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Horsten, Petrus Fredericus Marie (1978) Kinship terminology as a deictic system : An evaluation of ethnolinguistic methodology. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00028737

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Abstract

This work presents a critical examination of the methodology of the analysis of kinship terms over the last 100 years, gives a global evaluation of the 'state of the art', and proposes a new, deictic interpretation of kinship terminology. The methodological survey is divided into three sections devoted to: the historical approach (section 2), which explains kinship terminology in terms of historical causes; the structural/functional approach (section 3) which relates it to present structures or functions; and the formal approach (section 4), which concentrates on the Internal structure of sets of kinship terms. For the first two of these sections a number of representative authors are chosen and their views on kinship terminology are examined. The formal approach and the discussions connected with it are presented in the form of a survey of the study of English kinship terminology. The global evaluation (section 5) assesses the major issues arising from each of these approaches. In conclusion a new proposal is formulated for approaching kinship terminology as a deictic system. In a final section (section 6) this proposal is elaborated theoretically, and applied concretely to Dutch kinship terms.

Item Type: Theses (PhD)
SOAS Departments & Centres: SOAS Research Theses > Proquest
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00028737
Date Deposited: 16 Oct 2018 15:01
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/28737

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