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
 Vernacular Architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction
which use locally available resources to address local needs.
 Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental,
cultural and historical context in which it exists.
 It has often been dismissed as crude and unrefined, but also has proponents
who highlight its importance in current design
 Vernacular architecture can perhaps be defined as architecture born out of
local building materials and technologies, an architecture that is climate-
responsive and a reflection of the customs and lifestyles of a community.
 It is different from traditional architecture in that contemporary architecture
can also be “vernacular” if it is generated from an understanding of local
materials and indigenous methods of building.
 “Traditional” architecture must necessarily belong to the past as it bears within
it traditional values of living and building.
 Vernacular does not aim at good aesthetics, it aims at comfort and in its use of
natural materials to achieve that comfort, it comes about to be also an
aesthetically sound architecture.
ORIGIN OF VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE
 Building first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (shelter, security,
worship, etc.) and means (available building materials and attendant skills).
 As human cultures developed and knowledge began to be formalized through
oral traditions and practices, building became a craft, and "architecture" is the
name given to the most highly formalized and respected versions of that craft.
 It is widely assumed that architectural success was the product of a process of
trial and error, with progressively less trial and more replication as the results
of the process proved increasingly satisfactory. What is termed vernacular
architecture continues to be produced in many parts of the world
DEFINITION
 Vernacular refers to language use particular to a time, place or group. In
architecture,
 It refers to that type of architecture which is indigenous to a specific time or
place (not imported or copied from elsewhere).
 It is most often applied to residential buildings. – Paul Oliver - ( Author of
Encyclopedia of World Architecture)
 Oliver also offers the following simple definition of vernacular architecture –
“the architecture of the people, and by the people, for the people”.
 F.L Wright described vernacular architecture as: Folk building growing in
response to actual needs, fitted into environment by people who knew no better
than to fit them with native feeling.
 Developing concepts and innovative technologies for an Energy Conscious and
comfortable Built Environment with reference to residential buildings through
the study of vernacular buildings
AIM
 This subject aims to explore and assess passive solar design techniques that
promote high thermal comfort in vernacular houses of the state of tamilnadu in
India.
 The study of these houses provides useful insights for designing energy efficient
houses that provide thermally comfortable conditions.
 An analysis of these houses in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra & India provides a
context for the field research.
OBJECTIVES
 To appreciate how design with climate is effectively conducted in vernacular
architecture.
 The study of these houses provides useful insights for designing energy efficient
houses that provide thermally comfortable conditions
  To achieve the source of information and inspiration from the vernacular
architecture for future built environment.
 To study on the importance of vernacular architecture studies now and
throughout the twenty-first century, not as a study of past traditions, but as a
contribution to new methods, solutions and achievements for the future built
environment’.
 To identify the way in which vernacular architecture can contribute to the
future of the built environment, through education, as a model for sustainable
design
 This subject intends to seek ways to document the traditional vernacular
principles to promote a sustainable community
WHAT TO STUDY
 Green concepts in vernacular buildings
 Planning aspects
 Spatial organisation
 Materials
 Orientation
 Treatment
 Colors
 Adaptability, Functionality, Aesthetic Quality, Climatic control
 Theories and principles of vernacular architecture
 Influence of climate
 Geographical features
 Vernacular architecture in different regions
 Vernacular style
 Evolution of form
 Construction materials
 Techniques of regional architecture.
  The relationship of groups and individuals in a settlement, the local materials
available, the skills of the artisans, the technology available and the climatic
conditions of the region determine the resultant forms and building typologies.
NEED FOR THE STUDY-WHY
 The vernacular architecture of the past was based on certain principles of
design
 It is based on knowledge of traditional practices and techniques.
 It is usually self-built.
 It reveals a high regard for craftsmanship and quality.
 It is easy to learn and understand
 They are made of predominantly local materials.
 They are ecologically apt, that is why they fit in well with local climate,
flora, fauna and ways of life.
 The purpose of the study is to discover potential strategies for
contemporary buildings that passively promote thermal comfort in these
buildings, thereby reducing the need for external energy inputs and
increasing the quality of life for occupants.
 This research intends to seek ways to document the traditional
vernacular principles to promote a sustainable community.
 Last but not least, the study intends to test the assumption that
vernacular houses of Tamilnadu have high thermal comfort levels
without using any mechanical means.
 Most of the buildings which is constructed today had not taken in to
account of the green concepts used in traditional buildings.
 There is a need for studying the green concepts used in vernacular
buildings and adopting the same in our design.
DIFF. BETWEEN VERNACULAR AND TRADITIONAL
 The term is not to be confused with so-called "traditional" architecture,
though there are links between the two.
 Vernacular architecture may, through time, be adopted and refined into
culturally accepted solutions, but only through repetition may it become
"traditional.

