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Oleo de José Tola
From: Luis
Date: 2/3/99
Time: 8:09:43 PM
Remote Name: 130.68.51.58
This is just to sort of explain the distinction between "etic" and "emic." If you don't quite understand just let me know and I will try to explain that in simpler words. First of all, let's take a quick look at two very familiar words: Phonetic and Phonemic. In order to know the oigin of etic and emic just isolate the last four letters from the previous words and you will have "etic" and "emic" But, What do they mean? That's a good question. According to Pike, these two words have to do with two different ways of looking at language. The etic view, the external view of language, deals with universals, with observation from outside a system as well as with the nature of initial set of data. This external view only provides description of the language, in simpler words, the theories related to SLA. According to Firth and Wagner, all these theories only concentrate on the linguistic description of learning a language, they do not take into account two very important factors context and interaction. According to Pike, this etic point of view needs to be supplemented with an EMIC view. That is exactly what Firth and Wagner propose: "research requires a significantly enhanced awareness of contextual and interactional dimensions of language use, an increased "emic" (i.e.participant-relevant)." The emic view, Pike continues, consists in "interpreting events according to their particular function in their particular cultural world to which they belong." In other words, the emic view takes into account two factors: First, the patterned system of a specific language or culture, and second, the way a participant sees that system. ETIC: An etic account of the sounds of language would describe them impressionistically as sounds. EMIC: An analysis of sounds which aims to establish phonemes. I hope this help. I will be able to answer some questions if any.