«Английский язык»

II. Use them in your description of some sociological survey.
III. Fill the gaps with one of the following words:

to conduct, conclusions, to examine, poll, to assess, assessments

1. 
   Statistical methods are used to analyse the data and draw ... .
   
2. 
   The opinion ... is carried out nationwide.
   
3. 
   Leading sociologists ... a poll all over the country.
   
4. 
   The polls are directed to ... social and political situation.
   
5. 
   The respondents give their ... verbally and in writing.
   
6. 
   Sociologists carefully ... the obtained data.
   

IV. Complete the following sentences.

1. 
   The public opinion poll is a criterion of ... .
   
2. 
   It is the so-called ....
   
3. 
   The poll is carried out ... .
   
4. 
   It may be verbal in the form of ... .
   
5. 
   The opinion poll is conducted by means of ... .
   
6. 
   The polls are directed to ... .
   
7. 
   The poll data are given in ... .
   

Тема 3. Origins of sociology
I. Read and translate the text.
History. Perhaps no early civilization had a more profound impact on Western social thought than did ancient Greece. Greek social philosophers and teachers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle made lasting contributions to our ideas about the relationship between the individual and society. Although social thinkers long had pondered the influence of society on human behaviour, the formal discipline of sociology did not emerge until the early nineteenth century. Sociology is a relatively new academic discipline. It emerged in response to the challenges of modernity. Increasing mobility and technological advances resulted in the increa­sing exposure of people to cultures and societies different from their own. The impact of this exposure was varied, but for some people in­cluded the breakdown of traditional norms and customs and warranted a revised understanding of how the world works. Sociologists responded to these changes by trying to understand what holds social groups to­gether and also explore possible solutions to the breakdown of social solidarity.

Auguste Comte and Other Founders. The term sociology was coined by Auguste Comte (1798—1857) in 1838 from the Latin term socius (companion, associate) and the Greek term logia (study of, speech). He wrote Positive Philosophy, the first systematic sociological approach to the study of society, which offered solutions to social problems. Comte hoped to unify all the sciences under sociology; he believed so­ciology held the potential to improve society and direct human activity, including the other sciences. While it is no longer a theory employed in Sociology, Comte argued for an understanding of society he labeled The Law of Three Stages. Comte, not unlike other enlightenment thinkers, believed society developed in stages: the first was the theological stage where people took a religious view of society; the second was the me­taphysical stage where people understood society as natural (not super­natural).

Comte's final stage was the scientific or positivist stage, which he believed to be the pinnacle of social development. In the scientific stage, society would be governed by reliable knowledge and would be under­stood in light of the knowledge produced by science, primarily sociolo­gy. While vague connections between Comte's Law and human history can be seen, it is generally understood in Sociology today that Comte's approach is a highly simplified and ill-founded approach to understand social development.

Other classical theorists of sociology from the late 19th and early 20th centuries include Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903), Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), Ferdinand Toennies (1855 – 1936), Emile Durkheim (1858 – 1917), Vilfredo Pareto (1848 – 1923), and Max Weber (1864 – 1920). As pioneers in Sociology, most of the early sociological thinkers were trained in other academic disci­plines, including history, philosophy, and economics. The diversity of their trainings is reflected in the topics they researched, including reli­gion, education, economics, psychology, ethics, philosophy, and theolo­gy. Perhaps with the exception of Marx, their most enduring influence has been on sociology, and it is in this field that their theories are still considered most applicable.

Sociology and Other Social Sciences. The social sciences comprise the application of scientific methods to the study of the human aspects of the world. Psychology studies the human mind and micro-level (or individual) behavior; sociology examines human society; political sci­ence studies the governing of groups and countries; communication studies the flow of discourse via various media; economics concerns itself with the production and allocation of wealth in society; and social work is the application of social scientific knowledge in society. Social sciences diverge from the humanities in that many in the social sciences empha­size the scientific method or other rigorous standards of evidence in the study of humanity.

Sociology Today. In the past, sociological research focused on the organization of complex, industrial societies and their influence on in­dividuals. Today, sociologists study a broad range of topics.

As the study of humans in their collective aspect, sociology is con­cerned with all group activities — economic, social, political, and reli­gious. Sociologists study such areas as bureaucracy, community, deviant behavior, family, public opinion, social change, social mobility, social stratification, and such specific problems as crime, divorce, child abuse, and substance addiction. Sociology tries to determine the laws gover­ning human behavior in social contexts; it is sometimes distinguished as a general social science from the special social sciences, such as econo­mics and political science, which confine themselves to a selected group of social facts or relations.

It should also be noted that recent sociologists, taking cues from anthropologists, have realized the Western emphasis of the discipline. In response, many sociology departments around the world are now en­couraging multi-cultural research.
Taking a Closer Look
II. Answer the following questions.

1. 
   What did increasing mobility and technological advances in the early XIX century result in?
   

2. How did sociologists respond to the breakdown of traditional norms and customs?

3. 
   Who is the founder of sociology? What other important theorists in sociology do you know?
   

3. 
   What was Comte’s idea of society?
   
4. 
   How do social sciences diverge from the humanities?
   
5. 
   What social sciences do you know and what do they study?
   
6. 
   What does sociological research focus on today?
   

III. Find the following words and expressions in the text and translate them Into Russian.

Challenge, exposure, breakdown, to employ a theory, enlightenment thinkers, vague, ill-founded approach, enduring influence, human mind, rigorous standards of evidence, to emphasize, scientific inquiry, a parti­cular niche, deviance, interpersonal interactions, to encourage.
IV. Give English equivalents for the following words and word combinations.

