CMN 105 Exam Questions and Answers Latest Update Graded A+

CMN 105 Exam Questions and Answers Latest Update Graded A+ What was the text written in response to? (Preface) - Answers "The original version of this book, Language in Action, was in many respects a response to the dangers of propaganda, especially as exemplified in Adolf Hitler's success in persuading millions to share his maniacal and destructive views" (xi). What is the definition of Semantics and what does it address and what does it NOT address? (Preface) - Answers "Those who approach the study of language and speech from a traditional point of view have seen their first as that of correcting the speaker's grammar, pronunciation, and diction...Teachers of semantics will concern themselves, and teach their students to concern themselves, first of all with the truth, the adequacy, and the degree of trustworthiness of statements...Semantics is the study of human interaction through communication." interspecific - Answers "Biologists distinguish between two kinds of struggle for survival. First, there is the interspecific struggle, warfare between different species of animals, as between wolves and deer, or men and bacteria. intraspecific - Answers Second, there is the intraspecific struggle, warfare among members of a single species, as when rats or human beings fight each other. A great deal of evidence in modern biology indicates that those species that have developed elaborate means of intraspecific competition often make themselves unfit for interspecific competition According to Hayakawa, what are the qualities important to human survival? - Answers "...If we don't hang together we shall all hang separately...Cooperation within a species (and sometimes with other species) is essential to the survival of most living creatures" (5). What does he refer to as "cooperative nervous systems?" - Answers Human societies (and animal) societies are for more cooperative then competitive "...the fundamental cooperative act by which most of the higher animals survive: namely, communication by the means of noises...We are drawing on the experiences of others in order to make up for what we ourselves have missed...In fact, gregariousness (friendliness/sociability) as an aid to self-defense and survival is forced upon animals as well as upon human beings by the necessity of uniting nervous systems even more than by the necessity of uniting physical strength. Societies, both animal and human, might almost be regarded as huge cooperative nervous systems" (5-6). What is the relationship between language and societal progress? - Answers They are inextricably linked. "These marks enable us to communicate with people who are beyond the reach of our voices, both in space and in time...Human beings, then, are never dependent for information on direct experience alone...They can go on from where others left off...Language, that is to say, makes progress possible" What is meant by cultural accomplishments as "free gifts from the dead?" - Answers "Language is the indispensible mechanism of human life - of life such as ours that is molded, guided, enriched, and made possible by the accumulation of the past experience of members of our species...The cultural accomplishments of the ages...come to us as free gifts from the dead. These gifts, which none of us have done anything to earn, offer us not only the opportunity for a richer life than any of our forebears enjoyed but also the opportunity to add to the sum total of human achievement by our own contributions, however small" What is the definition of "semantic environment?" - Answers "...Mits is affected every hour of his life not only by the words he hears and uses but also by his unconscious assumptions about language...Words - the way he uses them and the way he takes them when spoken by others - largely shape his beliefs, his prejudices, his ideals, his aspirations. They constitute the moral and intellectual atmosphere in which he lives - in short, his semantic environment" What are the basic assumptions behind the thesis of this book? - Answers Most societal problems are rooted in misunderstands and cooperation is essential for survival "It will be the basic assumption of this book that widespread intraspecific cooperation through the use of language is the fundamental mechanism of human survival. A parallel assumption will be that when the use of language results...in the creation or aggravation or disagreements and conflicts, there is something linguistically wrong with the speaker, the listener, or both. Human fitness to survive requires the ability to talk, write, listen, and read in ways that increase the chances for you and fellow members of the species to survive together: (12). signal reaction - Answers "To the chimpanzee, the red light is, we shall say, a signal, and we shall term its reaction a signal reaction: that is, a complete and invariable reaction that occurs whether or not the conditions warrant. symbol reaction - Answers To the human being, on the other hand, the red light is, in our terminology, a symbol, and we shall term the human reaction a symbol reaction: that is, a delayed reaction, conditional upon the circumstances. In other words, the nervous system capable of only signal reactions identifies the signal with the thing for which the signal stands; the human nervous system, however, working under normal conditions, understands no necessary connection between the symbol and that for which the symbol stands" (14). What is the relationship between symbols and the things symbolized? - Answers "Whenever two or more human beings can communicate with each other, they can, by agreement, make anything stand for anything...There is no necessary connection between the symbol and that which is symbolized" What is Korzybski's "dictum" regarding the relationship between symbols and the things symbolized? - Answers "...this verbal world ought to stand in relation to the extensional world as a map does to the territory it is supposed to represent" (20). Verbal (intensional world) reports map Extensional world experience territory ex. if a boy is told verbally about the adult world, he will be better prepared for life without surprises. if he grows up with a false map in his head, he will have problems in the future How do we get false maps in our head? - Answers "It should be noticed that there are three ways of getting false maps of the world into our heads: first, by having them given to us; second, by making them up for ourselves by misreading true maps; third, by constructing them ourselves by misreading territories" (21). if someone makes a false map, there is no harm done, until someone tries to get around using that map. no matter how beautiful a map is, it is useless unless if accurately displays the territory reports - Answers "The language of reports...is 'map' language, and because it gives us reasonably accurate representations of the 'territory,' it enables us to get work done...Reports should be about firsthand experience inferences - Answers An inference...is a statement about the unknown based on the known...Generally speaking, the quality of inference is directly related to the quality of the report or observations from which it stems and to the abilities of the one making the inference judgments - Answers By judgments we shall mean expressions of the speaker's approval or disapproval of the occurrences, persons, or objects he is describing...Many words simultaneously report and judge" Why do judgments stop thought? - Answers Judgments stop thoughts because they are conclusions. "Often, the reason that those early paragraphs contain so many such judgments that there is