Midterm Study Guide

ANTH 213D

Spring 2009

Midterm date: April 29

Fundamentals of Linguistics

What are the fundamental units of language systems? What is “competency”?

What is “duality of patterning?”

What are the features of paralinguistics?

Burling’s argument about language and evolution: what, basically, is it?

“Nativism:” Or the Chomsky/Pinker Perspective

What is “generative grammar” (or “deep structure,” or “mentalese”)?

How does Pinker’s concept of “the language instinct” bear on questions of evolution, the origins of language, and human nature?

Metaphor, Worldview, and Linguistic Relativity

What is “cultural relativism?”

How did a commitment to cultural relativism in anthropology lead to linguistic relativity?

What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its strong and weak forms?

What are some ways that Whorf connects linguistic structures with non-linguistic features in Hopi culture?

What is metaphor?

How does the study of metaphor help us in understanding worldview? Which readings have tried especially to illustrate the connection between metaphor and worldview?

Where does Levinson stand on the “simple nativism” vs. linguistic relativity debate?

Conversational Style, Language Ideology, and Performativity

What does Tannen mean by the term “conversational style?”

What is “persistence” and “participatory listening,” and how does Tannen illustrate those concepts in her work?

What is Tannen’s fundamental argument about the patterning one finds in “conversational rituals” among men and women?

What is “language ideology,” and what does the concept suggest about the relationship between language and the perception/interpretation/judgment of social groups?

How does Barrett illustrate connections between language ideology, class, race, and power (be sure to be able to define “mock Spanish”)?

What are some of the features of hip-hop linguistic structures, and what might they have to do with social identities and social commentary?

Ditto for the Superstandard English of “nerds” (what’s Superstandard English anyway?).

What are the supposed characteristics of “women’s language?” At least two readings contest the validity of the idea. Why? How?

Speaking of which: how, according to Cameron, do language practices help us “perform” gender (as opposed to simply reflecting an already given gender existence)? And how does such performance sometimes violate supposed differences between women’s and men’s conversational styles?

Speech Act Theory and Social Action

Who founded speech act theory?

What is a “performative?”