Abstract
This article examines the methodological and epistemological nature of the modelling of the social structure in social anthropology. For this purpose, the model of the segmentary lineage system, which was constructed by E. E. Evans-Pritchard in his study on the Nuer of the Southern Sudan, is dealt with as a case, for this is one of the most controversial models in social anthropology.
Basically, models are classified into two categories; the analytical model of social scientists and the folk model of native people. And the latter is further divided into the representational model which refers to actor's notion or “what they think” and the operational model which refers to actual social process or "what they do." After examining the work of Evans-Pritchard and othes, it is found that these distinctions of the model, which are indispensable for the study of social structure, are rather vague in the model of segmentary lineage system so it's sometimes difficult to clarify to what this model really refers. I then attempt to reconstruct this model so that its reference might become clear.
The conclusion reached is that this model undoubtedly refers to some field of the actual process as well as the actor's notion, though a further study is necessary in order to make clear the degree of reference to the whole social reality and the possibility of the use of other medels at the same time.