example, which would not be included usually in the rubric of
"vernacular."
VERNACULAR ARCHITECT
 In 1946, the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy was appointed to design the town
of new Gourna near Luxor.
 Having studied traditional Nubian settlements and technologies, he
incorporated the traditional mud brick vaults of the Nubian settlements in his
designs.
 It is the first recorded attempt by an architect to address the social and
environmental requirements of building users by adopting the methods and
forms of the vernacular
Town of Luxor
 Desert vernacular architecture , Egypt

Traditional ways of building and craftsmanship using local materials that are about
to vanish
Desert vernacular Architecture
 People in traditional vernacular desert cultures knew how to make the
buildings they need.
 Inhabitants integrate materials, climate, other physical constraints and cultural
practice into architectural forms that meet the needs of individuals and
groups. (Crouch, 2001)
 This research tried to bond the fracture that occurs between traditional desert
vernacular architecture that proved to be more efficient with inhabitants'
aspiration for modern life facilities.
Aranya Housing, Indore, by BV Doshi. Village in Spiti

WHERE
 Study of vernacular buildings in INDIA
 Chettinadu Architecture
 Nalukettu Houses in Kerala
 the igloo of Eskimo.
 A toda tribal hut -

 A village hut in west bengal

 House in agumbe
 House with veranda in ettaiyapuram

 Traditional house in manali

  The local church in Norway. Very nice Vernacular Architecture

A fisherman village in the south of Thailand.

CONTEMPORARY VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE

 How architects are now interpreting vernacular architecture is changing: it
is not simply about reproducing cute details from the past.
 New technology is capable of helping us to solve housing problems around
the world, but technology itself is culture neutral; so to apply these
 technologies successfully, the technology has to be humanized by taking into
account local traditions, culture, economy and work practices.
 I think this is where the Modernist International Style failed and where a
Modern Vernacular might succeed.
Stone and clay houses in rural Nepal

IMPORTANCE AND FACTORS DETERMINING THE CHARACTER OF

VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE
 Vernacular architecture is influenced by a great range of different aspects of
human behavior and environment, leading to differing building forms for
almost every different context
 Climate
 Religion
 Community
 Geographical
 Socio economic considerations
 Culture
 Local environment and materials
  Construction techniques
CLIMATE
 One of the most significant influences on vernacular architecture is the macro
climate of the area in which the building is constructed.
 Buildings in cold climates invariably have high thermal mass or significant
amounts of insulation.
 They are usually sealed in order to prevent heat loss, and openings such as
windows tend to be small or non-existent.
 Buildings in warm climates, by contrast, tend to be constructed of lighter
materials and to allow significant cross-ventilation through openings in the
fabric of the building.
 Buildings for a continental climate must be able to cope with significant
variations in temperature, and may even be altered by their occupants
according to the seasons.
 Buildings take different forms depending on precipitation levels in the region -
leading to dwellings on stilts in many regions with frequent flooding or rainy
monsoon seasons.
 Flat roofs are rare in areas with high levels of precipitation. Similarly, areas
with high winds will lead to specialized buildings able to cope with them, and
buildings will be oriented to present minimal area to the direction of
prevailing winds.
 Climatic influences on vernacular architecture are substantial and can be
extremely complex.
 Mediterranean vernacular, and that of much of the Middle East, often
includes a courtyard with a fountain or pond; air cooled by water mist and
evaporation is drawn through the building by the natural ventilation set up by
the building form.
  Similarly, Northern African vernacular often has very high thermal mass and
small windows to keep the occupants cool, and in many cases also includes
chimneys, not for fires but to draw air through the internal spaces. Such
specialisations are not designed, but learnt by trial and error over generations
of building construction, often existing long before the scientific theories
which explain why they work.
CULTURE
 The way of life of building occupants, and the way they use their shelters, is of
great influence on building forms. The size of family units, who shares which
spaces, how food is prepared and eaten, how people interact and many other
cultural considerations will affect the layout and size of dwellings.
 For example, the family units of several East African tribes live in family
compounds, surrounded by marked boundaries, in which separate single-
roomed dwellings are built to house different members of the family.
 In polygamous tribes there may be separate dwellings for different wives, and
more again for sons who are too old to share space with the women of the
family.
 Social interaction within the family is governed by, and privacy is provided by,
the separation between the structures in which family members live. By
contrast, in Western Europe, such separation is accomplished inside one
dwelling, by dividing the building into separate rooms.
 Culture also has a great influence on the appearance of vernacular buildings,
as occupants often decorate buildings in accordance with local customs and
beliefs.
 
