Early academic Orientalism defined and controlled its subject through comparative, evaluative vocabulary.

Evidence

Like many academic specialties in their early phases, modern Orientalism held its subject matter, which it defined, in a viselike grip which it did almost everything in its power to sustain. Thus a knowing vocabulary developed, and its functions, as much as its style, located the Orient in a comparative framework, of the sort employed and manipulated by Renan. Such comparatism is rarely descriptive; most often, it is both evaluative and expository. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 381

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines what comparatism means in Orientalist practice: rarely descriptive, always evaluative and expository.
• XREF: Connects to later readings on how expert discourse (Foucault’s power-knowledge) constructs and disciplines its object.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 381