Definition of "emic" []

• Of or relating to features or items analyzed with respect to their role as structural units in a system, as in behavioral science or linguistics. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Kenneth L. Pike - who coined "emic" and "etic" to get at the persepectiveS any particular person may have subjective, objective, and otherwise - gave me Nagel's book to read."
• "Taking the lead from contextual as we anthropologists say, "emic" distinctions is not a bad place to start; it's just such interplay between the particular and theory that generates new insights."
• "Even so, your point (and comment in general) target the tension (and there always is a tension) between what we call, in a shorthand-fashion, the "emic" and the "etic"; that is, a point of view from inside a context, and one from outside it."