Etic and emic in crosscultural comparison
Etic distinctions are explained in terms of various etic frameworks or classificatory grids. Classic examples of etic frameworks include: fLinnaean taxonomy; disease, in medical science; and the genealogical grid. Linnaean taxonomy is intended as a universal, hierarchical system for the classification of plants and animals on the basis of relative differences and similarities, and it entails an implicit theory of evolutionary relatedness. In contrast, the non-Linnaean classification of plants and animals in different cultures (e.g., the classification of bats as 'birds' rather than as 'mammals') is based on emic criteria, which may be quite different. Medical anthropologists make a similar distinction between 'disease' (a pathological condition, as defined by medical science) and 'illness' (the culturally-specific understanding of disease). Diseases are defined in the same way wherever Western fbiomedicine is practised, whereas what counts as a particular illness varies in different cultural contexts.
These distinctions imply a value judgement, that those who have a special knowledge of Linnaean taxonomy or Western medicine understand the true nature of the universe, and that cultures in which ordinary people have access to this specialist knowledge are superior to those in which ordinary people do not have such access. However, not all etic frameworks carry this notion of superiority and inferiority. In the study of Relationship terminology the genealogical grid, which arguably is extrinsic to Western culture, is more neutral. This is a particularly good example for examining the relation between emic and etic distinctions, as well as the problems which can arise in reifying the emic/etic distinction.
The genealogical grid precisely denotates each genealogical position. These positions are presumed to be the same for all languages and cultures. The emic distinctions are those which enable languages to define their kinship categories differently, employing common terms for different combinations of genealogically-defined kin. 'Aunt' and 'uncle', as distinct from 'mother' and 'father', are not universal notions but rather the specific categories of the English language and of the societies in which this language is used; other languages may classify English-language 'cousins' as 'siblings' or as potential 'spouses', and so on.
Analysts might distinguish the etic notion of the genealogical mother, written 'M', from the emic notion of the biological or social mother in British or American culture, written 'mother'. As the italics imply, this 'mother' is a culture-specific one, as foreign to the etic notion as a comparable word in any other language. Yet there are two problems here. First, what 'motherhood' might mean in any specific culture is a question beyond the confines of such simple linguistic distinctions and requires further emic analysis. Etically, it can only be defined very loosely. Secondly, the fact is that anthropologists have cultures and cultural preconceptions like anyone else, and they write in one specific language at a time. Such a language, of course, will have its own emic categories, and the etic grid accordingly remains elusive. In *kinship the etic grid is relatively easy to specify, but in other aspects of thought (say, in the realm of religious belief), etic distinctions are very much more difficult to define and utilize with any precision.
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