#9 - Specific Reference, Purpose/Function

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[lathlee]

Hi. This question I was totally lost but i went with D) cuz I thought Author used western Apache tribe example, to demonstrate that fellow Abnoriginal American Tribe also have similar characteristics of Naming culture as Hopian culture, therefore, it falls with the author's MP of Hopian Names and Native Americans are beautiful poetic art which European way of naming just doesn't apply here. What am i Not seeing here?

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Lathlee,

Answer choice (D) is an inference that can be made from reading this sentence. In that sense, answer choice (D) would be a viable answer on a Must Be True question.

Question number nine however does not just ask us to prove one of the following answer choices. Rather, it asks us to describe the reason that the author included it in the passage. If this answer were correct merely on the grounds that we can prove that the statement in answer choice (D) is true, then Answer choice (A) would be a valid answer as well.

The real task at hand is to decide which answer describes how the reference is being used. The author includes the reference in order to do what?

If the author inserted this sentence in order to give an example of non-evident references, then this statement would be redundant. The paragraph has already accomplished this task much more successfully in the preceding sentences.

If the author inserted this sentence in order to show that there are non-Hopi names that have semantic content (they communicate meaning), then the author is a terrible writer. Why not give us some examples of Apache names to prove this point? Why does the author make us work so hard to arrive at the inference that other languages have semantic content if this were the purpose of the statement? This inference just seems a bit too buried in the sentence to be the reason for including the reference.

Finally answer choice (B) is supported by the text, and it describes fairly well what you should take away from the statement in question: Hopi names are poetically rich like Western Apache names are.

[dbrowning]

Hi could someone help me sort through the wording of answer choice B? What does it mean to "apply a commentator's characterization..." outside of merely adding the point in at the end of the paragraph? Specifically, this language makes me ask further questions about the author's purpose. Why was the commentator's characterization applied? My problem with B was that it seemed to only describe what the author did and not why the author did it.

[Zach Foreman]

Dbrowning,

The author had a great quote "tiny imagist poetry" that supported his/her point that names can be more than utilitarian/social classification. But there was a problem. That great quote was referring to Western Apache names and the author was talking about Hopi names. Now, the quote definitely applies but the author couldn't just gloss over that difference and didn't want to discard the quote.
So, the author acknowledged the source of the characterization while applying it to the Hopi names. Why did the author want to use that precise quote? Well, it fit the argument and showed that the author wasn't the only one who saw that naming could be richer than just identification but have literary, poetic quality.
Now, that might lead you to consider D. But the word "semantic" lets it down. If it said "poetic", it perhaps could have worked. But the immediate reason for mentioning Western Apache was to insert a quote from someone else.

[Albertlyu]

I think what the author really wants to say here is that Hopi personal names with the quality of evoking the condensed images are "tiny imagist poems" like the Apache place names. the point is to show the names' capacity to "evoke condensed images" ie. poetic quality.

[lsathelpppp]

Hi can someone explain why answer choice A is wrong? Is it wrong because although it what is described is true for Hopi names, this is not the purpose of including the reference to Western Apache? I thought the Western Apache names were being presented as another example to bolster the argument regarding Hopi names.

[Dana D]

Hey lsathelpppp,

You're right on - the author spends most of that paragraph explaining that Hopi personal names include references not evident in their literal translations (which is what answer choice A says), however the reference to Western Apache place names is not included for that purpose. Instead, the reference to the Western Apache names is simply to apply this characterization of "tiny imagist poems" to the Hopi personal names.

Hope that helps!