**** Emic and etic: point of view and its entailments

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Emic and etic: Point of view and its entailments

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In their four decades of existence, the terms "emic" and "etic" have undergone constant and considerable change in their meanings. At this juncture, it is difficult to pin any one particular meaning on either of the terms, but roughly, "emic" is a perspective from within the domain of analysis--an insider's viewpoint, which judges the validity of the system by the system's own criteria. "Etic" is the view from the outside, relying on its own set of criteria to judge the system. The two terms cannot be removed from each other, for what is etic analysis is also emic from the perspective of the 'studier' rather than the object of study.

Emic and etic are derived via back formation and expansion from "phonemic" and "phonetic." Kenneth Pike was the first to use the terms, having coined them in the 1950's. In his original conception, they were treated as generalized synecdoches for the linguistic-specific terms. This is hinted at in his article with C.C. Fries from 1949 <[LINK]> in which they considered the importance of direction of historical change in a phonemic system without expanding the terms beyond linguistic matters. By the time he published the back-formed terms in the 1950s he had removed them from diachronic analysis and sought to apply them within his wholly synchronic "syntagmemic" system of considering language and the world. He attributes this change to his exposure to the mentalism of Sapir, but Murray also sees in it a backing off on the part of Pike from diachronic impliciations of emicity that conflicted with his religious beliefs. (Something to do with 200 kinds of kangaroos on Noah's ark)

Marvin Harris responded to the mentalist, synchronic version, which privileged emicity, by correlating historical facts and trends that may not have been known from within a culture to etic analysis and privileging the etic as more scientifically rigorous. Harris did not have access to Pike's earlier, non-mentalist construct. Furthermore, claimed Harris from his etic historical outlook, claims of emicity could be used simply to obfuscate sloppy scholarship--etic grids provided standards.

As Hymes points out the terms are better considered as a dialectic (Pike's construct) than as categories (Harris' construct). Murray's resurrection of Fries' and Pyke's prototypical definition seems to be a simpler explanation that illuminates more. It deals with historical materials well while still retaining the dialectic. Pike concurs with Murray's definition, refering to Fries and Pike (1949) and then to Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog's specifically historical application of the former article. Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog did not tie Fries and Pike's usage of "phonemics" specifically to Pike's later usage of "emic" and "etic" but the usage can be paraphrased perfectly, which is perhaps why Pike points to the article for support.

At present the terms seem too widespread in their meanings to be used without specific definition. They are not easily replacable by other pairs, however; and careful definition seems to be the appropriate way to approach them. I am herein using the terms to mean the same as "the ways that 'a' and 'the' modify their referents." To speak of "a" something is for my purposes to approach it emically. To speak of "the" something is to approach it etically. Both have advantages and disadvantages in both diachronic and synchronic usage. For the purposes of this work, reclamation of the diachronic benefits of emic analysis (not slighting the respective etic diachronic benefits established by Harris) is of primary significance.

A careful reader (or _the_ careful reader!) might notice that this in effect treats determiners "a" and "the" as actions, as verbs, as "ways of approaching." While at first this may seem odd, it is precisely what I perceive them to do--they modify something, bounding it in a particular fashion. They in effect transform it from some ineffable, unanalyzable substance into a form, either created or discerned.

The questions of whether emic and/or etic exist "out there" can be broached only after scholars agree upon what they mean. On close examination, they appear to be ways of creating and discovering. As such emic and etic are actions or processes, verb-like transformations of stuff into something usable or analyzable. That humans do this, especially with language, appears to be a universal. How they do it seems to be infinitely variable. Somehow these two features--species-wide universality and infinite variability--need to be considered in the same world. Bounding, and diffusion of boundaries, is how we make the world analyzable.

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Thomas N. Headland, Kenneth L. Pike, Marvin Harris, _Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate_; Frontirs of Anthropology, Vol. 7, Newbury Park, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications 1990.

Thomas N. Headland (1990), "Introduction: A Dialogue between Kenneth Pike and Marvin Harris on Emics and Etics," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 13-27.

Kenneth L. Pike (1990), "On the Emics and Etics of Pike and Harris," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 28-47.

Kenneth L. Pike (1990), "Pike's reply to Harris," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 62-74.

Kenneth L. Pike (1990), "Pike's Final Response," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 184-201.

Marvin Harris (1990), "Emics and Etics Revisited," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 48-61.

Marvin Harris (1990), "Harris' reply to Pike," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 75-83.

Marvin Harris (1990), "Harris' Final Response," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 202-216.

Gerald F. Murray (1990), "Anthropology, Evangelization, and Abortion: Applications of Emics and Etics," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 143-163.

Dell H. Hymes (1990), "Emics, Etics, and Openness: An Ecunemical Approach," in Headland, et al, eds., _Emics and Etics_, 120

Uriel Weinreich, William Labov, and Marvin I. Herzog, "Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change," in W.P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel, eds. _Directions For Historical Linguistics_, Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1968, 95-188.

C.C. Fries and K. Pike (1949), "Coexistent Phonemic Systems," in _Language_, 15: 29-50.