Study guide for quiz 2
Scheduled for May 29
Linguistic anthropology
1. Explain the language socialization paradigm and three criteria related to the paradigm
for studying language socialization (lecture)
2. What is the connection between social interactions and learning language and learning
culture? (text book pgs. 54, 55)
3. Affective stance and the role of affective stance assumptions in caretakers’ reactions
to infants and children (lecture)
4. How does affective stance influence socialization-through-language in the Kaluli and
Gapun examples? Explain the different beliefs and methods for using language with
infants and children in the two cultures. (lecture and text book ch. 3)
5. According to linguistic anthropologists Kulick and Schieffelin, what is the importance of
studying language acquisition and socialization for understanding how and why people
become ‘good’ or ‘bad’ subjects relative to their particular cultures?
6. What did the comparisons show between ‘common’ U.S. approaches to teaching
goodness and badness and Japanese approaches? What might these languagesocialization approaches reveal about learned motivations for being good or bad
relative to cultural contexts?
7. Ahearn discusses the language socialization process throughout the life cycle. What
are her case study examples? (ch. 3)
8. In Basso’s account of silence in Western Apache culture, what are the situations in
which silence is expected, but more importantly, what is the unifying reason for the
Apache to remain silent?
9. For the Quakers, as described in Let Your Words Be Few by Richard Bauman, what
are the reasons the Quakers value silence? What is ‘carnal speaking’ and ‘plain
speech’? When is speech most appropriate? Why?
10. Differentiate between speech community, speech area, speech network and
community of practice. Give examples. Why is it important to define the community or
group you are studying within one or more of these parameters? (ch. 5 text book)
11. Why is being unilingual often a ‘privilege’ that can be a reflection of power? (lecture,
text book ch. 6, Chinese, Spanish, and the Rest)
12. Define dialect.
13. Define registers and be able to discuss different kinds of registers with examples of
each.(lecture and text book)
14. Define bilingualism and the reasons for learning more than one language. What is the
importance of learning languages early in life? How does the brain work in regards to
learning multiple languages? (lecture, videos, text book)
15. Explain diglossia through the Arabic example discussed in class. (lecture)
16. Why is triglossia often a necessity in Africa? What are the various linguistic ‘levels’ or
requirements in African life? (lecture)
17. Explain the purposes and processes of code switching, especially in regards to the
video we watched in class called Code Switching. Why are code switching, code
mixing and diglossia linked to social hierarchies? Give examples.
18. What does Tom McArthur mean when he categorizes different kinds of Englishes in
the world as varieties rather than dialects? What are the seven levels of languages in
the world that McArthur differentiates? (Chinese, English, Spanish – and the Rest)
19. Why did Jay Walker – in the TED video on the world’s English mania – say that
English is the world’s second language?
20. Ana Celia Zentella offers several case studies in her article Bilingualism en casa. Why
do some siblings differ in their linguistic preferences even though they are raised in the
same household? How do gender, politeness, and education influence which language
is most likely to be used?
21. What does J.L. Austin mean when he points out that in saying something you are also
doing something? “To say is to do is to be.” (lecture and ch. 8 textbook)
22. Explain Richard Bauman’s definition of performance in regards to language. How does
Bauman explain and interpret genres and keys in the performance of language?
(lecture and ch. 8 text book)
23. How does Judith Butler explain performativity in regards to language? How does she
apply concepts of performativity to gender? (text book, lecture, short video)
• Dell Hymes developed a methodology for ethnography of speaking. His methodology
includes taking into consideration the following. What does he mean by each of these
aspects of understanding speech and performance of speech? (lecture and handout)
• Setting
• Participants
• Ends
• Act sequences
• Keys
• Instrumentalities
• Norms
• Genres
24. How would you apply Hymes’s speaking acronym to points that Basso made in his
account of joking behaviors and performances among the Apache in his ethnographic
account Portraits of “The Whiteman”?
25. Explain the importance, significance and performance expectations of code switching
in Apache joking events concerning emulation of the whiteman?
26. How would you explain and define oral literacy compared with other kinds of literacy?
(The Orality of Language, lecture, text book ch. 7) What does Ong say are the benefits
of written literacy that he believes are impossible without such records?
27. In the example of Red Kangaroo Dreaming (lecture and wiki notes), what is often
contained in oral literacy and how does oral literacy, in this case study, involve all of
the senses, emotion, understanding of responsibility, ecological knowledge etc.? Can
all of these aspects contained in oral literacy be passed on to the next generation as
effectively through written literacy? What would be the conditions to make this
possible, if indeed it is possible?
28. What does Dorothy Lee tell us about the ‘dangers’ of literacy and the means for
protecting one’s self from those dangers?
29. Be able to discuss what the people in the videos concerning oral literacy said about
their oral traditions.
30. What is the oral literacy project that Mark Turin of Cambridge University initiated and
organized? (videos)
31. Based on the reading Aspects of Literacy, what are some consequences of literacy
cross culturally? What does he mean by literacies versus literacy? How would you
describe the ‘short sightedness’ of Western beliefs about literacy in the contexts of
traditional societies and what have been some results of this short sightedness? How
are literacies varied?