." C. "nonhuman primate calls are automatic and cannot be combined." D. "nonhuman primate calls vary in intensity and duration." E. "nonhuman primate call systems produce a limited number of sounds.

Q: Regular shifting between "high" and "low" variants of a language is A. displacement. B. diglossia. C. semantics. D. kinesics. E. lexicon.

Q: The study of communication through body movements, stances, gestures, and expressions is A. ethnosemantics. B. biosemantics. C. protolinguistics. D. phonemics. E. kinesics.

Q: The distinction between emic and etic perspectives does not apply to American culture.

Q: Traditionally, sociologists worked in large, industrial Western nations, while anthropologists focused on smaller, nonindustrial societies.

Q: Anthropologists who study small populations must employ sampling and statistical techniques to analyze their data.

Q: Rapport is important to establish quickly to be an effective participant observer.

Q: An anthropologist should only have one key cultural consultant for the culture he or she is studying.

Q: Life history accounts can illustrate individual diversity and how different people deal with the same problems.

Q: Interpretive anthropology presents ethnography as a dialogue between the anthropologist and one or more native informants.

Q: Anthropologists today realize that no culture is isolated and that the ethnographic present is an unrealistic concept.

Q: The Tsimane of Bolivia are the most studied indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere.

Q: Compared to questionnaires, interview schedules tend to be more indirect and impersonal.

Q: Good key cultural consultants generally end up recording most of the data needed to write an ethnography.

Q: Define the difference between emic and etic perspectives. Determine why an anthropologist might want to use both strategies when conducting ethnographic fieldwork.

Q: Anthropologists have obligations to their scholarly field, to the wider society and culture, and to the human species, other species, and the environment.

Q: The fact that __________ gives an interview schedule the advantage over a questionnaire-based survey. A. interview schedules allow informants to talk about whatever they feel is important B. interview schedules rely on very short responses C. questionnaires are completely unstructured D. interview schedules are better suited to complex, urban societies E. questionnaires are emic, while interview schedules are etic

Q: In survey research, __________ refers to the attributes that differ among members of a population. A. unknowns B. questionnaires C. interviews D. variables E. random samples

Q: The Tsimane live in Bolivia and speak A. Spanish. B. their native language. C. Portugese. D. English. E. Creole.

Q: When researchers began the study of the Tsimane, they decided they would A. send no doctors into the population. B. set up a pharmacy for the villagers. C. send doctors into the population but not provide basic medical care. D. send doctors into the population for research and to provide basic medical care. E. build a hospital for them.

Q: Salvage ethnography is the A. recording of cultural diversity that is threatened by Westernization. B. recovering of an archaeological site that is about to be destroyed by a public building or road. C. rewriting an ethnography that was written in the ethnographic present. D. recording linguistic diversity that is about to become extinct. E. making sure that ethnography remains an important part of anthropology.

Q: The AAA disapprove of the Human Terrain System because A. the program aimed at using land more effectively for farming does not consider the needs of the local populations. B. it forces archaeologists to excavate areas that are not in danger of destruction and have no impact on current research questions. C. the AAA would like research to remain focused on American subcultures. D. the AAA believes the military should make decisions about which research projects should be funded. E. it places anthropologists in positions that would violate the AAA code of ethics.

Q: List the differences between questionnaires and interview schedules. Describe the advantage an ethnographer could gain by using an interview schedule instead of a questionnaire.

Q: __________ is the term for an expert on a particular aspect of local life. A. Representative sample B. Etic informant C. Key cultural consultant D. Biased informant E. Life historian