ENGLISH

Tradition as Truth and Communication: A Cognitive Description of Traditional Discourse

By Pascal Boyer

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2006
ISBN
0521024668, 9780521374170, 9780521024662, 9780511521058, 0521374170
LCC
GN345.6 .B69 1990
Language
english
Format
DJVU
Filesize
994 kB (1018301 bytes)
Series
Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology 68
Edition
1
Pages
156\154
Topic
Education
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

Tradition is a central concept in the social sciences, but it is commonly treated as unproblematic. Dr. Boyer insists that social anthropology requires a theory of tradition, its constitution and transmission. He treats tradition "as a type of interaction which results in the repetition of certain communicative events," and therefore as a form of social action. Tradition as Truth and Communication deals particularly with oral communication and focuses on the privileged role of licensed speakers and the ritual contexts in which certain aspects of tradition are characteristically transmitted. Drawing on cognitive psychology, Dr. Boyer proposes a set of general hypotheses to be tested by ethnographic field research. He has opened up an important new field for investigation within social anthropology.

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