268 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 188 



THE CONCEPT OF CROSS-CULTURAL ROLE 



LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION 



Linton (1936, p. 114) noted that— 



. . . the term role is used with a double significance. Every individual has a 

 series of roles deriving from the various patterns in which he participates and 

 at the same time a role, general, which represents the sum total of these roles 

 and determines what he does for his society and what he can expect from it. 



In practice anthropologists seem to have used the term at nearly every 

 level of abstraction without any very clear specification. A recent 

 theoretical study of acculturation (Summer Seminar on Accultura- 

 tion, 1954, p. 981) asserts that contact agencies "may adopt a complex 

 but limited number of roles," while a number of other writers (e.g., 

 Paul, 1953, pp. 431-434; Kennard and Macgregor, 1953, p. 837; Forde, 

 1953, pp. 859-861) apparently take tho, view that they have only a 

 single role. 



Throughout the present study the term "role" is employed only in 

 its most general sense, as applying to a single overall social position 

 and set of behaviors associated with Shonto Trading Post. In its 

 more specific connotations the term has been replaced by "function" 

 and "activity" respectively (cf. "A Note on Terminology," pp. 214r- 

 216). 



THE DEFINITION OF KOLE 



Role, according to regular anthropological usage, is the dynamic 

 aspect of status. Notwithstanding the extreme frequency with which 

 this definition has been reiterated (e.g., Linton, 1936, p. 114; Davis, 

 1942, p. 311 ; Gillm, 1948, p. 349 ; Hoebel, 1949, p. 288 ; Parsons, 1949, p. 

 43; Bennett and Tumin, 1952, p. 96), there is quite evidently no gen- 

 eral agreement as to whether it is actually meant in a structural or 

 in a processual sense. To some writers (e.g., Gillin, 1948, p. 349; 

 Bennett and Tumin, 1952, pp. 96-101) "the dynamic aspect of status" 

 consists of the behavior culturally expected of a person or agency 

 occupying any given status. The term "status" itself thereby becomes 

 no more than a label for a social position, all of whose behavioral 

 referants are subsumed under "role." The two terms are, ui this 

 sense, completely interchangeable, as when Davis (1949, p. 11) speaks 

 of "the dual role of the social scientist," Linton (1936, p. 480) de- 

 scribes "the warrior role," and Parsons (1949, p. 43) mentions "the 

 role of the surgeon." In referring to expected rather than observed 

 behavior, role cannot genuinely be classed as a dynamic concept. 



In spite of the usages quoted, however, the same writers have else- 

 where conceived of role as "the manner in which an individual 

 actually carries out the requirements of his position" (Davis, 1942, p. 

 311 ; see also Linton, 1936, p. 114, and Parsons, 1949, pp. 34, 43) . This 

 is obviously a very different matter from the way in which others 



