Everything about Emic And Etic totally explained
Emic and
etic (also known as "nemic" and "netic" when used in an inter-cultural marketing context) are terms used by some in the
social sciences and the
behavioral sciences to refer to two different kinds of
data concerning human
behavior.
- 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 is culture-specific.
- 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.
Scientists interested in the local construction of meaning, and local rules for behavior, will rely on emic accounts; scientists interested in facilitating comparative research and making universal claims will rely on etic accounts.
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. The possibility of a true culturally neutral etic perspective is debated, and was even discounted by Pike himself in his original work.
The terms were also championed by
anthropologists Ward Goodenough and
Marvin Harris with slightly different definitions (Goodenough was primarily interested in understanding the culturally specific meaning of specific beliefs and practices; Harris was primarily interested in explaining human behavior). In political theory an act viewed etically has been called an "operation," but when viewed emically, it has been called a "practice."
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