1.2. Emic-Etic Framework

The emic and etic concepts with reference to descriptions were borrowed from the linguistic terms, phonemic and phonetic.  A phonemic transcription is one that reflects the perception of the speakers of the language. A phonetic transcription may go into more detail, describing a sound in technical, linguistic terms, which the speakers of that language are not aware of. Anthropologists have adapted these linguistic concepts by deleting the first syllables to form the wordsemic and etic.  Thus, emic-etic roughly means “local versus scientific knowledge” and this framework provides a convenient tool for researchers to obtain accurate descriptions of farmers’ knowledge or concepts and compare them with scientific knowledge or concepts on the same topic. Figure 2 illustrates the emic-etic framework as applied to stages of the rice crop.

Figure 2.  illustrates the emic-etic framework as applied to stages of the rice crop (Click the image to enlarge).

Eliciting frames: how to ask questions