ABSTRACT
The term “emic” is often used when describing qualitative research that focuses on the uniqueness of a culture or experience. Thomas Headland, noted linguistic, anthropologist, and student of Kenneth L. Pike, concluded that less than 30% of authors from 20 different research fi elds credited Pike in their discussions of emic and etic perspectives (Headland, Pike, & Harris, 1990). As can be expected, the terms “etic” and “emic” have been widely used and re-defi ned in the research literature from various disciplines. For this chapter, Pike’s original articulations of emic research are used as a means to re-capture the original intent of the term and to apply it to current research in the fi eld that resonates with emic forms of scholarship.