Изобрести термин, особая ниша, улучшить общество, объединить все науки, межличностное взаимодействие, неясный, достоверное зна­ние, научное исследование, человеческое сознание, отличаться от, широкий круг тем, вместо этого, политология, гуманитарные науки, придерживаться религиозного взгляда на общество, технологический прогресс, необходимо отметить, в ответ, распределение благ в обще­стве, использовать теорию, способствовать чему-либо, относительно новая дисциплина, посредством чего-либо.
V. Fill the gaps with the derivatives of the words in brackets.

1. 
   Sociology is an immensely challenging and ... discipline. (excite)
   
2. 
   Its aim is to understand how societies work. It... the structures and cultures of different societies throughout the world and throughout history. (investigate)
   
3. 
   It analyses the various patterns ... in a society such as The Economy, The Media, Gender and Race, Religion, Politics, Education, etc. (find)
   
4. 
   It observes the day-to-day experiences of people in groups: — wor­kers, gangs, peasants or nurses — to explain them. It raises criti­cal ... issues about how a society can ever be studied, (philosophy)
   
5. 
   It also charts social trends which may help us ... the dilemmas of
   modern life. (understand)
   
6. 
   What we take for... about societies — what might seem obvious — is usually ... by the sociological imagination. (grant, challenge)
   
7. 
   The sociological perspectives or ways of ... at Society attempt to
   explain how societies work. (look)
   

VI. Make a short summary of the following text. (Remember that a summary normally consists of about 1/10 of the original).
The Evolution of Sociology

A number of Western political theorists and philosophers, including Plato, Polybius, Machiavelli, Vico, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rous­seau, have treated political problems in a broader social context. Thus Montesquieu regarded the political forms of different states as a consequence of the working of deep underlying climatic, geographic, economic, and psychological factors. In the 18th cent., Scottish thinkers made inquiries into the nature of society; scholars like Adam Smith ex­plored the economic causes of social organization and social change, while Adam Ferguson considered the noneconomic causes of social cohesion.

It was not until the 19th century, however, when the concept of society was finally separated from that of the state, that sociology developed into an independent study. Auguste Comte attempted to analyze all aspects of cultural, political, and economic life and to identify the unifying principles of society at each stage of human social development. Herbert Spencer applied the principles of Darwinian evolution to the development of human society in his popular and controversial Principles of Sociology. An important stimulus to sociological thought came from the work of Karl Marx, who emphasized the economic basis of the organization of society and its division into classes and saw in the class struggle the main agent of social progress.

The founders of the modern study of sociology were Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Durkheim pioneered in the use of empirical evidence and statistical material in the study of society. Weber’s major contribution was as a theorist, and his generalizations about social organization and the relation of belief systems, including religion, to social action are still influ­ential. He developed the use of the ideal type — a working model, based on the selective combination of certain elements of historical fact or current reality — as a tool of sociological analysis. In the United States the study of sociology was pioneered and developed by Lester Frank Ward and Wil­liam Graham Sumner.

The most important theoretical sociology in the 20th centuries has moved in three directions: conflict theory, structural-functional theory, and sym­bolic interaction theory. Conflict theory draws heavily on the work of Karl Marx and emphasizes the role of conflict in explaining social change; prom­inent conflict theorists include Ralf Dahrendorf and C. Wright Mills. Struc­tural-functional theory, developed by Talcott Parsons and advanced by Robert Merton, assumes that large social systems are characterized meostasis, or “steady states.” The theory is now often called “conser­vative” in its orientation. Symbolic interaction, begun by George Herbert Mead and further developed by Herbert Blumer and others, focuses on subjective perceptions or other symbolic processes of communication.
VII. Translate the following passage into English.

Выделение социологии в самостоятельную научную отрасль из общефилософской теории общества происходит в первой половине XIX века. Появление социологии как самостоятельной науки связыва­ют с именем французского социолога Огюста Конта (1798-1857). Ему же принадлежит и введение в научный оборот самого названия новой науки.

Конт предложил создать новую науку об обществе, социологию, в основании которой должны лежать не умозрительные теории, а «пози­тивные» факты, установленные методами точных наук. По аналогии с физикой Конт выделял в обществе социальную статику (внутренний порядок социальной системы) и социальную динамику (смену состоя­ний, развитие общества).

Основным фактором социальной динамики родоначальник пози­тивизма считал духовное развитие общества. Им был сформулирован закон умственной эволюции человечества, заключающийся в переходе от теологического (религиозного) состояния общественной мысли к ме­тафизическому (философскому), а от него к позитивному (конкретно-научному). На этой основе Конт разработал свою классификацию наук, расположив науки по мере возрастания их сложности: математика, физика, астрономия, химия, биология, социология. Социология, по Конту, это вершина знаний человека о мире.

Идеи Конта не получили признания при жизни философа. Одна­ко он предвосхитил многие методологические установки науки второй половины XIX века.

Среди основоположников социологической теории выделяют так­же имя английского мыслителя Герберта Спенсера (1820-1903), чьи труды по социологии были одними из самых популярных в Европе в1860-1880-е годы. Особенностью социологической теории Спенсера является отождествление законов общественного развития с закона­ми развития биологических организмов.

Из биологии Спенсером были привнесены в социологию понятия изменчивости, приспособляемости, естественного отбора. Особое вни­мание он уделял эволюционной теории, которую распространял и на развитие общества. Социологическую концепцию Спенсера называют органицизмом, или эволюционизмом. Спенсеру принадлежит введение в общественно-научный оборот таких терминов, как система, функция, структура. Спенсер считается основоположником теории социальных институтов.