4. SEMANTICS OF THE HEART
An ethnosemantic (or ethnoscientific) analysis of disease categories in popular medicine in Maragheh would produce a hierarchically ordered taxonomy qf categories, defined by their boundaries, whose meanings are essentially indepen dent of their context of use. Methodologically, ethnoscience rigorously standardizes the context of elicitation, thus producing an 'analytic' domain not necessarily congruent with the meaning of a category as used in typical communicative contexts (cf. Schneider 1965). Such analysis directs our attention away from the social and symbolic context which gives an illness category its distinctive semantic configuration. Heart distress is indeed one element of the more inclusive category narahati , 'distress', and ethnoscientific analysis can help elicit the formal, symptomatic distinctions between, for example, 'heart distress' and 'fright'. But an alternative semantic analysis is necessary if we are to explore the question "What do Mrs. Z. and Mrs. B. mean when they say 'my heart is distressed'?", if we are to understand what it means to have heart distress in Maragheh (or a hea rt attack in Peoria).
The work of Turner, Izutsu, and Fox suggests a model of semantic analysis that is an important alternative to the ethnoscience model. Each contends that a system of discourse has certain symbols which gather their power and meaning by linking together a set or field of disparate symbols and condensing them into a simple image which can "invoke a nexus of symbolic associations" (Fox 1975:119). [Turner calls these "dominant ritual symbols" (1967:30); Izutsu, "focus-words" (1964:29); Fox, "core terms" (1975: 111).] These symbols attain their depth not through their taxonomic generality but through their quality of
polysemy - "the property of a symbol to relate to a multiple range of other symbols" (Fox 1975:119). Such core symbols join together in a polysemic relationship a network of heterogeneous symbols that "cross-cut conventional grammatical categories" (Fox 1975:110). "Their very generality enables them to bracket together the most diverse ideas and phenomena" (Turner 1967:28). Understood subjectively, these symbols or images condense not merely a field of symbols, but a whole 'syndrome of experiences', as Lienhardt shows for the Dinka divinities (Lienhardt 1961:161). "As images, the Powers contract whole fields of direct experience and represent their fundamental nature each by a single term" (Lienhardt 1961:169). Methodologically, then , tracing out these networks of symbols and experiences should provide "a glimpse of the structuring of the cultural code . . ."(Fox 1975:111), yielding insight into the meaning of the most important elements in any semantic domain.