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Document Details :

Title: A Semantic Analysis of Terms for New Orleans Housetypes
Author(s): OLIVER, George , PARKER, Frank
Journal: Orbis
Volume: 34    Date: 1985-1987   
Pages: 84-115
DOI: 10.2143/ORB.34.0.2013008

Abstract :
New Orleans is a unique city for many reasons, not the least of which is the sheer variety and quantity of its architecture that has survived over its two-and-a-half century history. It is said that houses are second only to food as a topic of conversation in New Orleans. If the number of names for houses in New Orleans is any indication, it may have always been so. Tyler (1969) in het introduction to Cognitive Anthropology states that '... names are ... both an index to what is significant in the environment of some people, and a means of discovering how these people organise their perceptions of the environment'. It is said that Eskimos have many names for snow. One might say that what snow is to Eskimos, houses are to New Orleanians.

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