Exercise 1. Match the English words on the left with their Russian equivalents on the right. Learn the words by heart.
Unit 1.
BIOGRAGHIES
Warm up
Exercise 1. Match the English words on the left with their Russian equivalents on the right. Learn the words by heart.
| 1. to enter | a) основатель; |
| 2. sincere | b) опыт; |
| 3. to earn | c) жениться, выходить замуж; |
| 4. a founder | d) хмурый, угрюмый; |
| 5. experience | e) неблагодарный, неприятный; |
| 6. to suffer | f) посвящать; |
| 7. sombre | g) ссориться; |
| 8. ungrateful | h) зарабатывать; |
| 9. to devote | i) искренний; |
| 10. to quarrel | j) поступать. |
READING
Exercise 2. Read and translate the following text. Use the dictionary when necessary.
Auguste Comte
Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857), better known as Auguste Comte was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism.
Comte’s father, Louis Comte, a tax official, and his mother, Rosalie Boyer, were strongly royalist and deeply sincere Roman Catholics. Comte was intellectually precocious and in 1814 entered the Ecole Polytechnique. Comte soon took up permanent residence in Paris, earning a living there by the occasional teaching of mathematics and by journalism. He read widely in philosophy and history. The thoughts of several important French political philosophers of the 18th century – such as Montesquieu, the Marquis de Condorcet, A.-R.-J. Turgot, and Joseph de Maistre – were critically worked into his own system of thought. Comte’s most important acquaintance in Paris was Henri de Saint-Simon, a French social reformer and one of the founders of socialism, who was the first to clearly see the importance of economic organization in modern society. Comte’s ideas were very similar to Saint-Simon’s, and some of his earliest articles appeared in Saint-Simon’s publications.
In 1826 Comte began a series of lectures on his “system of positive philosophy” for a private audience, but he soon suffered a serious nervous breakdown. He made an almost complete recovery from his symptoms the following year, and in 1828-29 he again took up his projected lecture series. The following 12 years were devoted to his publication (in six volumes) of his philosophy in a work entitled Course of Positive Philosophy.
From 1832 to 1842 Comte was a tutor and then an examiner at the revived Ecole Polytechnique. In the latter year he quarreled with the directors of the school and lost his post, along with much of his income. During the remainder of his life he was supported in part by English admirers such as John Stuart Mill and by French disciples, especially the philologist and lexicographer Maximilien Littré. Comte married Caroline Massin in 1825, but the marriage was unhappy and they separated in 1842. In 1845 Comte had a profound romantic and emotional experience with Clotilde de Vaux, who died the following year of tuberculosis. Comte idealized this sentimental episode, which exerted a considerable influence on his later thought and writings, particularly with regard to the role of women in the positivist society he planned to establish.
Comte devoted the years after the death of Clotilde de Vaux to composing his other major work, System of Positive Polity, in which he completed his formulation of sociology. Many English intellectuals were influenced by him, and they translated and promulgated his work. Comte died of cancer in 1857. Comte was a rather sombre, ungrateful, self-centred, and egocentric personality, but he compensated for this by his zeal for the welfare of humanity, his intellectual determination, and his strenuous application to his life’s work. He devoted himself to the promotion and systematization of his ideas and to their application in the cause of the improvement of society.
Exercise 3. Decide whether the following statements are true or false.
1. In 1826 Comte began a series of lectures on his “system of positive philosophy” for a broad audience.
2. Clotilde de Vaux died of measles.
3. From 1832 to 1842 Comte was a tutor and then an examiner at the revived Ecole Polytechnique.
4. The thoughts of several important German political philosophers were critically worked into Comte’s system of thought.
5. Twelve years were devoted to Comte’s publication of his philosophy in a work entitled Course of Positive Philosophy.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 2.
HOBBY
Warm up
READING
Exercise 2. Read and translate the following text. Use the dictionary when necessary.
Hobby
A hobby is an activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one’s leisure time.
A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse (which was sometimes called a “Hobby”). From this came the expression “to ride one’s hobby-horse”, meaning “to follow a favorite pastime”, and in turn, hobby in the modern sense of recreation.
Hobbies are practiced for interest and enjoyment, rather than financial reward. Engaging in a hobby can lead to acquiring substantial skill, knowledge and experience. However, personal fulfillment is the aim.
