Q&A Hero

Q: According to Fredrik Barths theories about ethnic identity, ethnic boundaries most stable when A. ethnic groups share a common ancestor. B. ethnic groups occupy different ecological niches. C. ethnic groups share the same nation-state. D. the members of the ethnic groups are highly educated, as with postcolonial states. E. ethnic groups are culturally very similar and tend to pursue the same goals.

Q: The presence of ethnic neighborhoods indicates what kind of coexistence? A. assimilation B. acculturation C. enculturation D. colonialism E. multiculturalism

Q: What is the term for policies and practices that harm a group and its members? A. colonialism B. racism C. prejudice D. ethnocentrism E. discrimination

Q: A policy of ethnic expulsion aims at removing from a country groups who are culturally different. There are many examples, including Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s; Uganda expelling 74,000 Asians in 1972; and so on. The neofascist parties of contemporary western Europe advocate the repatriation of immigrant workers. What is one of the potential consequences of such policies? A. the breakup of imaginary communes B. the creation of refugeespeople who have been forced or have chosen to flee a country, to escape persecution or war C. state-mandated forced assimilation D. the creation of class consciousness E. gender stratification

Q: What term refers to the destruction of the culture of an ethnic group? A. genocide B. prejudice C. ethnocide D. discrimination E. diaspora

Q: What is the term for the use of force by a dominant group to compel a minority to adopt the dominant culture? A. attitudinal discrimination B. genocide C. forced assimilation D. ethnocentrism E. environmental racism

Q: The Basque people, one of Europes most distinctive ethnic groups, have maintained a strong ethnic identity and a language that is unrelated to any other known language. Which of the following was a result of the forced assimilation campaign to ban speaking and using Basque in print? A. Ethnic pride in the Basque people is now diminished. B. Basque parents, ashamed of their ethnicity, are refusing to teach their children their language, opting for their full immersion in schools that teach in the national language. C. Speaking Basque became taboo among the Basque people. D. Strong nationalist sentiment and Basque terrorist groups were created in the Basque region. E. Basque is now an extinct language.

Q: An achieved status is not automatic. It comes through choices, actions, efforts, talents, or accomplishments, and is always perceived as positive by a society.

Q: When an ethnic identity is flexible and situational, it can become an achieved status.

Q: Ascribed statuses are based on an individuals talents, abilities, and actions.

Q: There is no difference between the biological and cultural definitions of race.

Q: East Asians who have emigrated recently from India and Pakistan to northern areas of the United Kingdom have a higher incidence of rickets and osteoporosis than the general British population. This phenomenon illustrates that A. natural selection continues today. B. genetic adaptation of environmental stressors can occur within one generation. C. cultural adaptation provides effective shortcuts to those that are genetically disadvantaged in a foreign environment. D. because of global warming, the lack of sunlight that people are exposed to in the northern regions is made up for by the intensity of the sunlight. E. natural selections role in determining skin color is a thing of the past, relevant only prior to the 16th century, when massive population migrations altered the geographic distribution of dark-skinned people.

Q: Which of the following statements about human skin color is NOT true? A. Skin color varies because of differences in ultraviolet radiation between different regions of the world. B. The amount of melanin in the skin affects the bodys production of vitamin D. C. The amount of melanin in the skin affects the bodys ability to process lactose. D. Light skin is at a selective advantage outside the tropics, because it admits ultraviolet radiation, which causes the body to manufacture vitamin D and thus prevents rickets and osteoporosis. E. Light skin is at a selective disadvantage in the tropics, because it is more susceptible to the destruction of the folate that is needed to produce folic acid to protect against neural tube defects in human embryos.

Q: Which of the following statements about ethnicity is true? A. Ethnicity is ones identification with a group that shares a common set of beliefs, values, customs, and norms. B. Americans maintain a clear distinction between ethnicity and race. C. Ethnicity is based on common biological features. D. Ethnicity is the politically correct term for race. E. Ethnicity and race are synonyms.

Q: In 1998, the American Anthropological Association issued a statement on race. This statement makes all of the following points EXCEPT that A. there is greater variation within racial groups than between them. B. although the continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species, some scientists suggest that current racial divisions in society that keep certain groups from interbreeding might lead to a true separate species. C. physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas. D. physical variations in the human species have no meanings beyond the social ones that humans put on them. E. race evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior.

