TCE + Ref [Post #4]

This chapter was extremely helpful. When faced with the prospect of an ethnography, I found myself at lost as where to start. This chapter focused on asking questions, when to ask those questions, what kind of questions, and how as well as there is the possibility that the culture you are studying has their own "secret language".

This is for my own reference, but if anyone finds this helpful, feel free to take a look at it or use it. There were too many of them to really remember them all.

Cultural categories: based on the supposition that knowledge is stored as a system of categories in the human brain

Folk terms: informant's language used when speaking about or with their microculture

>analytical terms: researcher's name for tacit terms used by people in microculture

>translation terms: words that members of a group may use when they talk about their group to outsiders

Descriptive questions: questions intended to elicit folk terms

How?

• Ask what they do and say, what things look like and what they are called.
• Put questions to context.
• Avoid asking "What is a...?".
• Don't ask why.

Types of descriptive questions:

1. Grand tour questions: most general; ie: "Could you take me on an imaginary tour of the office and point out everything I would see?"
2. Mini tour questions: questions that ask for more details concerning a folk term, etc; ie: "Could you describe how you...?"
3. Story questions: questions asking for actual events or places associated with microculture; ie: "When was the last time...?"
4. Native language questions: designed to check if certain words are actually folk terms; "Do you use '____' to describe this place to other people within your group?"

Field notes: written accounts of what transpired