What are hobbies for some people are professions for others: a chef may enjoy playing computer games as a hobby, while a professional game tester might enjoy cooking. Generally speaking, the person who does something for fun, not remuneration, is called an amateur (or hobbyist), as distinct from a professional.
An important determinant of what is considered a hobby, as distinct from a profession (beyond the lack of remuneration), is probably how easy it is to make a living at the activity.
Russian people have many hobbies. Older people prefer gardening, fishing, knitting, car repairing. Hobbies popular among young people include sport, games, outdoor recreation, performing arts, collecting different items, cooking, reading, etc.
The hobby of collecting consists of acquiring specific items based on a particular interest of the collector. These collections of things are often highly organized, carefully cataloged, and attractively displayed. Since collecting depends on the interests of the individual collector, it may deal with almost any subject. The depth and breadth of the collection may also vary. The most popular fields in collecting have specialized commercial dealers that trade in the items being collected, as well as related accessories. Many of these dealers started as collectors themselves, then turned their hobby into a profession.
A game is a structured or semi-structured recreational activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment (although sometimes for physical or vocational training). A goal that the players try to reach and a set of rules concerning what the players can or cannot do create the challenge and structure in a game, and are thus central to its definition. Age, understanding (of the game), intelligence level, and personality are factors that determine what games a person enjoys. Depending on these factors, people vary the number and complexity of objectives, rules, challenges, and participants to increase their enjoyment. Games generally involve mental and/or physical stimulation. Many games help develop practical skills and serve as exercise or perform an educational, stimulation or psychological role. Games come in many different forms such as indoors and outdoors.
Outdoor pursuits can be loosely considered to be the group of sports and activities which are dependent on the great outdoors. Outdoor sports most often include nature in the “sport”.
Many hobbies involve performing by the hobbyist, such as singing, acting, juggling, magic, dancing and other performing arts. Such type of hobby is called performing arts.
Reading, such as reading books, magazines, comics, or newspapers, along with browsing the internet is a common hobby and one that can trace its origins back many hundreds of years. One of the great benefits of reading as a hobby is that it can be taken up and put down whenever a free moment presents itself. When reading paperback books, it is easy to take the reading material on holiday or on public transport with very little inconvenience. One great advantage is that it allows the human mind to create its own view of the world portrayed in the book.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 3.
Sociology
Warm up
READING
Sociology
The name sociology was first suggested in the 1830s by the French philosopher Auguste Comte, but for many years it remained only a suggestion. Comte urged others to study sociology.
It was not until late in the 19th century that we can identify people who called themselves sociologists and whose work contributed to the development of the field. Among these were Herbert Spencer in England who published the first of his three-volume “Principles of Sociology” in 1876 and Ferdinand Tonnies in Germany. A decade later, Emile Durkheim published “Suicide”.
The first sociologists studied moral statistics. Their work proved so popular that it led to the rapid expansion of census questions. However, sociology as an academic specialty was imported from Germany. The progressive uncovering of social causes of individual behaviour – in response to the questions raised by moral statistics – produced the field called sociology.
Sociology is one of the related fields known as the social sciences. They share the same subject matter: human behaviour. But sociology is the study of social relations, and its primary subject matter is the group, not the individual.
There is a close connection between sociology and other disciplines such as psychology, economy, anthropology, criminology, political science, and history. But sociologists differ from psychologists because they are not concerned exclusively with the individual, they are interested in what goes on between people. They differ from economists by being less interested in commercial exchanges; they are interested in the exchange of intangibles such as love and affection. Sociologists differ from anthropologists primarily because the latter specialize in the study of preliterate and primitive human groups, while sociologists are interested in modern industrial societies. Criminologists specialize in illegal behaviour, while sociologists are concerned with the whole range of human behaviour. Similarly, political scientists focus on political organization and activity, while sociologists survey all social organizations. Finally, sociologists share with historians an interest in the past but are equally interested in the present and the future.
Sociology is a broader discipline than the other social sciences. In a sense, the purpose of sociologists is, in general, to find the connections that unite various social sciences into a comprehensive, integrated science of society.
Sociology consists of two major fields of knowledge: micro sociology and macro sociology. Micro sociologists study the patterns and processes of face-to-face interaction between humans. Macro sociologists attempt to explain the fundamental patterns and processes of large-scale social relations. They concentrate on larger groups, even on whole societies.
Sociologists attempt to use research to discover if certain statements about social life are correct. The basic tools of their research are tests, questionnaires, interviews, surveys, and public opinion polls.