APPROACHES AND CONCEPTS
 Aesthetical approach
 Anthropological approach
 Architectural approach
 Geographical approach
 Spatial approach
 Ecological approach
 Behavioral approach
 developmental approach
AESTHETIC APPROACH
 Two distinct approaches to architecture can be termed as aesthetic in one the
ethnographic – the efforts are to understand the aesthetic dimensions in the
culture of the builders and uses of traditional architecture.
 The goal is to create a more complete view of architectural characters and
experience by balancing utilitarian interpretations the produced buildings on
the one hand to shelter or , on the other, to symbols with social consequences.
 The result is the inclusion of architecture along with other material culture
with in comprehensive accounts of particular people in particular times and
places.
 In the other approach- the responsive – the effort is to select the neglected
buildings and to bring them to the circle of considerations.
 The goal is to widen the architectural appreciation of the spectator. The result
is the use of alien architectural concerns to stabilize the observer’s tradition.
 ETHNOGRAPHIC – to understand the aesthetic dimensions in the culture of the
builders and users of traditional architecture
 The responsive – the effort is to select neglected buildings and to bring them in
to the circle of consideration.
 Color
  Scale
 Proportion etc
 Rhythm
 Harmony
 The idea of aesthetic
 Affective aspect of communication
 Enlivens feeling, exciting the pleasure of the senses.
 Architectural communications – divided in to utilitarian and aesthetic
components.
 Utilitarian – bodily work, provide shelter, cultural work
 Aesthetically – its appearance and occupation contain aesthetic potential,
historical or religious
 aesthetical - concerning or characterized by an appreciation of beauty or good
taste; "the aesthetic faculties"; "an aesthetic person"; "aesthetic feeling";
 Ideas of quality and value
 Study of aesthetic of building from within the cultures that produce them
EXPRESSION
Expression- Ulster farm house – Ireland

 Expressive characters in buildings

  Ornamentation/ decoration- artistic expression
 Ex . Indian temples and Nubian houses
 English parish churches remained constant for a millennium while the
decoration around the openings and the eaves shifted in time to signal the
changes in the style
 Exs. - Ireland and turkey
 Plain exterior – utility
 Interior – lavished with color, texture and pattern, framed pictures on the
walls, flowers in the windows, shelves laden with gleaming metal and
ceramics.
 Decoration/ ornamentation – artistic expression.
 Ireland and turkey houses – plain exterior – utility
 Interior – color, texture, pattern, exhibits of ornamental objects, framed
pictures on the walls, flowers in the windows, shelves laden with gleaming
metal and ceramics

