CHAPTER 11: Language

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Language consists of smaller components, like words, that can be combined to form larger ones, like phrases, to create sentences, which themselves can be components of a larger story. This property is known as

a. hierarchical structure.

b. relational organization.

c. parallel organization.

d. propositional representation.

ANS: A REF: page 295

TYPE:  FACTUAL DIFF:  EASY

2. Which property below is NOT one of the characteristics that makes human language unique?

a. Hierarchical structure

b. Communication

c. Governed by rules

d. all of these make human language unique

ANS: B REF:    page 295 KEY: WWW

TYPE:  CONCEPTUAL DIFF:  MODERATE

3. Yoda, a central character of the Star Wars movies created by George Lucas, has a distinctive way of speaking. His statement, “Afraid you will be,” violates which English language property?

a. Lexicon

b. Coding

c. Discriminability

d. Rules

ANS: D REF: page 295

TYPE:  APPLIED DIFF:  MODERATE

4. Evidence that language is a social process that must be learned comes from the fact that when deaf children find themselves in an environment where there are no people who speak or use sign language, they are unable to develop any formal language skills.

a. True

b. False

ANS: B REF:    page 295

TYPE:  CONCEPTUAL DIFF:  MODERATE

5. In New Guinea, tribes that had been isolated for centuries were found that

a. had a large number of sophisticated language systems.

b. had languages that were more primitive than languages of most non-isolated societies.

c. communicated by hand signals but not verbal language as we know it.

d. had just a few language systems that were all governed by similar rules.

ANS: A REF: page 295

TYPE:  FACTUAL DIFF:  MODERATE

6. B.F. Skinner, the modern champion of behaviorism, proposed that language is learned through

a. parsing.

b. genetic coding.

c. syntactic framing.

d. reinforcement.

ANS: D REF: page 296

TYPE:  FACTUAL DIFF:  EASY

7. Noam Chomsky proposed that

a. humans are genetically programmed to acquire and use language.

b. language is learned through the mechanism of reinforcement.

c. as children learn language, they produce only sentences they have heard before.

d. the underlying basis of language is different across cultures.

ANS: A REF: page 296 KEY: WWW

TYPE:  FACTUAL DIFF:  MODERATE

8. One of Chomsky’s most persuasive arguments for refuting Skinner’s theory of language acqui-sition was his observation that children

a. produce sentences they have never heard.

b. show similar language development across cultures.

c. are rewarded for using correct language.

d. learn to follow complex language rules, even though they are not aware of doing so.

ANS: A REF:    page 296

TYPE:  CONCEPTUAL DIFF:  MODERATE

9. Ty has finished work on his doctoral dissertation. He studied how most adults understand words, specifically the priming effects of categorically related words and submitted a proposal to be included in a psychological conference to present his work to his peers. Presentation at the conference is segregated based on the particular topic in psychology under consideration. It is most likely that Ty’s work will be presented in a conference session on

a. sensation.

b. psychoacoustics.

c. neuropsychology.

d. psycholinguistics.

ANS: D REF: page 296

TYPE:  APPLIED DIFF:  MODERATE

10. Lilo can’t wait for school to start. This year is the first time she gets to take a foreign lan-guage class, and she is taking Japanese. Dr. Nabuto is a professor interested in studying how people learn additional languages later in life, and he is including Lilo’s class in his research.  Dr. Nabuto is most likely studying

a. language comprehension.

b. language acquisition.

c. speech production.

d. speech parsing.

ANS: B REF: page 296

TYPE:  APPLIED DIFF:  MODERATE

11. Ron is an avid reader. He has a large vocabulary because every time he comes across a word he doesn’t know, he looks it up in the dictionary. Ron encounters “wanderlust” in a novel, reach-es for the dictionary, and finds out this word means “desire to travel.” The process of looking up unfamiliar words increases Ron’s

a. lexicon.

b. parser.

c. syntactical capacity.

d. mental set.

ANS: A REF: page 297

TYPE:  APPLIED DIFF:  EASY

12. A phoneme refers to

a. the property of combining words into unique sentences.

b. the first word produced by infants, usually during their second year.

c. a mental grouping of words being heard during “inner audition.”

d. the shortest segment of speech that, if changed, changes the meaning of a word.

ANS: D REF: page 297

TYPE:  FACTUAL DIFF:  EASY