UMich Anthro 101 Exam 3 with complete solutions
Franz Boas - Answerfounder of American four-field anthropology
showed that human biology was plastic - it could be changed by the environment,
including cultural forces - the children of European immigrants to US differed physically
from their parents not because of genetic change but because they had grown up in a
different environment
historical particularism - diverse paths can lead to the same cultural result
studied totemism in Kwakiutl societies and argued that because of different histories,
different forms of totemism had different causes which made them incomparable
/.Bohannan, Laura/Tiv - AnswerBest known for her article "Shakespeare in the Bush"—
Visits Nigeria's tribe called the Tiv who are deeply involved in storytelling, and tells her
story of Hamlet to prove to a colleague its messages and points are en, but the Tiv
believe she doesn't understand the true meaning of the story and Bohannan learns that
no values are truly universal b/c different cultures have different perspectives on love,
marriage, etc...Tiv see her as uncultured
/.Noam Chomsky - AnswerLinguist who argues that the human brain contains a limited
set of rules for organizing language so that all languages have a common structural
basis (universal grammar)
/.William Labov - AnswerSociolinguist whose study showed that pronunciation was
clearly associated with prestige (ex. r pronunciation in NY)
/.Claude Levi-Strauss - Answeranthropologist who believes that human minds have
certain universal characteristics that lead people everywhere to think similarly
regardless of their society or cultural background
binary oppositions reflect the human need to convert differences of degree into
differences of kind
/.Victor Turner - Answerstudied symbols in their social and cultural context
examined rites of passage and rituals
made conflict an important part of his analysis and how symbols and rituals are used to
regulate, anticipate, and avoid it
/.Margaret Mead - Answerworked with Ruth Benedict
developed configurationalism: the view that culture is integrated and contributes to the
plasticity of human nature
She traveled to Samoa to study female adolescence there in order to compare it with
the same period of life in the US
Her findings supported the Boasian view that culture, not biology, determines variation
in human behavior and personality
, /.Max Weber - AnswerSocial theorist who argued for the prominent role of religion in
changing society
saw European Protestants as more successful financially than Catholics - he attributed
this difference to the values stressed by their religions
defined 3 dimensions of social stratification (wealth, power, prestige); social
identification takes priority over class
/.Code Switching - Answershift from one language or dialect to another in the context of
a single conversation
/.Creole - AnswerA language that has its origin in extended contact between two
language communities, one of which is generally European
/.Diglossia - AnswerLanguage with high (formal) and low (informal) dialects (ex. people
employ high variants at universities and low variants for ordinary conversations)
/.Euphemism - AnswerSubstitution of an inoffensive word for a more unpleasant one
("pass away" rather than "die")
/.Focal Vocabulary - AnswerSpecialized set of words and distinctions that are
particularly important to certain groups of people (ex. types of snow to Eskimos or
skiers)
/.Grammar - AnswerThe set of structural rules that governs the composition of clauses,
phrases, and words in any given language
/.Honorific - AnswerA term of respect (such as Mr. or Lord) that establishes status
difference between speaker and person being spoken to
/.Hypercorrection - AnswerUsing the wrong word or form because it seems more correct
or prestigious (whom vs. who)
/.Kinesics - Answerthe study of communication through body movements and facial
expressions
/.Lexicon - AnswerA language's dictionary containing all its morphemes and their
meanings
/.Minimal Pairs - AnswerA pair of words that differ by only a single sound and are
recognized by speakers as different words (ex. bat/cat or hare/dare)
/.Morphology - Answerthe study of how sounds combine to form Morphemes
/.Morpheme - Answersmallest unit of a language that has a specific meaning
(nonperishable has three morphemes: non-, perish, -able)
Franz Boas - Answerfounder of American four-field anthropology
showed that human biology was plastic - it could be changed by the environment,
including cultural forces - the children of European immigrants to US differed physically
from their parents not because of genetic change but because they had grown up in a
different environment
historical particularism - diverse paths can lead to the same cultural result
studied totemism in Kwakiutl societies and argued that because of different histories,
different forms of totemism had different causes which made them incomparable
/.Bohannan, Laura/Tiv - AnswerBest known for her article "Shakespeare in the Bush"—
Visits Nigeria's tribe called the Tiv who are deeply involved in storytelling, and tells her
story of Hamlet to prove to a colleague its messages and points are en, but the Tiv
believe she doesn't understand the true meaning of the story and Bohannan learns that
no values are truly universal b/c different cultures have different perspectives on love,
marriage, etc...Tiv see her as uncultured
/.Noam Chomsky - AnswerLinguist who argues that the human brain contains a limited
set of rules for organizing language so that all languages have a common structural
basis (universal grammar)
/.William Labov - AnswerSociolinguist whose study showed that pronunciation was
clearly associated with prestige (ex. r pronunciation in NY)
/.Claude Levi-Strauss - Answeranthropologist who believes that human minds have
certain universal characteristics that lead people everywhere to think similarly
regardless of their society or cultural background
binary oppositions reflect the human need to convert differences of degree into
differences of kind
/.Victor Turner - Answerstudied symbols in their social and cultural context
examined rites of passage and rituals
made conflict an important part of his analysis and how symbols and rituals are used to
regulate, anticipate, and avoid it
/.Margaret Mead - Answerworked with Ruth Benedict
developed configurationalism: the view that culture is integrated and contributes to the
plasticity of human nature
She traveled to Samoa to study female adolescence there in order to compare it with
the same period of life in the US
Her findings supported the Boasian view that culture, not biology, determines variation
in human behavior and personality
, /.Max Weber - AnswerSocial theorist who argued for the prominent role of religion in
changing society
saw European Protestants as more successful financially than Catholics - he attributed
this difference to the values stressed by their religions
defined 3 dimensions of social stratification (wealth, power, prestige); social
identification takes priority over class
/.Code Switching - Answershift from one language or dialect to another in the context of
a single conversation
/.Creole - AnswerA language that has its origin in extended contact between two
language communities, one of which is generally European
/.Diglossia - AnswerLanguage with high (formal) and low (informal) dialects (ex. people
employ high variants at universities and low variants for ordinary conversations)
/.Euphemism - AnswerSubstitution of an inoffensive word for a more unpleasant one
("pass away" rather than "die")
/.Focal Vocabulary - AnswerSpecialized set of words and distinctions that are
particularly important to certain groups of people (ex. types of snow to Eskimos or
skiers)
/.Grammar - AnswerThe set of structural rules that governs the composition of clauses,
phrases, and words in any given language
/.Honorific - AnswerA term of respect (such as Mr. or Lord) that establishes status
difference between speaker and person being spoken to
/.Hypercorrection - AnswerUsing the wrong word or form because it seems more correct
or prestigious (whom vs. who)
/.Kinesics - Answerthe study of communication through body movements and facial
expressions
/.Lexicon - AnswerA language's dictionary containing all its morphemes and their
meanings
/.Minimal Pairs - AnswerA pair of words that differ by only a single sound and are
recognized by speakers as different words (ex. bat/cat or hare/dare)
/.Morphology - Answerthe study of how sounds combine to form Morphemes
/.Morpheme - Answersmallest unit of a language that has a specific meaning
(nonperishable has three morphemes: non-, perish, -able)