Japanese tea house- technology and form

 Aesthetics – technology and form
  The artful is not confined to the display of scroll and a flower vase in the
alcove but extends to the size of the room, its height , the dimensions of its
openings, and the plain, carefully crafted surfaces of the floor, the walls and
the utensils.
RESPONSE
 Observations and interviews how people feel about the buildings they see and
use.
 Interpretations
 Conservation
 Consumption – builders are appreciated entirely in accord with the observers
structure of value, no effort to study the builders intentions.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH
 Anthropology is the branch of science which deals with the study of culture or
a society
 Interest in vernacular architecture was mainly focused on
 Documentation
 Classification of traditional houses
 The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and
cultural development of humans.
 Family system
 Life style
 Customs and attitudes
 Economic activity
 Caste
 Society and community
 Religion and mythology
 Hodological space
 Rituals and ceremonies
  Symbolism
 Role of men and women
 Buildings as cultural artifacts reveal the relationship of dwellings to family,
social structure and more
 But now anthropology deals with functionalism – the leading paradigm in
anthropological fieldwork was more interested in principles of social
organisms than in decoration
 More programmatic approaches to an anthropological study of vernacular
architecture were being developed
 In investigation the influence of physical and social factors such as
 Climatologically
 Ecological conditions
 Available materials
 Technological knowledge
 Local form of economy - The actual impact of the houses depends on
local perceptions – what is considered to be basic need by a given
society
 The limits impact of physical and economic conditions leads on to the
influence of socio cultural factors
 Built forms are closely interrelated with behavioral patterns and cultural
values
 Another cultural influence on the form of a building can originate in symbolic
conceptions
 Notions of the right order of relationship within the social and cosmic universe
can – play an active role in the building of a house - determine the manner of
execution of details in its construction
 In most traditional societies the home is mans most important creation. It
creates space within space and so on
 Main door should be placed in the east allowing the entrance of starlight
which is the man’s ‘the lamp of the outside’
 In 1970’s the concept of house has attained additional significance in
anthropological research.
  In view of all the various ways in which both architects and anthropologists
have begun to discover vernacular architecture as a promising field of study.
 Architects especially from developing counties increasingly aware of
 Values of old craftsmanship
 Riches of their cultural heritage
 The construction of a building in accordance with cosmological notions
requires good importance to be attached which would not come to force in
any conventional drawing.
 It would be the anthropologist’s task to point out the importance of making it
visible
ARCHITECTURAL APPROACH
INTRO:
 Technological and organizational principles and bring techniques of analysis
to vernacular buildings
 Vernacular architecture has had significant and continuing influence on
architectural practice throughout its history
 Practicing architects have been influenced by vernacular architecture through
direct sensory experiences incorporated in to their aesthetic sensibilities
 The influence of research on practice has taken many forms, as a result of the
many approaches used by architects to study and conduct research on
vernacular architecture
 The types of architecture derived from vernacular sources can be broadly
classified as follows
 Architecture as an iconic picturesque evocation of symbolic
identity
 Architecture as determined by climate, material or function
 Architecture as the embodiment of experimental emotional
sensory and spiritual characters
ICONIC EVOCATION OF SYMBOLIC IDENTITY:
  .Architects whose work is an iconic and pictresque evocation of symbolic
identity often share assumptions with folklorists and preservationists who view
the vernacular architecture in terms of regional types
 These types are seen as pure and wholesome and are contrasted with imported
architectures which are bought of as unsuited to local needs, conditions,
identity
 The focus of research based on these assumptions is to discover locally derived
pure forms without impurities of distant influences
 A pictresque archetype of the vernacular is constructed through rigorous
categorization of a few aspects of a buildings such as the plan and most
common features of the elevation, decorative details or shape of the openings
 Scholarly documention identifies details which act as symbols which
reproduced and which lend authenticity to a new architecture
 The creation of local identity through the architectural evocation of the
vernacular has at times served a variety of social goals
 Regional architecture typologies were constructed i n the belief of that
vernacular architecture reflects the character and soul of a group people
 In the last decades of the 20th century, pictures interpretation of the vernacular
have occurred in many parts of the world
CLIMATIC, MATERIAL AND FUNCTIONAL ASPECT:
 Vernacular architecure’s aesthetic success was presumed to be the result of
superbly rational response to locally available materials, climate and
requirements to use.
 Modernist architects approach vernacular architecture focused only on those
aspects of which supported idealogical positions.
 They concluded vernacular architecture as –
 Severly utilatarian in its use of matrials and technology
 Functional in its adaptation to climate, accomodation of activities and
utilization of site
 Beautiful in its sculptural expressions of mass and volume as a result
of manipulating the plan and section to accommodate users needs.
  F.l. wright describes vernacular architecure as folk buildings growing in
response to actual needs, fitted into environment by people who knew no
better than to fit them to it with native feeling
 Modern architects looked for and found simplicity of form in vernacular
architecure, the experimental approach focussed on the complicity of hybrid
forms that occurs inspite of the constraints of similar materials and climate
 The forms they looked for and found in vernacular architecture produced
sensory delight and interest and spiritually uplifting
 The experimental approach to the vernacular retain many qualities and design
principles of modernist architecure such as –
 Open planning
 Non – symmetrical composition
 Complete spatial articulation in plan
 The use of modern materials and construction methods
 The goal of experimental approach is to show the quality of habitation,
to create places where inhabitants will feel at home
 The qualities that show the art of dwelling can be learned from
vernaclular architecture without mimicking vernacular prototypes
 The experiential approach to vernacular architecture requires an
interpretation of vernacular through the poetic sensibility of the
architect

