Emic and etic
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Emic and etic are terms used by anthropologists, and by others in the social and behavioral sciences to refer to two different kinds of data concerning human behavior. In particular, they are used in cultural anthropology, to refer to kinds of fieldwork done and viewpoints obtained.[1]
- An "emic" account is a description of behavior or a belief in terms meaningful (consciously or unconsciously) to the actor; that is, an emic account comes from a person within the culture. Almost anything from within a culture can provide an emic account.
- An "etic" account is a description of a behavior or belief by an observer, in terms that can be applied to other cultures; that is, an etic account is '"culturally neutral".
The terms were first introduced by linguist Kenneth Pike, who argued that the tools developed for describing linguistic behaviors could be adapted to the description of any human social behavior. Emic and etic are derived from the linguistic terms phonemic and phonetic respectively, which are in turn derived from Greek roots. The possibility of a truly objective etic perspective is debated, and was discounted by Pike himself in his original work, and in this way, the emic/etic dichotomy in anthropology leads into philosophic issues about the very nature of objectivity. Some controversy has existed over whether Pike properly took the terms from linguistics and applied them to anything similar in anthropology, but the terms stuck as ways of referring to insider/outsider dialogues.[2]
The terms were also championed by anthropologists Ward Goodenough and Marvin Harris with slightly different connotations than those used by Pike. Goodenough was primarily interested in understanding the culturally specific meaning of emic beliefs and practices; Harris was primarily interested in explaining human behavior, or providing an etic account. In political theory an act viewed etically has been called an "operation," but when viewed emically, it has been called a "practice." There are a host of these kinds of technical distinctions arising out of the emic/etic distinction.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/ee-intro.htm
- ^ http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/ee-intro.htm
- ^ Levi-Strauss, ibid.
[edit] Further reading
- Kitayama, Shinobu and Dov Cohen (2007). Handbook of Cultural Psychology. New York: The Guilford Press.
- Cresswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative Enquiry and Research Design: Choosing among Five Traditions. London: Sage.
- Headland, Thomas, Kenneth Pike, and Marvin Harris, eds., (1990). Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate, Sage Publications.
- Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1987). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). ISBN 978-0-691-02714-2.
- Harris, Marvin (1980) "Chapter Two: The Epistemology of Cultural Materialism," in Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New York: Random House. pp. 29-45 ISBN 978-0-7591-0134-0
- Jahoda, G. (1977). "In Pursuit of the Emic-Etic Distinction: Can We Ever Capture It?" In Basic Problems in Cross-Cultural Psychology. Y.J. Poortinga, ed. Pp. 55-63.
- Harris, Marvin (1976). "History and Significance of the Emic/Etic Distinction." Annual Review of Anthropology, 5:329-350.
- Goodenough, Ward (1970). "Describing a Culture" in Description and Comparison in Cultural Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 104-119. ISBN 978-0-202-30861-6
- Pike, Kenneth Lee (1967). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of Structure of Human Behavior 2nd ed. The Hague: Mouton.
- Solomon, Consumer Behavior (Buying, Having, and Being) 7th edition. ISBN 0-13-218694-2