Social Barometer
A great part of sociological research consists of quantitative experimenting. The system of techniques used for that purpose is that of statistical methods. These methods are necessary to examine the data, analyse them and draw certain conclusions. The results of the sociological survey are published then.
Sociological research is usually conducted by a working group under the supervision of the leading sociologists of the All-Russian Centre for the Study of Public Opinion. The public opinion poll is a criterion of the current social life within the society. It is the so-called social barometer of the country. In fact our fast-moving life makes it necessary to analyse things. So it is useful to examine the results of sociological surveys.
The public opinion poll is carried out nationwide or in some definite regions, cities, establishments. It may be verbal in the form of an interview. But more often the opinion poll is conducted by means of tests or questionnaires. The questionnaires contain some items to be chosen by the subjects. In other cases the questionnaires present a set of questions to be answered by the respondents in their individual way. The polled may express their own opinions verbally or in writing. The assessments may be optimistic, pessimistic, dramatic, positive, negative. They expose and reassess our ideals and values.
The polls are very popular nowadays throughout the country. In general, they are directed to assess current social and political situation, political figures, the most important events, economic perspectives, our losses and gains and so on. All data are given in percentages.
Exercise 7. Choose the right answer.
1. What does a great part of sociological research consist of?
a) qualitative experimenting;
b) quantitative experimenting;
c) quantitative analysis;
d) qualitative analysis.
2. What is the public opinion poll?
a) a criterion of the current social life;
b) a criterion of the natural life;
c) a criterion of the whole social life;
d) a criterion of the micro life.
3. Who conducts sociological research?
a) a working group under the supervision of the leading anthropologists;
b) a working group under the supervision of the leading psychologists;
c) a working group under the supervision of the leading criminologists;
d) a working group under the supervision of the leading sociologists.
4. What do assessments expose?
a) ideals and images;
b) prices and values;
c) ideals and values;
d) poducts and values.
5. How are all data given?
a) in percentages;
b) in numbers;
c) in pictures;
d) in diagrams.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 4.
THE ORIGINS OF SOCIOLOGY
Warm up
READING
The Origins of Sociology
Sociology is one the youngest academic disciplines – far younger than history, physics, or economics, for example. It was only about two hundred years ago that many new ideas about society began coming together to form a systematic discipline that studies society. Auguste Comte, a French social thinker, gave the discipline its name in 1838; he is widely regarded as “the father of sociology”.
People have had a deep interest in society since the beginning of human history, but the sociological perspective is a recent development, as is the scientific approach to knowledge on which sociological research is based.
The nature of society was an issue of major importance in the writings of brilliant thinkers of the ancient world, including the Greek philosophers Plato (427-347 В.С.) and Aristotle (384-322 В.С.). Similarly, during the medieval era in Europe – between about 1100 and 1700 – theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) were deeply concerned with social life. Yet, as Emile Durkheim noted toward the end of the last century such social thinkers used a perspective somewhat different from that of sociology.
In other words, prior to the birth of sociology, philosophers and theologians were primarily concerned with imagining the “ideal” society as a standard to guide social life. They were less interested in understanding society as it was. Pioneering sociologists such as Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim reversed these priorities. Although they were certainly concerned with philosophical and moral questions about how human society could be improved, their major goal was to understand how society actually operates.
As sociology became established as an academic discipline in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, early sociologists such as Lester Ward (1841-1913) were strongly influenced by Comte’s ideas. Today as well, many sociologists share Comte’s belief that science is a crucial element of sociology. But other sociologists do not agree that science can be applied to the social world in the same way it is applied to the physical world. These sociologists point out that the causes of human behaviour are often more complex than the causes of events in the natural world. In other words, human beings are more than physical objects; they are creatures with considerable imagination and spontaneity whose behaviour can never be fully explained in terms of any scientific “laws of society”.
Exercise 7. Choose the right answer.
1. Who is regarded as “the father of sociology”?
a) Emile Durkheim;
b) Auguste Comte;
c) Lester Ward;
d) St. Thomas Aquinas.
2. What scholars were deeply concerned with social life in ancient time?
a) Hobbes and Aristotle;
b) Plato and Thomas Aquinas;
c) Galileo and Aristotle;
d) Plato and Aristotle.
3. When did sociology become established as an academic discipline?
a) in the twenty first century;
b) in the nineteenth century;
c) in the twentieth century;
d) in the eighteenth century.
