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Ethel M. Albert
Ethel M. Albert (28 March 1918 – October 1989) was an American ethnologist. Albert conducted ethnological research related to speech, values, and ethics, employing a cross-cultural approach studying different social classes, ethnic groups, and locations. Albert conducted research with the Navajo (Diné) in the American southwest and the Rundi people in the Republic of Burundi. Albert is most well known among late twentieth-century American semiotics researchers for reviving semiotics in the American university curriculum.
Ethel Mary Albert was born in New Britain, Connecticut, on March 28, 1918, to Zundel and Dorothy (Eisenstadt) Sokolsky. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College in 1942 and a Master of Arts from Columbia University in 1947. Albert received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin in 1949. Albert taught philosophy at Brooklyn College from 1946 to 1947 while pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University. After receiving her PhD in 1949, Albert taught philosophy at Syracuse University from 1949 to 1952.
Hungarian semiotician Thomas Albert Seboek described Albert as "by profession a cultural anthropologist, by avocation a self-taught semiotician, by employment then a research associate on Kluckhohn's staff." American anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn was a researcher of the Navajo (Diné) people at Harvard University and the author of Navaho Witchcraft (1944). Albert worked as a research associate at the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard University shortly before Kluckhohn's death in 1960. Albert's affiliation with Harvard was confirmed in her 1956 article, "The classification of values: a method and illustration," published in the American Anthropologist. Albert had moved to the University of California by 1964.
Albert developed a variety of research interests, including cross-cultural anthropological studies of values and speech, semiotics, and eventually later in her life, fatalism.
Albert's research focused on comparative ethnophilosophy and value systems in different Native American groups. In 1953, she became a research associate at the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard University, a position she held until 1955 while conducting fieldwork with the Navajo (Diné). Albert created a descriptive-analysis method for classifying values as specific parts of a value system, contributing her own data related to the Navajo Nation to a cross-cultural analysis of value systems among five communities in the American southwest (Navajo, Zuni, Spanish American, Texan, and Mormon). Albert utilized this value scheme to describe the value system of the Ramah Band of the Navajo Nation. Albert's research utilized field notes, protocols, life histories, and monographs for analysis and generalization of value categories. Many of these materials are now at the National Anthropological Archives.
Albert acknowledged the many confounding factors that challenge ethnophilosophical research. Albert noted that no individual can provide the content of an entire Navajo community's value system, as there are individual differences in viewpoint and changes in beliefs and values that occur over time. She also studied cultural changes relative to the American value system. Albert prevented her research from being overwhelmed by these variables by forming a "normal operating base" of the value system. This normal operative base provided a reference point for the discussion of differences in individual beliefs and behaviors. Albert actively identified what she called "focal values," which vary between different nations. Albert identified knowledge, familial life, material possessions, and health as focal values for Ramah Navajo. Albert studied Navajo ontology through Navajo myths, origin stories, songs, and rituals that she recorded during her fieldwork and discussed in her publications.
From 1955 to 1957, Albert was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship in the Overseas Africa Program to conduct an ethnographic study of the Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa people of Burundi. The Rundi are a people of the Republic of Burundi who speak Rundi, a Bantu language. Hundreds of speakers of the Rundi language live in Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Albert studied speech differences based on class, age, and sex groups among the Rundi people, studying Burundi speaking rules in different social circumstances [3]. Albert was especially interested in speech differences among women in the patrilineal Rundi society. In particular, Albert studied how the speech of Burundi women varied based on their social caste.
Albert studied speech training among boys and girls in the Burundi tribe, including how they compose amazina, or "praise poems," funeral orations, or rhetoric as opposed to girls who are taught to listen and repeat conversations. Albert showed that women of higher social castes were able to exert authority despite and somewhat because of their silence. Albert also studied Burundi speech rules related to petitioning a superior, formal or informal visiting, social ceremonies, rules of precedence and good speech manners, respect patterns and role relativism and orders of speaking based on social rank. Albert used texts and biographies from the Burundi for her research related to values like her work with the Navajo (Diné). Albert also studied different political behaviors among closely related countries, including between Ruanda and Urundi.
