Language in a Cultural Context

Question 1

What is an anglophone world?

Answer 1

Refers to the places in the world where English is spoken

Question 2

What is a text?

Answer 2

Any written work or transcribed piece of speech

Question 3

What is culture?

Answer 3

1. The values, goals, convictions, and attitudes that people share in society
2. Refers to the fine arts and a society’s appreciation for them

Question 4

What is context?

Answer 4

Refers to the circumstances that surround the writing and the reading of a text

Question 5

What is cultural bias?

Answer 5

Judging something from a different culture with reference to what is usual in your own culture

Question 6

What is language currency?

Answer 6

The value of language

Question 7

What is instrumental motivation?

Answer 7

Explains how people often learn a language in order to accomplish something

Question 8

What is lingua franca?

Answer 8

A language spoken by people who do not share a native language

Question 9

In linguistics, what is convergence?

Answer 9

What happens when people come together and accommodate for each other through their use of language

Question 10

What is integrative motivation?

Answer 10

Refers to learning a language in order to become an integrated member of a particular society

Question 11

What is bilingualism?

Answer 11

The phenomenon of people using two languages regularly

Question 12

What is language borrowing?

Answer 12

The act of importing words into one language from another culture’s language

Question 13

What are loan words?

Answer 13

Words that one culture borrows and incorporates from another language into its own

Question 14

What is a jargon?

Answer 14

The vocabulary and manner of speech that defines and reflects a particular profession, which are difficult for others to understand

Question 15

What is an idiolect?

Answer 15

A person’s unique use of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation

Question 16

What is divergence?

Answer 16

The process of cultures splitting from each other, developing their use of language separately

Question 17

What is language?

Answer 17

A system of communication that is mutually intelligible among all members of a society

Question 18

What is accent?

Answer 18

The way in which someone pronounces a language

Question 19

What is dialect?

Answer 19

A variety of language that is unique in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary

Question 20

What are pidgins?

Answer 20

Improvised languages stripped of grammar, that are invented in order for people to communicate with each other

Question 21

What is code-switching?

Answer 21

Switching from one dialect or language to another depending on whom they are talking to or what they wish to accomplish

Question 22

What is a vernacular?

Answer 22

A language that is characteristic of a region

Question 23

What is language death?

Answer 23

Occurs when the last native speakers of a language have died and no new generations speak their ancestors’ language fluently

Question 24

What is language planning?

Answer 24

The effort made to prevent language death

Question 25

What is language imperialism?

Answer 25

The dominance of one language over others

Question 26

What are primary sources?

Answer 26

Stories, plays, films, etc., that reveal an event for the first time

Question 27

What are secondary sources?

Answer 27

Texts about texts

Question 28

What is an audience?

Answer 28

The group of listeners or readers for whom a text or message is intended

Question 29

What is register?

Answer 29

The level of formality or informality expressed through one's use of language

Question 30

What is a colloquialism?

Answer 30

A linguistic feature that is associated with informal situations

Question 31

What is linguistic determinism?

Answer 31

The concept that language determines what we are able to think

Question 32

What is purpose?

Answer 32

The description of the writer's intentions in writing a text

Question 33

What is deductive reasoning?

Answer 33

An argument that comes to a specific conclusion by drawing on general rules

Question 34

What is inductive reasoning?

Answer 34

An argument that comes to a general conclusion by drawing on specific cases

Question 35

What are the premises?

Answer 35

The statements or propositions that arguments rely on to come to conclusions

Question 36

What is diction?

Answer 36

The choice of vocabulary that a writer uses in order to create a tone

Question 37

What is close reading?

Answer 37

The skill of analyzing and interpreting texts

Question 38

What are stylistic devices?

Answer 38

Techniques that writers and speakers employ to instigate a response from their audiences

Question 39

What is denotation?

Answer 39

Refers to what a word stands for in its most literal sense

Question 40

What is connotation?

Answer 40

Refers to the aura of emotional meaning that we associate with a word