The cultural metaphoric method: description, analysis and critique (Martin Gannon)

This article describes, analyzes and critiques the cultural metaphoric method. It also compares briefly the strengths and weaknesses of the bi-polar or dimensional method and the cultural metaphoric method. A cultural metaphor is any activity, phenomenon or institution which all or most members of an ethnic or national culture consider important and with which they identify closely, both intellectually and emotionally (Gannon, 2004; Gannon and Pillai, 2009). Each cultural metaphor is derived inductively using grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; see also Gannon and Audia, 2000). The article begins with a description of grounded theory, followed by a description of the cultural metaphoric method, an analysis of it and a critique addressing some major issues. The focus of this article is on national cultures, although the method can be used to provide insight into ethnic cultures within and across nations and clusters of national cultures. Keywords: cultural metaphor – emic-etic distinction – testing of cultural metaphors.