Your final exam will consist of a set of questions drawn from the ones below - probably 4-6 of them with no choices. You will type your answers and submit them to our Annotate directory. Some of these questions are repeated from the midterm question list. You must write your answers on PCs during the 2-hour exam period on Tues 5-7pm in Sycamore 006.

1. What does Pinker mean when he says (p. 27) `There is no such thing as a stone age language'? What are some implications of this observation?

2. Give a careful statement of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. What are some reasons to believe that it (or something close to it) may have some truth.

3. Orwell was worried that language itself is being undermined by all the linguistic distortions during the period of strife surrounding World War II. Pinker seems to think this concern reflects a nonsensical expectation. Nevertheless, we find that military officers and politicians are very careful how they choose their descriptive vocabulary to help assure public support for their activities. What can you make of this? Who is right? To what extent IS our thinking constrained (or shaped or biassed) by the linguistic descriptions we use?

4. The Institute for Propaganda Analysis proposed that there are "7 main propaganda devices", all of which work by exploiting `emotions' - like, especially, pride or hatred (text, p. 191, par 21). By this criterion, then, how is it that the generalized political speech in `Everyspeech' (p. 210-211) could be called an example of propaganda?

5. Interpret the case where our missing soldiers, captured by the enemy are POWs (that is, "prisoners of war") but enemy soldiers who and captured by us are not POWs but rather EPWs ("enemy prisoners of war") (discussed in Bella English reading, p. 236). The question is why EXACTLY did the military briefing officers (or whoever is responsible) choose to not speak of Iraqi POWs in our military prisons?

6. Summarize the main arguments against (Hayakawa, Rodriguez) and for (Fallows) bilingual culture and education. What role do you suppose notions of `personal identity' play in the thinking of these writers? (Rodriguez may be explicit about this, but the others are not.)

7. Jeff Titon (on p 4) of `Powerhouse for God' comments on how Brother Sherfey used as story to tell ``what sort of person he thought he was'' and ``to put us in a face-to-face relationship as sympathetic friends''. How did that story achieve this effect?

8. What religious groups are known to engage in `speaking in tongues'? What would an observer see and hear when someone is speaking in tongues? And what do the participants themselves believe is happening in these events and why is it so important to them?

9. What accounts for the push-pull syndrome on the language of the African-American community with respect to standard white speaking styles (Smitherman)? What universals of human behavior probably play a role in this process of internal conflict?

10. Pinker reviews Donald Brown's list of apparently universal human traits (pp.413-415). Pinker immediately points out that this is not a list of instincts? Why are universal properties not necessarily indicative of instincts? But if so, then what point is Pinker trying to make?

11. What are the tenets of the ``Standard Social Science Model''? For example, how are humans different from animals on this view?

12. D. Tannen claims that men are much more likely to tell jokes than women. How can this be related to the other typical male-style traits (like giving little lectures and doing most of the talking)? How might this be related to the kind of behaviors that Port considers instinct-based male traits?

13. Explain the notion of coupling and the ways in which song, group prayer and shared listening to emotional preaching can contribute to group solidarity.

14. Hofstadter's objections to the use of `guy' and `guys' to include females is simply a logical extension of the feminist arguments against `generic use' of pronouns like `he' and `man' (as in ``A student can find his grade by doing X'' and ``chairman, policeman, mankind,'' etc. What is that (now traditional) argument about ``generic he and man''?

15. Port has tried to show how human use of language reflects many longterm, universal properties of human behavior. One of the instincts on his list is `try to make sense of things'. Describe several examples of speaking styles or speaking genres that are explicit attempts by people to `make sense of things'.

R. Port
L205, Department of Linguistics
Indiana University