Editing Kenneth Lee Pike (section)

==Work==
Pike is best known for his distinction between the [[Emic and etic|''emic'' and the ''etic'']].  "Emic" (as in "[[phonemics]]") refers to the role of cultural and linguistic categories as understood from within the cultural or linguistic system that they are a part of, while "etic" (as in "[[phonetics]]") refers to the analytical study of those sounds grounded outside of the system itself. Pike argued that only native speakers are competent judges of emic descriptions, and are thus crucial in providing data for linguistic research, while investigators from outside the linguistic group apply scientific methods in the analysis of language, producing etic descriptions which are verifiable and reproducible.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Pike|first1=Kenneth L.|title=Language in Relations to a Unified Theory of Human Behavior|date=1967|publisher=The Hague: Mouton & Co.|pages=37–72|edition=Second Revised}}</ref> Pike himself carried out studies of indigenous languages in [[Australia]], [[Bolivia]], [[Ecuador]], [[Ghana]], [[Java (island)|Java]], [[Mexico]], [[Nepal]], [[New Guinea]], [[Nigeria]], the [[Philippines]], and [[Peru]].

Pike developed his theory of ''[[tagmemics]]'' to help with the analysis of languages from [[Central America|Central]] and [[South America]], by identifying (using both [[Semantics|semantic]] and [[Syntax|syntactic]] elements) strings of linguistic elements capable of playing a number of different roles.

Pike's approach to the study of language put him outside the circle of the "generative" movement begun by [[Noam Chomsky]], a dominant linguist in the 20th century, since Pike believed that the structure of language should be studied in context, not just as single sentences, as seen in the title of his magnum opus, ''Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior'' (1967).

He became well known for his "[[Monolingual fieldwork|monolingual demonstrations]]." He would stand before an audience, with a large number of chalkboards. A speaker of a language unknown to him would be brought in to work with Pike.  Using gestures and objects, not asking questions in a language that the person might know, Pike would begin to analyze the language before the audience.