Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Qualitative Data Analysis II: Models and Matrices 541
Componential Analysis
Componential analysis is a formal, qualitative technique for studying meaning.
There are two objectives: (1) to specify the conditions under which a
native speaker of a language will call something (like a plant, a kinsman, a
car) by a particular term and (2) to understand the cognitive process by which
native speakers decide which of several possible terms they should apply to a
particular thing.
The first objective is descriptive, but the second is a kind of causal analysis
and is what the developers of the technique had in mind in the 1950s and
1960s (see Conklin 1955; Goodenough 1956; Frake 1962; Wallace 1962).
Charles Frake, for example, described componential analysis as a step toward
‘‘the analysis of terminological systems in a way which reveals the conceptual
principles that generate them’’ (1962:74).
Componential analysis is based on the principle of distinctive features in
phonology, the branch of linguistics devoted to the study of the sounds of a
language. To understand the principle, think about the difference in the sounds
represented by P and B in English. Both are made by twisting your mouth into
the same shape. This is a feature of the P and B sounds called ‘‘bilabial’’ or
‘‘two-lipped.’’
Another feature is that they are both ‘‘stops.’’ That is, they are made by
stopping the flow of air for an instant as it moves up from your lungs and
releasing the flow suddenly. An S sound, by contrast, also requires that you
restrict the air flow, but not completely. You kind of let the air slip by in a
hiss. The only difference between a P and a B sound is that the P is voiceless
while the B is voiced—you vibrate your vocal cords while making a B.
If you add up all the phonological features of the words ‘‘bit’’ and ‘‘pit,’’
the only feature that differentiates them is voicing on the first sound in each
word. The ‘‘pitness’’ of a pit and the ‘‘bitness’’ of a bit are clearly not in the
voicelessness or voicedness of the sounds P and B; but any native speaker of
English will distinguish the two words, and their meanings, and can trace the
difference between them to that little feature of voicing if you push them a bit.
There is a unique little bundle of features that define each of the consonantal
sounds in English. The only difference between the words ‘‘mad’’ and ‘‘bad’’
is that the bilabial sound M is nasal, and not a stop. These distinctive features
carry meaning for native speakers of a language.
This principle can be adapted to the study of other domains of culture. Any
two ‘‘things’’ (sounds, kinship terms, names of plants, names of animals, etc.)
can be distinguished by exactly one binary feature that either occurs () or
doesn’t occur (). Table 18.5 shows that with two features you can distinguish
four things: Thing 1 can be , thing 2 can be , thing 3 can be