4. What were philosophers and theologians primarily concerned with?
a) imagining the “ideal” society as a standard to guide social life;
b) imagining the “perfect” society as a standard to guide social life;
c) imagining the “ideal” society as a standard to guide natural life;
d) imagining the “perfect” society as a standard to guide natural life.
5. What are human beings?
a) physical objects;
b) creatures with considerable imagination;
c) creatures whose behaviour can be fully explained in terms of any scientific “laws of society”;
d) creatures whose behaviour can never be fully explained in terms of any scientific “laws of society”.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 5.
Warm up
READING
Sociological Theory
The discipline of sociology involves more than a distinctive point of view. The sociological perspective illuminates new facts in countless familiar situations; but linking specific observations together in a meaningful way involves another element of the discipline, theory. In the simplest terms, a theory is an explanation of the relationship between two or more specific facts. To illustrate the use of theory in sociology, recall Emile Durkheim’s study of suicide. Durkheim attempted to explain why some categories of people (males, Protestants, the wealthy, and the unmarried) have higher suicide rates that do others (females, Catholics, the poor, and the married). To do so, he linked one set of facts – suicide rates – to another set of facts – the level of social integration characteristic of these various categories of people. Through systematic comparisons, Durkheim was able to develop a theory of suicide, namely, that people with low social integration are more prone to take their own lives.
To provide another illustration, how might we explain the sociological observation that college science courses in the United States typically contain more men than women? One theoretical approach would suggest that the sciences are more attractive to males than to females; perhaps males simply have a greater innate interest in science. Another possibility is that American society encourages males to develop an interest in science while simultaneously discouraging this interest in females. A third theoretical approach might suggest that the educational system has some formal or informal policy that limits the enrollment of women in science courses.
As this example suggests, there may be more than one theoretical explanation for any particular issue. Therefore, the ability to link facts together into a meaningful theory does not in itself mean that theory is correct. In order to evaluate contrasting theories, sociologists make use of various methods of scientific research.
As sociologists use these scientific methods to gather more and more information, they are able to confirm some theories while rejecting or modifying others. In the early decades of this century, several sociologists interested in the rapid growth of cities developed theories that linked city living to distinctive patterns of human behaviour such as pronounced impersonality and even mental illness. However, research completed during subsequent decades has found that living in a large city does not necessarily result in social isolation, nor does it diminish mental health. Within any discipline therefore, theory is never static, because sociologists are continually carrying out research, sociological theory is always being refined.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 6.
Warm up
READING
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 7.
STATUSES
Warm up
READING
Statuses
Ordinarily, we use the word status to mean “prestige”. We speak of a person as having high or low status, or of being a status-seeker. In sociology, however, status refers more particularly to a position in the social structure – any position that determines where a person “fits” within the society. Being a job-seeker, a waiter, a student, a mother, a child, or a friend are all social statuses.
Every person occupies a number of different statuses at any given time. A certain student is not just a student but can also be a man, a son, a fiance, a Protestant, and so on. Some statuses are assigned to people without effort on their part; they are called ascribed statuses. Being male or female, a Mexican-American, a Rockefeller, and a senior citizen are examples of ascribed statuses. You have almost no control over whether or not you occupy these kinds of social positions. You are borna Rockefeller, or adopted into that family, just as you are born white or black, male or female, beautiful or plain. The meanings attached to ascribed statuses do change, however. For example, the meaning attached to being an American female has changed greatly in recent years, as more and more opportunities have become available to women.
In contrast to an ascribed status, an achieved status is a position a person attains largely through personal effort. Physician, politician, artist, teacher, town drunk, or Boston Strangler – each of these is an achieved status. But what people achieve is heavily shaped by the opportunity structure available to them. For instance, the children of a woman living on welfare in an inner-city slum have a different set of achieved statuses available to them than the sons and daughters of a successful corporate executive.
When one of a person’s statuses largely determines many of the other statuses that he or she acquires, it is called a master status. Being the Prince of Wales, for instance, is a master status because it determines so many of the person’s other social positions (ceremonial leader, military officer, even husband and father since a future king must have heirs).
Not everyone has a master status. Many people simply have a variety of ascribed and achieved statuses that take on more or less importance depending upon the social situation. For instance, when you step into a college classroom your status of student comes to the fore and is the major influence on your attitudes and behavior. It is not particularly important that you are also a friend, a son or daughter, a part-time employee, and so forth. In the classroom context your student status dominates. In contrast, when you visit your parents your status of son or daughter is the one that tends to influence your thoughts and actions. Here your student status recedes to the background and your position in the family takes the foreground. When a status dominates in a certain social context, it is called a salient status.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 8.
