By William B. McGregor
1) The term accent is used of dialectal varieties that differ just in grammar.
True False
2) A dialect continuum is a chain of mutually intelligible dialects of a language.
3) Dialectal variation refers to variation in linguistic forms associated primarily with which of the following phenomena?
social groups illiterate speakers geographical regions rural regions different individuals
4) Which of the following best describes the term isogloss?
boundary of a region in which a single dialect is spoken boundary of a region where a particular feature of a language is found boundary of region where a single language is spoken none of the previous
5) Dialectal variation can be in any aspect of a language -- in phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, or lexicon.
6) Did Labov's study of the speech of New Yorkers reveal that different social groups use different allophones of the voiceless dental fricative phoneme?
Yes No
7) Which of the following characteristics is not likely to correlate with systematic variation in a language?
age religion sex ethnicity handedness
8) Which of the following varieties is not a register?
British English medical English an anti-language legalese scientific Danish
9) The choice of language by speakers in a bilingual community is not normally completely random.
10) One factor that can influence the choice of language in a bilingual situation is the domain of the speech interaction.
11) Language chioce in bilingual speech communities can usually be explained completely by the domain of the speech interaction.
12) Code switching refers to which of the following phenomena:
Switching from written to spoken codes Changing languages in different domains Changing languages within a single discourse
13) In a bilingual community choice of which of the following language varieties is most likely to be used to indicate solidarity among members of the community?
A global language like English A national language A regional language or dialect A local language or language variety
14) Code-switching is a bad habit, and should be remedied via education and training.
15) Language shift is a slow process, extending over centuries.
16) As languages become obsolescent they often become structurally less complex.
17) Which of the following is not a cause of language shift?
Inadequacies in the grammar or lexicon of one of the languages Physical separation of the speakers Attitudes to the languages in use in the community Symbolic value associated with the languages Separation of children from adults in the community
18) Which of the following is not true?
Throughout human history languages have always become endangered and died. Many languages of Australia and the Americas have become endangered in post-colonial times. There are no attested cases of successful language revival. If the present rate of language death and endangerment continues a considerable number of the world's languages will die in the next century. Speakers of many -- though not all -- endangered languages are concerned about the fate of their language.
19) Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese are dialects of Chinese.
20) The situation in which interlocutors adopt features of one another's speech is called:
affiliation idiolectal variation accommodation convergence disaffiliation
21) Reduction of word final consonant clusters is a defining feature of African American Vernacular English.
22) What sort of speech variety would a variety of a language used when speaking to animals be?
a dialect a register a secret variety a respect variety a distinct language
23) Use of a second person plural pronoun for a single addressee is in many languages associated with which of the following:
intimacy respectfulness disrespect secret varieties or anti-languages deception or lying
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