Componential Analysis (Ethnographic)

Ethnographic componential analysis is the analytic step that specifies the meaning of folk terms by laying out the distinctive attributes — the components — that distinguish each term from the others in the same contrast set. Rooted in the ethnoscience study of kinship terminologies and systematized within Spradley's Developmental Research Sequence, it builds a paradigm: a grid of terms against the dimensions of contrast that defines exactly what makes, say, an 'uncle' different from a 'cousin' in a given culture's own logic.