ROLES
Warm up
READING
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.
Role conflict
Sometimes a person has trouble meeting the obligations of a role or role set. If this occurs because the role’s obligations are too demanding for the resources that the person has, sociologists call the problem role strain. Elliot Liebow found cases of role strain when he studied a group of black men who hung out on a Washington, D.C., street corner. Whereas most of the men had married at a young age with high hopes of being good husbands and fathers, most had failed at these roles – at first financially, then emotionally.
“Where the father lives with his own children, his occasional touch or other tender gesture is dwarfed by his unmet obligations. No matter how much he does, it is not enough”. Apparently, the inability of these largely unemployed men to perform the role of “good provider” caused enough stress to lead to failure at their nurturant, loving roles as well.
Another reason why people may feel role strain is that the performance of one role is at odds with the performance of another role. This clash between two competing roles is called role conflict.A classic example occurs in the world of business when a manager hires a close friend. The demands of the managerial role (giving employees directives, criticizing their work when needed, not showing favoritism) can conflict with the demands of being a good friend. Another example of role conflict occurs when the demands of a high-powered job (total dedication, long hours at the office) are at odds with the demands of being an adequate spouse and parent. In such situations, people often try to separate the conflicting roles by situation (employee at the office, wife and mother at home) in an effort to minimize the friction between them. But because this separation is difficult, some role conflict usually remains.
For the most part, people reconcile themselves to a world in which they will not always be able to perform their roles as well as they want to. This situation is not entirely negative, however, for problems in fulfilling role obligations can be a source of structural change. When enough people resist being caught in roles they have trouble playing, those roles gradually may be made more realistic. Such change may now be under way regarding the role of working parent, as evidenced by the more flexible working hours that some companies are allowing their employees with children. The result is structural change in the traditional expectations associated with the role of corporate employee.
Exercise 7. Choose the right answer.
1. When a person has trouble meeting the obligations of a role, it is called … .
a) role set;
b) role conflict;
c) role strain;
d) role therapy.
2. What can the inability to perform a role cause?
a) love;
b) stress;
c) pity;
d) happiness.
3. What do we call a role conflict?
a) a failure to perform your role;
b) an emotional stress;
c) a financial failure;
d) a clash between two competing roles.
4. Why does some role conflict usually remain?
a) It is impossible to separate some conflicting roles;
b) The performance of one role is at odds with the performance of another;
c) People are not able to perform their roles as they want to;
d) The role’s obligations are too demanding.
5. What can a problem in fulfilling role obligations lead to?
a) family problems;
b) problems at work;
c) structural change;
d) structural accumulation.
Exercise 8. Fill in the gaps using the words given below, and translate the sentences into Russian.
behaviour observe attitudes performance careful
obligation employer encouraged experience relationship
1. It’s often very difficult to change people’s … .
2. If you have not signed a contract, you are under no … to pay them any money.
3. He was notorious for his violent and threatening … .
4. I don’t think she has the … for the job.
5. After … consideration of your proposal, I regret to say that we are unable to accept it.
6. We need a reference from your former … .
7. Scientists have established the … between lung cancer and smoking.
8. Some athletes take drugs to improve their … .
9. We were … to learn foreign languages at school.
10. The role of scientists is to … and describe the world, not to try to control it.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 9.
SUBCULTURES
Warm up
READING
Subcultures
Members of certain subordinate groups, such as ethnic and religious minorities, may reject some of the cultural elements of the dominant group. Instead they may adhere to many of their own norms, beliefs, and values, and communicate with their own sets of symbols, including their own languages. When the perspective and life-style of such people differ significantly from the dominant culture, and when they identify themselves as different, they are said to belong to a subculture.
Subcultures may develop not just out of ethnic and religious groups. They also form out of occupational groups, socioeconomic groups, age groups, and so on. Adolescents, for example, build a private world out of their peculiar position of being not quite adults yet no longer children. Similarly, medical students share common experiences, goals, and problems, and hence a common viewpoint. Subcultures typically arise when people in similar circumstances find themselves isolated from the mainstream world. They may be isolated physically (such as inmates in prison, soldiers on a military base, poor people in a ghetto), or isolated by what they do and think, that is, by their shared worlds of meanings.
