Chapter: Chapter 09: Language I: Introduction to Language and Language Comprehension
Multiple Choice
1. The interdisciplinary field that studies how people use language to communicate ideas is called:
a) cultural communication.
b) ideation.
c) psycholinguistics.
d) social linguistics.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 298
2. Which of the following is the basic unit for spoken language?
a) meme
b) grapheme
c) phoneme
d) morpheme
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 298
3. Which of the following is the basic unit for meaning of language?
a) meme
b) grapheme
c) phoneme
d) morpheme
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 298
4. Language may be understood at several levels. From smaller units to larger units, these levels are:
a) morpheme, word, syntax, phoneme.
b) phoneme, morpheme, grammar, syntax.
c) deep structure, word, morpheme, surface structure.
d) phonon, morphon, word, klingon.
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 298 - 299
5. The basic linguistic unit that conveys meaning is the:
a) phoneme
b) grapheme
c) morpheme
d) word
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 298
6. It is still not known exactly which linguistic principles apply universally and which do not, mainly
because:
a) it is virtually impossible to study language in a scientific way.
b) the study of language and language only about 10 years old.
c) most research has been focused only on the English language.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 299
7. The grammatical rules of language are known as
a) syntax.
b) rigid.
c) pliable.
d) graphemes.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 299
8. According to the most famous linguist (Chomsky, 1957, 2003, 2006):
a) all humans have an innate understanding of the abstract principles of language.
b) the structure of all human languages is based on very simple rules.
c) children learn the language to which they are exposed solely by imitation.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 301
9. Issues concerning the deep structure (or core meaning) of language relate most closely to:
a) highly complex procedural memory skills.
b) the issue of localization of function in the brain.
c) the underlying, abstract meaning of the sentence.
d) the formation and use of visual imagery coding.
Ans: c
Feedback: See pages 301 - 302
10. Which of the following sentences has two possible deep-structure meanings?
a) "The girl went to school."
b) "His cooking is excellent."
c) "The weather is hot and dry."
d) "They are cooking apples."
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 302
11. Which of the following is an example of a negative word, the inclusion of which will make the
sentence more difficult to understand?
a) non
b) no
c) reject
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 304
12. People are able to process the meaning of a sentence best if it is:
a) an affirmatively worded sentence in the active voice.
b) an affirmatively worded sentence in the passive voice.
c) an affirmatively worded sentence containing a nested structure.
d) a negatively worded sentence in the passive voice.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 304
13. When a reader encounters a potentially ambiguous word in a sentence:
a) neural activation initially increases all common meanings of the word.
b) the reader usually pauses before moving his or her eyes to the next word.
c) people resolve the correct meaning by using contextual information (i.e., the rest of the sentence.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 305 - 306
14. In ________, the patient has difficulty with verbal communication.
a) agraphia
b) aphasia
c) alexia
d) dyscalculia
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 308
15. In which type of aphasia does the patient have difficulty producing fluent speech?
a) Wernicke’s aphasia
b) Broca’s aphasia
c) Conduction aphasia
d) Mixed expressive-receptive aphasia
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 308 - 309
16. In which type of aphasia does the patient have difficulty comprehending speech?
a) Wernicke’s aphasia
b) Broca’s aphasia
c) Conduction aphasia
d) Mixed expressive-receptive aphasia
Ans: a
Feedback: See pages 308 - 309
17. In the 1800s, researchers discovered that language involves localized brain areas that perform
different functions. This early evidence came from:
a) observations that people may suffer from at least two different kinds of aphasia.
b) measurement of regional cerebral blood flow while people performed linguistic tasks.
c) studies of chimpanzees who had portions of their brains destroyed in experiments.
d) observations by linguists that surface and deep brain structures are involved in language.
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 309
18. The typical result of damage to an area in the left cerebral hemisphere called Broca's area is speech
that is:
a) lacking in appropriately positive emotional tone.
b) hesitant, effortful, and grammatically simple.
c) fluent, but entirely void of syntax and meaning.
d) indistinguishable from the speech of schizophrenics.
Ans: b
Feedback: See pages 308 - 309
19. The typical result of damage to an area in the left cerebral hemisphere called Wernicke's area is
impairment in:
a) the ability to suppress inappropriate emotional responses to words.
b) speaking fluently, with little or no loss in conveying the meaning intended.
c) generating a visual image of something when presented the word (e.g., apple).
d) producing unconfused speech, as well as in understanding speech.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 309
20. Although the left hemisphere of the brain performs most of the work in language processing for the
vast majority of people, the right hemisphere plays an important role in:
a) linguistic tasks such as interpreting the emotional tone of a message.
b) specific processing of individual constituent phonemes in a message.
c) dividing complex words into their more simple meanings (disambiguation).
d) selecting the most probable interpretation of a speech sound (phoneme).
Ans: a
Feedback: See page 311
21. During the last decade, neurolinguistics researchers have increasingly studied the localization of
language-comprehension areas in the brain using a technique called:
a) noninvasive surgical excision (NSE).
b) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
c) treadmill linguistic activity (TLA).
d) computer-controlled chatting (CCC).
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 311
22. The “language-localizing task” identifies
a) the right hemisphere language areas for a group of subjects.
b) the right hemisphere language areas for an individual.
c) the left hemisphere language areas for an individual.
d) the left hemisphere language areas for a group of subjects.
Ans: c
Feedback: See page 312
23. Experiments investigating reading skill reveal that it:
a) is based on the operation of an innate mechanism or process in the brain.
b) depends heavily on other cognitive abilities, such as working memory.
c) develops only as a result of training according to the phonics approach.
d) develops only as a result of training according to the whole-word approach.
Ans: b
Feedback: See page 316
24. The most appropriate approach to explaining how readers recognize printed words when they read to
themselves is the:
a) dual-route (direct and indirect access) approach
b) phonologically mediated approach
c) Skinnerian imitation approach.
d) artificial-intelligence approach.
Ans: a
Feedback: See pages 318 - 319
25. Which language has the least-predictable pronunciation?
a) German
b) Spanish
c) French
d) English
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 321
26. What is currently thought to be the best approach to teach children to read English?
a) the whole-word approach
b) phonics
c) the whole-language approach
d) A combination of all three.
Ans: d
Feedback: See pages 321 – 322
27. Which of the following is a good summary of evidence regarding the best way to teach reading to
children?
a) The phonics approach is clearly the best approach because the whole-language approach has been
shown to have little or no benefit.
b) The phonics approach has yielded very unimpressive results, and the whole-language approach is
clearly the only approach to use.
c) Much evidence supports the phonics approach, but some combination of it and the whole-language
approach may be especially effective.
d) Neither the phonics approach nor the whole-word approach is useful, so researchers are seeking
another approach that may be effective.
Ans: c
Feedback: See pages 321 - 322
28. When someone is reading discourse, such as a novel, according to the constructionist view of
inferences he or she is:
a) inferring motivations, personalities, and emotions of the characters.
b) developing expectations of new plot developments.
c) forming expectations about the writer’s point of view.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: d
Feedback: See page 326
29. Recent research (Cassady, 2004) reveals that compared to people who score low, people who score
high on test anxiety (as measured by a Cognitive Test Anxiety scale, for example):
a) perform relatively poorly on multiple-choice tests.
b) make fewer errors in summarizing textbook material.
c) make fewer errors in drawing inferences from textbook material.
d) All of the above are correct.
Ans: a
Feedback: See pages 329 - 330