Q: Which of the following statements about U.S. racial categories is true? A. They are applied to endogamous breeding populations. B. They are biologically valid, as demonstrated by the Phipps case in 1970s Louisiana. C. They are based on global racial categories that vary little among societies. D. They are based on genetics, whereas Japans are based upon undemonstrated descent. E. They are culturally arbitrary, even though most people assume them to be based in biology.

Q: What is the term for the arbitrary rule that automatically places the children of a union between members of different socioeconomic groups into the less-privileged group? A. hypervitaminosis B. polygyny C. polyandry D. hypodescent E. hypogamy

Q: Organizations in the United States such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group, have opposed adding a multiracial census category. This suggests that A. both organizations need to hire anthropologists. B. classification is a political issuethese groups fear that their political clout will decline if their numbers go down. C. racial classification is all about cultural pride. D. racial classification can become more scientifically accurate, peoples ignorance to the contrary. E. racial classification matters only to Hispanic minorities in the United States.

Q: In Japan, the burakumin A. are perceived as pure Japanese even though one of their parents is not Japanese. B. are Japanese citizens of mixed ancestry who face discrimination. C. are the cream of Japans racial categories, having the purest blood. D. no longer face discrimination. E. constitute a numerical majority in Japan.

Q: Which of the following statements about the concept of race in Brazil is NOT true? A. Racial classification in Brazil is built around the concept of hypodescent. B. There are more than 500 different terms used to describe phenotypes. C. The large number of racial categories in Brazil does not easily lend itself to socioeconomic discrimination based on race. D. The perception of biological races is influenced not just by their physical phenotype but by how one dresses and behaves. E. A persons race can change from day to day.

Q: Which of the following is a major difference between Brazilian and U.S. racial taxonomies? A. Brazilians do not recognize racial differences. B. U.S. categories are purer than Brazilian categories. C. There are no important differences between the two taxonomies. D. In the United States, social race is determined at birth and does not change, but in Brazil race is flexible, and more of an achieved status. E. Brazilian racial categories are based on genotype, whereas U.S. categories are based on phenotype.

Q: What term refers to a culture that shares a single language, religion, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship? A. monoculture B. country C. nation D. society E. homeland

Q: What is the term for ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status? A. ethnicities B. captive nations C. nations D. nationalities E. ethnic avengers

Q: What term describes a complex sociopolitical system that administers a territory and populace having substantial contrasts in occupation, wealth, prestige, and power? A. state B. ethnic group C. nationality D. bureaucracy E. culture

Q: Nation-states A. are defined by their lack of ethnic identity. B. are ethnically homogeneous. C. are the same as tribes and ethnic groups. D. are parts of other states. E. sometimes encourage ethnic divisions for political and economic ends.

Q: Ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political statustheir own countryare called A. ethnicities. B. nationalities. C. imaginary communes. D. secondary states. E. diasporas.

Q: Which of the following is a reason why dark skin color is adaptive? A. dietary adaptation B. admission of UV rays C. reducing the frequency of rickets D. preventing the destruction of folate E. malarial resistance

Q: An ascribed status is a status that A. people have little or no choice about occupying. B. you choose for yourself. C. you earn, as when a successful law student becomes a lawyer. D. has a position of dominance in society; for example, that of a king. E. is based on standardized test scores.

Q: Depending on the situation, the same man might declare Im Jimmys father; Im your boss; Im African American; or Im your professor. This phenomenon, whereby a persons claimed or perceived identity varies depending on context, is called A. ethnicity. B. hypodescent. C. a situational negotiation of social identity. D. ethnic tolerance. E. rotating core personality traits.

Q: Race, like ethnicity in general, is A. a cultural category rather than a biological reality. B. a biological reality as much as a cultural one. C. used by social scientists to classify humans based on their genes and shared blood. D. poorly understood by geneticists and is therefore considered a cultural category. E. a meaningless concept to people living day to day.

Q: Which of the following statements about purported attempts to assign humans to discrete racial categories based on common ancestry is true? A. They are applied to endogamous breeding populations. B. They are based on genotypic rather than phenotypic characteristics. C. They are based on global racial categories that vary little among societies. D. They are a recent phenomenon brought on by globalization. E. They are culturally arbitrary, even though most people assume them to be based in biology.