BEHAVIORAL APPROACH
 Environment – behavior study – in relation to buildings and their personal and
community rural or urban settings .
 Understanding of the individual and how the building and its environment are
mentally mapped.
 It focuses on the behavioural patterns in relation to buildings and their
personal and community in rural and urban settings
TYPES:
 Behaviours involved in creating vernacular environment as a
process, and as a product of vernacular environment
 The behaviour pattern occuring within the environment as a
product
CONSERVATIONIST
 Protection and preservation of the fabric of old vernacular buildings.
DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH
 Looks to the future , evaluating the potential of traditional building to meet
world housing problems and the economic or technical support that may be
needed
 Development is expressed in –
 Economic growth
 Jobs
 Better shelter
 Health
 Ecological sustainability
 Development is the process of achieving above all being and the product
which comes out by achieving the above well beings.
 It views vernacular architecture as part of one aspect of development such that
better shelter, settlement built environment among several others
 A developmetal approach pose certain questions
 How is vernacular influenced by it?
 How does it influence border developmental process?
 How does it help achieve both a better built environments and
broader well being?
 Views of vernacular architecture are influenced not only by local conditions
and the specific characteristics of the vernacular but also the emphasizing
economic growth through advanced technological practices
 Using the characteristics of vernacular architecture to achieve better shelter
and settlement and broader development objectives
  It uses and develops local cultural and material resources
 It is small scale technology and inexpensive
 It expresses the values and needs of the local especially poorer,
communities and not least to survive
 It is continuity with change remaining rooted in the past and the local
while incorporating the new and the external to meet contemporary
needs
 These characteristics can make a developmental vernular cost effective
and therefore econimicaclly visible, labour intensive and therefore job
creating, local resource using and therefore local income generating
renewable resource using and therefore ecologically sound
USES OF VERNACULAR

 To help socio-economic and physical decline caused by broader socio

economic change
 To help meet the changing needs and rising aspirations of the communities
experiencing rapid improvements in their socio-economic conditions
 Developmental changes can result in the socio-economic and physical
decline of the vernacular architecture in particular areas like environmental
degradation such as deforestation and natural disasters such as earthquakes
 Environmental degradation has most commonly affected the vernacular
through eroding its organic materials resource base.
 For example timber and bamboo have become scarce as a result of
deforestation
 Vernacular methods using these materials have been replaced with
corrugated iron sheets and steel that bear little relation to the vernacular
 The vernacular without adequate examination has dismissed has unsafe and
traditional methods for making buildings disaster- resistant have fallen into
disuse.
 A developmental approach examines how a vernacular buildings can be
modified, using improved traditional methods to make them more disaster
resistant
ECOLOGICAL APPROACH
 Habitat as a part of total environmental systems , both natural and nurtured.
 Science of the habitat
 It focuses on the habitat as part of the total environmental systems both natural
and nurtured ‘science of the habitat’
 Vernacular settlements and buildings reflect the consious and unconsious
know how of the local craftsman and the inhabitants
FOLKLORISTIC APPROACH
 Buildings as comparable with other folk artefacts, and with the craft skills,
customs and beliefs
GEOGRAPHICAL APPROACH
 While many approaches are concentrated on localized traditions, the
geographical approach considers the pattern of settlement and building in
their environmental, topographical , spatial economic locations at scales
ranging from the regional to continental
 Conveys the pattern of settlement, their environment, topographical, spacio
economic, locations ranging from region to continent
INTRO:
 A fundamental concern of all geographers is to study the abstract space and
humanized places, geographers highlight the complex interactions between
human and the physical environment they encounter and subsequently
transfrom in to cultural forms and landscapes
 Geography provides information’s about mathematical, socioeconomic,
behavioural and experimental space
 Geographers helped to give shape and to our understanding of the vernacular
architecture as the components of cultural landscapes
 In the end of the 19th and 20th century geographers examined the built
environment focused on identifying, classifying and naming various types of
rural settlements, notably dispersed and nucleated villages.
  Although such emphasis was usually on the ensemble of dwellings and other
building types/forms within villages as well as the spatial distribution of rural
settlements, individual researchers usually presented textual informations that
suggests the diversity of both rural and urban settlements
THE GEOGRAPHER’S RESEARCH:
 The display of information on maps is a concern of geographers, maps not only
are graphic visual statements that record observations but are also effective
analytical devices that facilitate understanding of the spatial ordering of
reality.
 Maps at various scales assist in easing out explanations for the spatial patterns
and relationships of vernacular buildings by geographers that do not utilize
maps to convey important information that would otherwise not be obvious
TOPOGRAPHY:
 The geographers survey the topography of the land and prepare the
topographical maps to locate different landmarks on the surface of the earth
and different types of soils, the vegetation and the raw materials obtained from
the nature to the people who built their houses.
 The data collected by the geographers about the soil gives a clear idea about
the vegetation and the approaches of the people to establish their own
territories
 There is typically much probing of the reflexing intraction of humans with the
natural environment, not only the constraints and opportunites provided by
climate and soils but also the role of cultural values and technologies in the
fashioning and human habits
 The study of vernacular buildings by geographers increasingly informs and is
informed by perspectives and work of architectural historians, folklorist,
archaeologists, anthropologists and social historians
HISTORICAL APPROACH
 Studies the building diachronically from its construction , examining the
forces that have acted upon it, using documentary records where obtainable
RECORDING AND DOCUMENTATION
  The systematic recording of building form , materials and details
 Preservation
 Photographs
 Architectural drawing

