Exercise 2. Read and translate the following text. Use the dictionary when necessary.
Roles
Every status carries with it a socially prescribed role – that is, a set of expected behaviors, attitudes, obligations, and privileges. For instance, we expect friends to be helpful, sharing, and concerned about our problems, because that is the role that we associate with the status of friend. The difference between a status and a role is that we occupy a status but playa role. A status is a position; a role is how we think and act.
People learn how to play their roles by observing and interacting with others more experienced than themselves. This process is known as socialization. Socialization into the role of student is one familiar example. From the age of five, American children are taught to raise their hands in order to speak in a classroom, to do their homework, to study for tests, and to avoid cheating; all of which is part of the role that students are expected to play.
No role is cast in stone, however. Within certain limits, individuals are free to interpret the roles they play, giving them their own personal styles. You can see this in the way that different classmates play the role of student. Some study constantly, others study only when they must; some initiate class discussions, others wait to be asked a question. Despite these variations, however, most students conform to the basic behaviors that are expected of students. Those who do not usually find themselves expelled from the student status.
Sociologist Charles Powers argues that certain situations encourage more improvisation of roles than others. For instance, the longer the same people have been performing a set of interrelated roles, the more likely they are to be liberal in interpreting role-related norms. One example can be seen among people who have worked together for many years. At first they perform their jobs “by the book”, each being careful to live up to the others’ expectations. Gradually, however, they feel freer to relax, to give new twists to their performances, and sometimes even to stray “out of role”. Part of the reason for this increased role improvisation is the fact that as people come to know each other better, they feel more familiar with one another and less concerned about keeping up a “proper” image. Greater role improvisation also occurs when a role relationship is not being observed by outsiders. A police officer, for instance, is more likely to improvise in his law enforcement tactics when he is not in view of reporters. Being among people who are equal to you in power is another situation that makes for more improvisation. A woman, for example, is more likely to improvise the role of friend when with former classmates than she is to improvise the role of employee in a meeting with her boss. Finally, periods of role improvisation seem to be encouraged when role enactment generates strong emotions. Surgical teams, for example, who are involved in life-and-death work, often have periods of informal banter following a difficult procedure. It is as if this time to relax from the roles of doctor, technician, and nurse gives everyone a chance to “unwind” from the stress of role performance.
Powers’ view emphasizes an important fact about roles. Roles are both imposed by social rules that come from outside us and improvised by the people who play them. In some circumstances we follow prescribed rules very closely, although there is always someroom for personal style. In other situations we improvise freely, following only the general outlines of social expectations. Thus, structural and action views are not mutually exclusive. They simply look at different aspects of the social world.
Another important fact about roles is that they exist in relation to each other. The role of daughter cannot be understood apart from the role of parent, the role of lawyer apart from the role of client, the role of professor apart from the role of student, the role of police officer apart from the role of lawbreaker. Furthermore, a single status typically involves several roles. A personnel manager, for instance, plays one role in relation to the company president, another in relation to a department manager, a third in relation to a sales representative, a fourth in relation to a new employee, a fifth in relation to an administrative assistant, and a sixth in relation to a product manager. Similarly, an actor relates somewhat differently to other actors, to the director, to the stagehands, to the audience, and to the press. The cluster of different roles associated with a particular status is called a role set.