Q: In theory, a biological race is a geographically isolated subdivision of a species. Humanity (Homo sapiens) lacks such races because A. although humans exhibit biological differences, these are only skin deep. B. human populations have experienced a type of controlled breeding that is distinct from that experienced by dogs and roses. C. human populations have not been isolated enough from one another to develop such discrete groups. D. they are politically incorrect. E. humans are less genetically predictable than the animals and plants that are susceptible to domestication.

Q: In understanding the problems that have arisen in attempts at human racial classification, why is it important to understand the difference between genotype and phenotype? A. The phenotypical traits typically used to classify humans into races go together as genetic units. B. Phenotypical similarities and differences always have a genetic basis. C. Attempts at human racial classification have typically used genotypic traits like blood type as markers of common ancestry, and these traits pass on from generation to generation in discrete bundles. D. Although phenotypic characteristics may change, the genetic material of populations stays the same for a long time. E. Attempts at human racial classification typically used phenotypic traits like skin color as markers of common ancestry, but many such traits do not reflect the existence of shared genetic material. Instead, they are often the result of different populations biologically adapting to similar environmental stressors in similar ways.

Q: What term refers to an organisms evident traits, or its manifest biology? A. manifest destiny B. genotype C. biological circumscription D. phenotype E. hereditary inequality

Q: An examination of racial taxonomies from around the world indicates that A. all cultures classify races similarly. B. the classification of racial types is an arbitrary and culturally specific process. C. classifying racial types can best be done by considering only phenotypic traits. D. classifying racial types can best be done by considering only the genotype involved. E. the best classification of racial types considers genotype as well as phenotype.

Q: In the early 20th century, the anthropologist Franz Boas described changes in skull form among the children of Europeans who had emigrated to North America. He found that the reason for these changes could not be explained by genetics. His findings underscore the fact that A. phenotypic similarities and differences dont necessarily have a genetic basis. B. even though the environment influences the phenotype, genetics is a more powerful determinant of racial differences. C. diet affects which genes are turned off and which get turned on, resulting in a particular phenotypic characteristic. D. describing changes in skull form is the most accurate way to study the impact of migration on traveling populations. E. observing changes over one generation is not enough to make conclusions about changes in the genotype and phenotype.

Q: Traditional racial classification assumed that biological characteristics such as skin color were determined by heredity and remain stable over many generations. We now know that A. skin color is actually determined throughout child development. B. skin color is determined by sun exposure and the amount of melanin in our diets. C. a biological similarity such as skin color is also the result of natural selection working among different populations that face similar environmental challenges. D. skin color is determined by a single gene that is prone to mutations over many generations. E. a biological similarity such as skin color is always the result of both a common ancestry and natural selection.

Q: According to some estimates, the worlds linguistic diversity has been cut in half in the past 500 years, and half of the remaining languages are predicted to disappear during this century. Why does this matter? Isnt this just a natural result of globalization, something we should actually celebrate, because it makes communication among diverse groups much easier?

Q: A key feature of language that helps explain anthropologists continued interest in studying it is that it A. enables us to compare human and nonhuman primate linguistic grammars. B. tells us a lot about the present, although nothing about the past. C. is always changing. D. helps them distinguish between the more and less evolved human races. E. rarely changes, so it provides a good window into linguistic uses of the past.

Q: Which of the following statements about chimpanzee call systems is NOT true? A. They consist of a limited number of sounds. B. Like language, they include displacement and cultural transmission. C. They consist of sounds that vary in intensity and duration. D. Calls cannot be combined when multiple stimuli are present. E. They are stimuli dependent.

Q: Research on the communication skills of nonhuman primates reveals their inability to refer to objects that are not immediately present in their environment, such as food and danger. The ability to describe things and events that are not present is called A. cultural transmission. B. displacement. C. linguistic imagination. D. phonology. E. productivity.

Q: Ethnicity means identification with A. the cultural values of the dominant culture. B. and feeling part of a biologically racial group. C. your neighbors in a multicultural society. D. and feeling part of a cultural tradition and exclusion from other cultural traditions. E. and feeling part of two or more groups in a plural society.

Q: An anthropological understanding of ethnicity and race requires exploring how people and institutions define, negotiate, and even challenge their identities in society. One way anthropologistsand social scientists in generaldo this is by studying status, which refers to A. a mutually exclusive social identity that is set by others and has little to do with the actions of an individual. B. any position, no matter what its prestige, that someone occupies in society. C. ones biologically determined identity within a hierarchical society. D. ones socially negotiated identity, which always changes throughout a persons lifetime. E. an identity determined by the state through census practices.

