Folkloristics (also Laography) is the formal, academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. The term itself derives from the nineteenth-century German designation folkloristik (i.e., folklore). Ultimately, the term folkloristics is used to distinguish between the materials studied, folklore, and the study of folklore, folkloristics. In scholarly usage, folkloristics represents an emphasis on the contemporary, social aspects of expressive culture, in contrast to the more literary or historical study of cultural texts.