What is the relationship of subcultural groups to the larger society? Do agents of mass socialization (public schools and the media, for example) slowly work to assimilate them into the dominant culture? Most sociologists who approach this question from a functional perspective believe that the answer is yes. They argue that the dominant culture serves to tie individuals together by means of a broadly shared set of understandings about how people should think and act. These sociologists, of course, acknowledge the existence of substantial cultural diversity in the United States. But they see the mainstream culture as a thread that weaves diverse groups together.
In contrast, sociologists who answer in terms of power sharply disagree with this functional view of dominant culture. They see the dominant culture not as a thread that ties people together but rather as a set of ideas and customs that the group in power tries to impose on subordinate groups. As a result, in their view, our society is characterized by an undercurrent of intracultural tension.
Exercise 7. Choose the right answer.
1. What may subcultures develop out of?
a) ethnic groups;
b) age groups;
c) religious groups;
d) all mentioned above.
2. When do subcultures arise?
a) when people are isolated from the mainstream world;
b) when people are united into interest groups;
c) when people belong to religious groups;
d) when people are interested in .
3. What does the dominant culture do from the functional point of view?
a) shares common goals;
b) isolate individuals;
c) maintains subcultures;
d) ties individuals together.
4. What do sociologists think of dominant culture in terms of power?
a) it tries to help subcultures preserve their identity;
b) it tries to develop independently from subcultures;
c) it tries to impose its goals and ideas on subcultures;
d) it tries to unite people in different groups.
5. What can people from subordinate groups adhere to?
a) cultural elements of dominant groups;
b) their own norms, beliefs and values;
c) religious norms and views;
d) music and literature of a dominant group.
Exercise 8. Fill in the gaps using the words given below, and translate the sentences into Russian.
generation value challenge assimilation interaction
prejudice response punishment environment entity
1. The … of ethnic Germans in the US was accelerated by the two world wars.
2. Certain chemicals have been banned because of their damaging effect on the … .
3. There were at least three … – grandparents, parents and children – at the wedding.
4. Laws against racial … must be strictly enforced.
5. Language games are usually intended to encourage student … .
6. The … of the pound fell against other European currencies yesterday.
7. I looked in her face for some …, but she just stared at me blankly.
8. He regarded the north of the country as a separate cultural … .
9. Finding a solution to this problem is one of the greatest … faced by scientists today.
10. Many people think that the death penalty is too severe a … for any crime.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
SOCIOLOGY AND SCIENCE
Warm up
READING
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 11.
MARRIAGE
Warm up
READING
Forms of Marriage
Marriage is a socially recognized union between two or more individuals that typically involves sexual and economic rights and duties. It marks the start of a nuclear family or the expansion and continuation of an extended family. In either case, marriage is backed by strong social sanctions. Although we may feel that we are “free” to make our own decisions about whether and whom to marry, there are, in fact, powerful social forces pushing us into marriage and into selection of an “appropriate” partner.
One way societies undertake to regulate marriage is through norms that define the range of potential marriage partners available to an individual. Endogamy is a rule that requires a person to marry someone from withinhis or her own group – tribe, nationality, religion, race, community, or other social grouping. Exogamy is a rule that requires a person to marry someone from outsidehis or her own group. These regulations frequently operate as a circle within a circle. The rule of exogamy bars marriage within a small inner circle, whereas the rule of endogamy stipulates the limits of the outer social circle that the individual is not to exceed. Among the early Hebrews, for instance, incest taboos operated as exogamous norms curtailing marriage among close relatives whereas endogamous norms forbade marriage with non-Jewish outsiders. Within the United States rules of exogamy have extended incest taboos outward roughly to second cousin relationships, whereas rules of endogamy, until loosened in recent decades, served to forbid interracial and in some cases interethnic and interreligious marriages.
Marriage relationships may be structured in four basic ways: monogamy, one husband and one wife; polygyny, one husband and two or more wives; polyandry, one wife and two or more husbands; and group marriage, two or more husbands and two or more wives. Although monogamy is found in all societies, only about 20 percent of the 238 societies in Murdock’s cross-cultural sample were strictly monogamous. In contrast, four-fifths of the societies permitted polygyny. But in most of these societies, few married men actually had more than one wife. Typically only economically advantaged men can afford to support more than one family. Thus in China, India, and the Moslem nations, polygyny was usually limited to the wealthy.
