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Residue Analysis (Kinship Terminology)×Free Listing×
FieldAnthropologyAnthropology
FamilyProcess / pipelineProcess / pipeline
Year of origin19881988
OriginatorCognitive anthropology and formal semantics tradition (codified by Bernard; Weller & Romney)Cognitive anthropology tradition (formalized by Weller & Romney; Borgatti)
TypeFormal-semantic technique for defining kin categories by distinctive featuresElicitation procedure for the items and salience of a cultural domain
Seminal sourceBernard, H. R. (2017). Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (6th ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN: 9780759112421Weller, S. C., & Romney, A. K. (1988). Systematic Data Collection. Qualitative Research Methods Series 10. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. ISBN: 9780803930742
AliasesComponential Residue Analysis, Feature Residue Method, Distinctive-Feature Analysis of Kin Terms, Kin-Term Componential AnalysisFree Lists, Free-List Task, Free Recall Listing, Freelisting
Related44
SummaryResidue analysis is a componential, formal-semantic technique for defining the categories named by kinship terms. Each kin term is treated as a bundle of distinctive features — such as sex of relative, generation, and lineality — and the analyst seeks the minimal set of features that exactly picks out the genealogical positions the term covers. The cases a candidate definition fails to account for form the residue, and competing feature definitions are tested by which leaves the smallest, most principled residual. The method makes the implicit logic of a kin-term system explicit and falsifiable.Free listing is a foundational elicitation technique in cognitive anthropology in which informants are asked to name, in any order, all the items they can think of that belong to a cultural domain — for example 'all the kinds of fruit' or 'all the things that can give you a cold.' Aggregating these lists reveals both the content of the domain (which items belong) and the salience of each item (how culturally central it is), inferred from how frequently and how early it is mentioned.
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ScholarGateCompare methods: Residue Analysis (Kinship Terminology) · Free Listing. Retrieved 2026-06-24 from https://scholargate.app/en/compare