1. Language is transmitted through learning, as part of enculturation.

2. Language is based on arbitrary, learned associations between words and the things they represent.

3. Only humans have the linguistic capacity to discuss the past and future in addition to the present.

1. Call systems consist of a limited number of sounds that are produced in response to specific stimuli (e.g., food or danger)

2. Although primates use call systems, their vocal tract is not suitable for speech.

1. A few nonhuman primates have been able to learn to use American Sign Language (ASL).

2. These nonhuman primates have displayed some "human-like" capacities with ASL.

3. The experiments with ASL demonstrate that chimps and gorillas have a rudimentary capacity for language.

1. The human capacity for language developed over hundreds of thousands of years, as call systems were transformed into language.

2. Language is a uniquely effective vehicle for learning that enables humans to adapt more rapidly to new stimuli than other primates.

1. Phonology is the study of the sounds used in speech.

2. Morphology studies the forms in which sounds are grouped in speech.

3. A language’s lexicon is a dictionary containing all of the smallest units of speech that have a meaning (morpheme).

4. Syntax refers to the rules that order words and phrases into sentences.

1. In any given language, phonemes are the smallest sound contrasts that distinguish meaning (they carry no meaning themselves).

2. Phones are the sounds made by humans that might act as phonemes in any given language.

3. Phonetics is the study of human speech sounds; phonemics is the study of phones as they act in a particular language.

4. Phonemics studies only the significant sound contrasts of a given language.

1. Every region has its own dialect based on regional patterns of speech, pronunciation, and word choice.

2. Some dialects, like that of Midwestern Americans, have few stigmatized variants that people readily notice.

1. Lexical elaboration that corresponds to an activity or item that is culturally central is called a focal vocabulary.

2. It is argued that, while language, thought, and culture are interrelated, change is more likely to move from culture to language, rather than the reverse.

1. Semantics "refers to a language’s meaning system."

2. Ethnoscience, or ethnosemantics, is the study of linguistic categorization of difference, such as in classification systems, taxonomies, and specialized terminologies (such as astronomy and medicine).

1. Sociolinguistics is the study of the relation between linguistic performance and the social context of that performance.

2. The notion that linguistic variation is a product of constantly ongoing general forces for change is called linguistic uniformitarianism.

1. The ethnic and class diversity of nation-states is mirrored by linguistic diversity.

2. Single individuals may change the way they talk depending upon the social requirements of a given setting--this is called style shifting.

3. Diglossia is the regular shifting from one dialect to another (e.g., high and low variants of a language) by members of a single linguistic population.

4. Linguistic relativity says that no language is superior to any other as a means of communication.

1. In America and England, there are regular differences between men’s speech and women’s speech that cut across subcultural boundaries.

2. The fact that women in these populations tend to speak a more "standard" dialect and use fewer "power" words is attributed to women’s lack of socioeconomic power.

1. In situations where social stratification exists, the dialect of the dominant strata is considered "standard" and valued more than the dialects of the lower strata.

2. Sociolinguistic studies have indicated that status-linked dialects affect the economic and social prospects of the people who speak them, a situation to which Bourdieu applies the term symbolic capital.

3. According to Bourdieu, overall societal consensus that one dialect is more prestigious results in "symbolic domination."

1. Most linguists view B.E.V. as a dialect of American English, with roots in southern English.

2. William Labov writes that B.E.V. is the "relatively uniform dialect spoken by the majority of black youth in most parts of the U.S. today…"

3. B.E.V. has its own complex system of linguistic rules; it is not an unstructured selection of words and phrases.

4. Standard English is not superior in terms of ability to communicate ideas, but it is the prestige dialect.

1. People who are social offline, tend to be social online.

2. People use the Internet to supplement rather than replace their face-to-face interactions.

1. Molson Canadian beer advertisement in which "Joe" rants about not being an American in the process of proclaiming his Canadian identity.

2. The Rant became a nationalist mantra for Canada.

3. The Rant was not popular in Quebec, where there is a strong separatist movement and little association with the national Canadian identity.

1. In 1960, a Canadian Bill of Rights barred discrimination by federal agencies based on national origin, race, color, religion, or sex.

2. In 1962, a revised Canadian Immigration Act stated that any qualified person from any part of the world could be eligible for immigration.

3. In 1971, Canada became the first country to adopt an official Multiculturalism Policy.

1. Aboriginal Canadians have more poverty, poorer health, higher death and suicide rates, and more unemployment than the rest of the country.

2. In 1973, Canada’s Supreme Court recognized land rights based on an Aboriginal group’s traditional use and occupancy of land.

3. In 1982, the Canadian government affirmed the treaty rights of Aboriginal groups to protect their cultures, customs, traditions, and languages.

1. The racial classification of métis—mixed race—hints of the American hypodescent rule.

2. Rather than race, the Canadian census asks about "visible minorities"—people other than Aboriginal peoples—who are non-Caucasian in race.

3. The structure of the Canadian census suggests that Canadians assume that racial differences lie in the minds of the beholder rather than being self-identified.