ANT102H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Ethnography, Ethnoscience, Ward Goodenough
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Document Summary
Anthropologists have been fascinated by relation between culture and language. Different cultures have different views on language. In some languages there are words for objects while in others there aren"t. Boas noted the use of words such as snow ,ice in central canada. Example : words for seals distinguish between male, ,female ,young ,old and even specific locations. Same word can have different meanings in different languages to even same language. English is a language that tends to put separate ideas into separate words. Cultural emphasis : the complete vocabulary of words in a language is a complex inventory of ideas. The idea that language reflects culture of speakers suggests the cultural emphasis of language. In 1950-60s anthropologists began exploring ways to describe specific areas of experience revealing the system of meaning and perception: the ethnography approach is often termed as ethnosemantics ,ethnoscience. ,cognitive anthropology , new ethnography: example : ward goodenough wrote a paper on kinship terminology in pacific.