Passage Discussion

[accostjen]

In this passage, I have to admit I had a bit of glazed eyes reading through, but there are a few specific questions I have. In this passage the author seems to emphasize the role of women in Folklore so...

For #12 The question asks us to figure out what was assumed by early folklorists. Although I can see why A is correct, I couldn't eliminate D because of lines (13-15). How can I get past answer choice D?

For #13 I had the same issue, though this was a very different question. The question asks, "which one of the following is most analogous to the type of folklore studies produced before the 1970's?" In other words, we are looking for an answer choice where the "origin" of something is excluded from analysis.

A. Looks pretty good. Isolated culture creating implements, antrhopologists ignored how the people created the implements focusing only on the actual design.
but then there's D...
which looks at artifacts that reconstruct the life-style of a culture, but doesn't visit the site where those artifacts were created. (again site= origin)

How do you choose?

[demetri.blaisdell]

Let me see if I can run through these questions without too long a post:

#12

Careful with the details in evaluating (D). Lines 13-15 say that the early folklorists collected the folklore from women on a limited number of topics not that the women were not involved in transmitting folklore on other topics.

#13

I can see how you might be down to (A) and (D) at the end. The key to the old method (pre-1970s) is that they studied the writings and stories and ignored the people who wrote and created them (see lines 3-6 and lines 32-35). (A) gives us exactly that: anthropologists studying the tools but not how the people use them (like studying the text of the stories but not how the authors come up with them and perform them).

But what about (D)? (D) looks good at first, but there is nothing to tie the archaeological site to the people who made the object. The site is likely to be a hole in the ground. We want to hear about the people who designed or created the artifacts, not the place where they were found.

I hope this helps clear up some of your confusion about this difficult passage. Let me know if you have any more questions. Also, in the future could you please post questions about individual questions under the forum heading for that question? Thank you for helping us run a tight ship.

Demetri