Q: Discuss factors that increase linguistic diversity among speakers of the same language.

Q: What are honorifics? Why are sociolinguists interested in their use in context? In your everyday life, do you ever use honorifics? What does their use, or lack of use, imply about your relationships to others?

Q: Discuss some common interests of linguistics and ethnography. Of what use can knowledge of linguistic techniques and principles be to the ethnographer?

Q: What is linguistic relativity? Illustrate how it applies to languages and to dialects of English.

Q: What are some ways in which linguistics can aid archaeologists, biological anthropologists, and sociocultural anthropologists who are interested in history?

Q: How has technology influenced the way you communicate? Considering what you already know about anthropological theory and methods, what kinds of questions might an anthropologist pose about the role of technology in human culture, and particularly language? How might he or she go about answering those questions?

Q: Problems arise with contemporary means of communication, such as texting and online messaging, because much of what we communicate is a nonverbal reflection of emotional states.

Q: Linguistic stratification can occur between dialects when one is considered a prestige dialect, as is the case with High German and Low German, or with Standard English (SE) and Black English Vernacular (BEV).

Q: Compare and contrast the evolution of language and biological evolution. What role may mutations play in the origins of human language, if any?

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

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

Q: Black English Vernacular (BEV) is an incomplete linguistic system that is able only to express thoughts and ideas related to life in inner-city communities.

Q: The origins of BEV are found mostly in West Africa, not in the dialects of the southern part of the United States.

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

Q: Historical linguists use linguistic similarities and differences in the world today to study long-term changes in language.

Q: The worlds linguistic diversity has been cut in half, as measured by the number of distinct languages extant, in the past 500 years, and half of the remaining languages are predicted to disappear during this century.

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

Q: Diglossia refers to linguistic groups, like those in Papua New Guinea and Australia, that distinguish between only two colors: black and white or dark and light.

Q: All languages and dialects are equally effective as systems of communication.

Q: Bourdieu argues that languages with the highest symbolic capital are those that are better systems of communication.

Q: In all languages, the same honorifics have the same meaning, regardless of context.

Q: Animal call systems exhibit linguistic productivity.

Q: Linguistic productivity refers to the fixed linguistic structures that prevent the creation of new expressions.

Q: Recent genetic research suggests that a speech-friendly mutation took hold in humans around 150,000 years ago, thus conferring selective advantages (linguistic and cultural abilities) that allowed those who had it to spread it, at the expense of those who did not.

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

Q: All human nonverbal communication is instinctive, not influenced by cultural factors.

Q: Phonology is the study of speech sounds.

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

Q: Sapir and Whorf argued that all humans share a single set of universal grammatical categories.

Q: Focal vocabularies are found only in non-Western societies like the Eskimo and the Nuer.

Q: In this chapter, an alternative to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that cultural changes lead to changes in language.

Q: Ethnosemantics studies how different members of different linguistic groups organize, categorize, and classify their experiences and perceptions.

Q: This chapters Appreciating Anthropology section discusses research on the ancient syntax of a proto-human language, thought to be ancestral to all contemporary languages. This research suggests that A. the proto-language sounded similar to modern-day English. B. subject-verb-object ordering is very rare in languages spoken today. C. word ordering within a language is uniform across the world. D. word ordering has remained constant over time, not changing when languages branch off from their mother tongues. E. the proto-language sounded similar to the speech of Yoda in Star Wars.

Q: Which of the following was studied by Sapir and Whorf? A. the interaction of thought on surface structure B. the influence of language on thought C. the influence of deep structure on surface structure D. the influence of deep structure on semantic domains E. the influence of culture on language

Q: Sapir and Whorf argued that the grammatical categories of different languages lead their speakers to think about things in particular ways. However, studies on the differences between female and male Americans in regard to the color terms they use suggest that A. changes in the U.S. economy, society, and culture have had no impact on the use of color terms, or on any other terms for that matter. B. contrary to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it might be more reasonable to say that changes in culture produce changes in language and thought rather than the reverse. C. in support of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, different languages produce different ways of thinking. D. women and men are equally sensitive to the marketing tactics of the cosmetic industry. E. women spend more money on status goods than do men.

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: A sociolinguist studies A. the interaction of history and sociology. B. cross-cultural comparisons of phonemic distinctions. C. the universal grammar of language. D. linguistic competence. E. speech in its social context.