Photographic record-Worms eye isometric projection of a slovakian roman

catholic church

Front elevation, side elevation , longitudinal section and floor plan of a raised
granary – leon – spain
Fully rendered axonometric of a tikolor mosque (alwar) Senegal, with cut away to
show structure and interior

SPATIAL APPROACH
 Organisation and articulation of volumes and spaces
 The analysis of which being an architectural preoccupation relative to the
organization and articulation of spaces and volumes
 Approach – one is to start from the observation of buildings and trace back to
the experience of the builders
 Other is to start from the living experience of built form and space
and to understand how te buildings were concived and created
DIMENSIONS:
 Orientation is the inspiration of the built area within the cosmic
order
 Dimension indicates directons such as mecca or jeruselam
 Laterality refers to the distribution of the foci on the right and left
hand according to the main direction of the built spacee
  Frontality is the relation between the front and rear side of the
built space
 Centrally is the central hearth of the house
 Axis and symmetry are permanent for some cultures

Plan of a mongol yurt showing spatial differentiation including altar, male and
female quadrants

FOLKLORISTICS
 Building as compared with other folk artefacts, with craftskills, customs and
beliefs
 Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore.
 The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik
to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study,
much as language is distinguished from linguistics.
  The adjective "folkloristic" for an academically oriented study is also
distinguished from "folkloric" for material having the character of folklore or
tradition.
 In scholarly usage, folkloristics represents an emphasis on the contemporary
social aspects of expressive culture, in contrast to the more literary-historical
study of texts.
 Scholars specializing in folkloristics are known as folklorists.

CONTRIBUTION OF ALAN DUNDES

 Folklorist Alan Dundes (1934–2005) of the University of California at Berkeley
is often credited with promotion of folkloristics as a disciplinary term, with the
explanation that methodology should contextualize the material of the "lore"
within the sociology of the "folk."
 In contrast to a definition of folk as peasant or remote peoples, he applied what
he called a "modern" flexible social definition for folk as two or more persons
who share any trait in common and express their identity through traditions.
 With this expanded social definition also emerged a wider view of the material
of folklore characterized by their repetition and variation to include material,
written, and visual practices.
 Another implication of the term, according to Dundes, is that folkloristic work
is interpretative or scientific rather than descriptive or devoted solely to
collection.
 In 1978, Dundes published a collection of his essays as Essays in Folkloristics
and in the preface advocated for "folkloristics" as a preferred term for a
discipline devoted to the study of folklore.
 Four years earlier, Pentti Leino published an historical overview of one of the
important centers of comparative folklore studies as Finnish Folkloristics.
 In other international developments drawing attention to "folkloristics," the
University of Helsinki established a professorial chair in folkloristics, the
 University of Tartu created a department of folkloristics, and the Estonian
Literary Museum featured a department of folkloristics.
 In 1999, Dundes reiterated his case with the publication of International
Folkloristics, a compilation of foundational essays in the international study of
folklore, and an historical retrospective in "Folkloristics in the Twenty-First
Century" in the Journal of American Folklore (2005).
APPLICATION TO LITERARY AND TEXTUAL STUDY
 Efforts have been made by some folklorists to apply folkloristic approaches
concerned with context and practice to literary and textual work, so as not to
limit folkloristics to ethnographic or sociological perspectives (Examples are
Simon Bronner's "Historical Methodology in Folkloristics" in 1982 and Sandra
Stahl Dolby's publication of Literary Folkloristics and the Personal Narrative in
1988).
 Some scholars still prefer "folklore studies" or "folklife research" to indicate the
interdisciplinary mix of humanistic and social science approaches, but
folkloristics maintains wide currency in academic circles.
 In 1995, a major introductory textbook was written by American folklorists
Robert A. Georges and Michael Owen Jones as Folkloristics: An Introduction.
 The Journal of Indian Folkloristics and International Folkloristics are serials
that have had folkloristics in its masthead since 1978.