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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. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The social sciences are a group of academic disciplines that study human aspects of the world. ... Behaviorism (or behaviourism) is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. ... For other uses, see Data (disambiguation). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

• An "emic" account of behavior is a description of behavior of 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. Kenneth L. Pike (June 9, 1912 - December 31, 2000) was an American linguist and anthropologist, the originator of the theory of tagmemics and coiner of the terms emic and etic. From 1947 to 1979 he was the first president of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ... Phonetic (pho-NET-ic) is a nationwide voicemail-to-text messaging service available for most digital mobile phones in which a subscriber is provided a custom voice mailbox for the purpose of receiving all incoming voice messages as actual transcribed text for reading via short messaging (also known as SMS...

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." Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the study of humanity. ... Marvin Harris Marvin Harris (August 18, 1927 – October 25, 2001) was an American anthropologist. ...

References

• Goodenough, Ward (1970) “Describing a Culture” in Description and Comparison in Cultural Anthropology Cambridge: Cambridge University Press pp 104-119. ISBN 0-202-30861-8 ISBN-13 978-0-202-30861-6
• Harris, Marvin (1980) “Chapter Two: The Epistemology of Cultural Materialism,” in Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New York: Random House. pp. 29-45 ISBN 0-759-10134-5; ISBN-13: 978-0759101340
• Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1987). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). ISBN 0-691-02714-5.
• Pike, Kenneth Lee (1967). Language in relation to a unified theory of structure of human behavior 2nd ed. The Hague: Mouton