Explain “emic” and “etic” concepts.

The distinction of emic and etic relates to the extent to which research aims to establish what is common to all humans and what is unique to specific cultures. Etic approaches aim to discover what all humans have in common. It addresses the universals of human behaviour. Etic approaches have been used extensively in cross-cultural studies. In such studies theories develop in one particular culture are tested cross-culturally. As the researches rely on theories and techniques developed in their own culture to study someone else culture, such studies often said to use the imposed etic approach. Emic approaches are not interested in cross-cultural comparisons but rather in culture-specific phenomena. A culture’s uniqueness is explored by such studies through the discovery of its distinctive behaviours. Emic studies do not import theoretical frameworks from another culture. It is assumed that meaning of behaviour can only be defined from within the culture studied.