Tutorial_Week5_LING100_Zak
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University of British Columbia *
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Linguistics
Date
Dec 6, 2023
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LING 100 Tutorial Week 5
LING 100
Language and Culture: Part 1
The first 4 questions (1. Indigenous Languages in Canada, 2. Data, 3. Language and Culture
Myths, 4. Colour Perception) are required to be completed and submitted online before
Friday October 6
th
at 9am. If there is still time, the rest of the tutorial will give you a chance
to ask questions and possibly talk to your TA about the Final Group Project.
Tutorial Exercises: Required Questions
1.
Indigenous Languages in Canada
In the textbook, choose any section in Ch. 9 that was not required. In other words,
you
cannot do this question on 9.3 or 9.9 but any other is fine. You’re encouraged to watch the
videos
rather than read the transcript in this case. Once you have watched the video, you
should identify one instance of the people in the video demonstrating a connection between
language and culture. Then explain why you think it is a good example.
One connection between culture and language I found meaningful is in the videos in chapter
9.1 and 9.4 where the Mohawk professor speaks about the significance of the efforts to
preserve the culture through preventing from the language from going extinct, such as
conducting research on the book “A Thousand Words of Mohawk”, which focuses on the
roots of the language.
I find preserving a language is equivalent to preserving a culture, because a language carries
legacies and histories throughout the period of the culture development, which can all be lost
once the language goes ectinct.
2.
Data
We talked about linguistic data in class and how in many ways it is being taken out of context
and dissociated from the humans that use the language. Think about data collected from
humans or other animals in any other subject area that you know.
a.
Briefly explain an instance where you think in that field or subject area the data is also
being dissociated from the humans or other animals that provided it.
Voting polls, where votes for a specific candidate are dissociated from voters and cannot be
tracked back.
b.
Provide one reason why you think it is done or is useful in that field
For privacy, political and social safety as well as freedom of expression.
1
October 2023
LING 100 Tutorial Week 5
c.
Provide once reason why you think this is a problematic thing to do.
I cannot think of anything problematic about dissociating voters from their votes.
3.
Language and Culture Myths
In the lecture, the myth that the Inuit “have 50+ words for snow” was discussed. Can you
think of a similar myth that exists about a language that you know? How would you try to
convince someone who believes the myth that it is not true?
The idea that Arabic is divided into many languages such as Egyptian, Moroccan, Yemeni,
etc… While these variations of Arabic can be significantly different, they are just dialects of
the same language. To convince someone against this myth, I would introduce them to MSA,
or Modern Standard Arabic, which is understood mutually among all the Arabic speakers
regardless of how different their local dialect is.
4.
Colour Vocabulary
Colour terms vary from one language to another. Take a look at the colour swatches below
and think about whether the languages you speak have colour names for each swatch. Are
there some swatches that you would group together? Do you think this means that your
colour perception is different from someone whose language has a larger or smaller number
of colour terms?
Navy blue has a distinct word and recognized as a different color from blue in Arabic. We call
it Kuhli [Ku7li] and we consider as a hybrud between black and blue but is neither.
2
October 2023
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