3 - Processes of identification and the structure of categories

Summary

Introduction

I would like to begin this chapter by drawing a distinction between identification and classification. At one level, there is no difference between the two: both processes concern the allocation of an item to a (usually) named category, or the process by which an object is placed in a class. Both entail the matching of perceptual images, words and concepts [Ohnuki-Tierney, 1981: 453], and may operate equally in terms of unmodified sense data or their cultural representations. One logically presupposes the existence of the other [Colless, 1970: 252]. A pragmatic distinction can be made, however, in terms of the way in which Nuaulu informants assign observed animal specimens to terminal categories and the way in which categories are arranged into more inclusive groups. This is reflected linguistically in the difference between the statements:

x (an object) is a y

and

y is a kind of z

Both are relations of class inclusion but are distinguished in most languages, including Nuaulu. Thus the statement:

tekene rei mainase-nea (pointing to an animal)

that snake is a Pacific boa (Candoia carinata)

is one of identification, where the terminal -nea in this context denotes demonstrative emphasis; whereas the statement

mainase rei nita tekene oi

that Pacific boa is a type of snake too

is an abstract statement of classification.

Identifying animals in natural settings

The question as to what is a culturally appropriate identification is itself problematic. Why should the ethnographer accept one person's answer against another?