Sapir and Whorf argued that the grammatical categories of different languages lead their speakers to think about things in particular ways. However, studies on the differences between female and male Americans with regard to the color terms they use suggest that
A. changes in the U.S. economy, society, and culture have had no impact on the use of color terms, or on any other terms for that matter.
B. contrary to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, it might be more reasonable to say that changes in culture produce changes in language and thought, rather than the reverse.
C. in support of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, different languages produce different ways of thinking.
D. women and men are equally sensitive to the marketing tactics of the cosmetic industry.
E. women spend more money on status goods than do men.
Question 2
Just as in other areas of anthropology, the study of language involves investigating what is or isn't shared across human populations and why these differences or similarities exist. The linguist Noam Chomsky has argued that the human brain contains a limited set of rules for organizing language, so that all languages have a common structural basis. He calls this set of rules
A. the evolutionary linguistic imprint.
B. linguistic structuralism.
C. generalities.
D. a global mental map.
E. the universal grammar.