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rethinking Leach's structural analysis of color and instructional categories in traffic control signals 1
Author(s) -
GAMST FREDERICK C.
Publication year - 1975
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1975.2.2.02a00060
Subject(s) - structuralism (philosophy of science) , control (management) , colored , sociology , traffic signal , linguistics , epistemology , archaeology , history , computer science , anthropology , philosophy , artificial intelligence , real time computing
This is a critique of Edmund Leach's structural analysis of color and related instructional categories in the railway signals of English‐speaking peoples and in the highway signals which have been derived from them. Leach's analysis of the relationship between culture and nature in terms of the relationship between colored traffic control signals and the spectrum of visible light is not supported by industrial fieldwork or documentary analysis. This critique has important implications for the assessment of French structuralism and other ethnological theory.