I analyze how social/mental/cognitive representations operate from the individual to society and backwards. My main field is linguistics, discourse analysis. Form my point of view I'd use social representations as units. That could provide the construction of the emic perspective.

Dear Jean, in the context of learning resources recommendation, an approach to modeling some cultural aspects by means of ontologies can be seen in this paper: 

Motz et al. Applying ontologies to educational resources retrieval driven by cultural aspects.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228888813_Applying_ontologies_to_educational_resources_retrieval_driven_by_cultural_aspects

Best, Ana

Article Applying ontologies to educational resources retrieval drive...

 Hello, 

Thank for answering me, but it is not what I am looking for. The ontology described in this paper falls like many models (cf: Hofstede and GLOBE) in the description of "cultural aspects". From my point of view, such models are closer to ethnologic work than ethnographic work, as conceptions are classified using some kind of criteria.

"Ethnographers must discover the organizing principles of a culture--the semantic world of the natives--while avoiding the imposition of their own semantic categories on what they perceive." (Corsaro, 1990) (see: http://www.indiana.edu/~socpsy/papers/ethnog/ethnography.htm)

What I want is to find methdologies/techniques/approaches to build cultural models representing such semantic categories in cultural anthropology. To provide further information about what I seek, I will show you the results of a little experiment I conducted on "pro-life" and "pro-choice" about abortion. You can observe two distinct conceptions of abortion from their respective semantic networks.  

Again, thank for your answers.

(I repeat that I am from computer sciences, so if I am wrong somewhere, thank you to correct me.)

I would advise u to read Maurice Godélier' works. U'll find a lot of topics which may be of help to u.

Hello,

Thank for your answer. I tried to find some good material on Google about Godelier's work, but I was not successfull. Do you have any reference in mind to give me a good lead to follow ?

Kind regards,

Mon cher Jean, l'oeuvre le plus important de M. Godelier à mon avis est METAMORPHOSES DE LA PARENTE chez Flammarion, allez vite l'acheter!

Hello Jean,

If your interest in in lexical semantics and cultural models, you might want to check out my recent chapter "Situating Cultural Models in History and Cognition," IN Approaches to Language, Culture,and Cognition, Masataka Yamaguchi, Dennis Tay, and Benjamin Blount, eds. London: Palgrave Macmillan.  You might also want to take a look at Cultural Models: Genesis, Methods, and Experiences., Biovanni Bennardo & Victor C. De Munck, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kind regards,

  Ben Blount

Hi Jean,

One body of work you might find of interest is by Cliff Goddard and Anna Wierzbicka who formulate cultural models through a Natural Semantic Metalanguage. The idea is to use simple words for complex cultural views so to make them more readily available in multiple languages. You might also find my work on Cultural Discourse of interest as an etic model for discovering mic, cultural views. Best wishes,

Donal Carbaugh

Chapter Cultural Discourse Analysis: Pragmatics of Social Interaction

Jean,

If you would like to see an application of my lexical/cognition approach, you might check out: 

Blount, Benjamin, Steven Jacob, Priscilla Weeks, and Michael Jepson, 2015. Testing Cognitive Ethnography: Mixed-Methods in Developing Indicators of Well-Being in Fishing Communities. Human Organization 74(1):1-15 

Best, Ben

Hello Ben and Donal,

Thanks so much for your answers.

From what I read, I feel like "Cultural Models: Genesis, Methods, and Experiences" is exactly what I'm looking for. I will try to get it as soon as possible.

Kind regards,