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Ethel M. Albert
Ethel M. Albert (28 March 1918 – October 1989) was an American ethnologist. Albert conducted ethnological research related to speech, values, and ethics, employing a cross-cultural approach studying different social classes, ethnic groups, and locations. Albert conducted research with the Navajo (Diné) in the American southwest and the Rundi people in the Republic of Burundi. Albert is most well known among late twentieth-century American semiotics researchers for reviving semiotics in the American university curriculum.
Ethel Mary Albert was born in New Britain, Connecticut, on March 28, 1918, to Zundel and Dorothy (Eisenstadt) Sokolsky. She received a Bachelor of Arts from Brooklyn College in 1942 and a Master of Arts from Columbia University in 1947. Albert received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin in 1949. Albert taught philosophy at Brooklyn College from 1946 to 1947 while pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University. After receiving her PhD in 1949, Albert taught philosophy at Syracuse University from 1949 to 1952.
Hungarian semiotician Thomas Albert Seboek described Albert as "by profession a cultural anthropologist, by avocation a self-taught semiotician, by employment then a research associate on Kluckhohn's staff." American anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn was a researcher of the Navajo (Diné) people at Harvard University and the author of Navaho Witchcraft (1944). Albert worked as a research associate at the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard University shortly before Kluckhohn's death in 1960. Albert's affiliation with Harvard was confirmed in her 1956 article, "The classification of values: a method and illustration," published in the American Anthropologist. Albert had moved to the University of California by 1964.
Albert developed a variety of research interests, including cross-cultural anthropological studies of values and speech, semiotics, and eventually later in her life, fatalism.
Albert's research focused on comparative ethnophilosophy and value systems in different Native American groups. In 1953, she became a research associate at the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard University, a position she held until 1955 while conducting fieldwork with the Navajo (Diné). Albert created a descriptive-analysis method for classifying values as specific parts of a value system, contributing her own data related to the Navajo Nation to a cross-cultural analysis of value systems among five communities in the American southwest (Navajo, Zuni, Spanish American, Texan, and Mormon). Albert utilized this value scheme to describe the value system of the Ramah Band of the Navajo Nation. Albert's research utilized field notes, protocols, life histories, and monographs for analysis and generalization of value categories. Many of these materials are now at the National Anthropological Archives.
Albert acknowledged the many confounding factors that challenge ethnophilosophical research. Albert noted that no individual can provide the content of an entire Navajo community's value system, as there are individual differences in viewpoint and changes in beliefs and values that occur over time. She also studied cultural changes relative to the American value system. Albert prevented her research from being overwhelmed by these variables by forming a "normal operating base" of the value system. This normal operative base provided a reference point for the discussion of differences in individual beliefs and behaviors. Albert actively identified what she called "focal values," which vary between different nations. Albert identified knowledge, familial life, material possessions, and health as focal values for Ramah Navajo. Albert studied Navajo ontology through Navajo myths, origin stories, songs, and rituals that she recorded during her fieldwork and discussed in her publications.
From 1955 to 1957, Albert was awarded a Ford Foundation Fellowship in the Overseas Africa Program to conduct an ethnographic study of the Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa people of Burundi. The Rundi are a people of the Republic of Burundi who speak Rundi, a Bantu language. Hundreds of speakers of the Rundi language live in Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. Albert studied speech differences based on class, age, and sex groups among the Rundi people, studying Burundi speaking rules in different social circumstances [3]. Albert was especially interested in speech differences among women in the patrilineal Rundi society. In particular, Albert studied how the speech of Burundi women varied based on their social caste.
Albert studied speech training among boys and girls in the Burundi tribe, including how they compose amazina, or "praise poems," funeral orations, or rhetoric as opposed to girls who are taught to listen and repeat conversations. Albert showed that women of higher social castes were able to exert authority despite and somewhat because of their silence. Albert also studied Burundi speech rules related to petitioning a superior, formal or informal visiting, social ceremonies, rules of precedence and good speech manners, respect patterns and role relativism and orders of speaking based on social rank. Albert used texts and biographies from the Burundi for her research related to values like her work with the Navajo (Diné). Albert also studied different political behaviors among closely related countries, including between Ruanda and Urundi.
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