Polyandry is quite rare, being found in less than 1 percent of the societies in Murdock’s sample. And where it is found, it typically does not allow women free sexual choice of male partners. The most prevalent form of polyandry is fraternal, or the sharing of a spouse by brothers, the practice among the non-Hindu Todas of southern India. Apparently few disputes or jealousies arose among Todas brothers because they did not view women as sexual property. Since the biological father of a child remained unknown, the Todas socially established paternity by a ceremony in which one of the husbands would present a toy bow and arrow to the mother-to-be. It seems that the polyandrous arrangement evolved among the Todas as an adjustment to poverty. Their subsistence being precarious, a man could have a wife and child only by sharing the burden of their support with other men. Further, polyandry kept the birthrate in check. Since a woman could have only one child a year, it did not matter how many sexual partners she had.
Group marriage also appears relatively rarely and then not as the preferred cultural arrangement. It has been reported among the Kaingang of Brazil, the Dieri of Australia, the Chuckchee of Siberia, and the Marque-san Islanders. On occasion it arises out of some combination of polygyny and polyandry or out of the sharing of sexual privileges among couples.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 12.
GROUPS
Warm up
READING
Kinds of Groups
We have already found out that sociology, as one of its main objects, studies social institutions and social relations, social bodies and social groups. Sociologists were early concerned with the problem of classifying groups as well. They have proposed many different classificatory schemes for the specific groups. They make up their classifications on the basis of selecting a few properties and define “types” of groups on the principle whether these properties are present or absent.
Among the properties most often employed are size (number of members), amount of physical interaction among members, degree of intimacy, level of solidarity, focus of control of group activities and tendency of members to react on one another as individual persons. On the basis of these properties the following kinds of groups have been identified: formal – informal, primary – secondary, small – large, autonomous – dependent, temporary – permanent.
Sometimes sociologists make up their classifications of the groups according to their objectives or social settings. These are such groups as work groups, therapy groups, social groups, committees, clubs, gangs, teams, religious groups, and the like.
Exercise 7. Choose the right answer.
1. What does sociology NOT study as one of its main objects?
a) social absent;
b) social relations;
c) social bodies;
d) social groups.
2. What were sociologists early concerned with?
a) the problem of defining groups;
b) the problem of classifying groups;
c) the problem of sizing groups;
d) the problem of identifying groups.
3. Sociologists define “types” of groups on the principle whether properties are…?
a) present and absent;
b) present;
c) absent;
d) present or absent.
4. How many kinds of groups have been identified?
a) 2;
b) 3;
c) 4;
d) 5.
5. What do sociologists make up according to their objectives or social settings?
a) degree of intimacy;
b) level of solidarity;
c) classifications of the groups;
d) group activities.
Exercise 8. Fill in the gaps using the words given below, and translate the sentences into Russian.
personal formation members individuals term
lasting categorized present formal relationships
1. A primary group is a small social group whose … share personal and lasting relationships.
2. People joined in primary … spend a great deal of time together.
3. Groups based on … friendships are also primary groups.
4 Secondary groups are large groups involving … and institutional relationships.
5. Secondary relationships involve weak emotional ties and little … knowledge of one another.
6. Most secondary groups are short …, beginning and ending without particular significance.
7. The … of primary groups happens within secondary groups.
8. Primary groups can be … in secondary settings.
9 … almost universally have a bond toward what sociologists call reference groups.
10. Groups can also be … according to the number of people present within the group.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 13.
DEVIANCE
Warm up
READING
What is Deviance?
The concept of deviance is defined as violation of cultural norms of a group or all of society. Since cultural norms affect such a wide range of human activities, the concept of deviance is correspondingly broad. The most obvious and familiar type of deviance is crime - the violation of cultural norms that have been formally enacted into criminal law. Criminal deviance is itself quite variable in content, from minor offenses such as traffic violations to serious crimes such as homicide and rape. Closely related to crime is juvenile delinquency — the violation of legal standards by children or adolescents.
Deviance is not limited to crime, however. It includes many other types of nonconformity, from the mild to the extreme, such as left-handedness, boastfulness, and Mohawk hairstyles, as well as pacifism, homosexuality, and mental illness. Industrial societies contain a wide range of subcultures that display distinctive attitudes, appearance, and behaviour. Consequently, to those who conform to society's dominant cultural standards, artists, homeless people, and members of various ethnic minorities may seem deviant. In addition, the poor - whose lack of financial resources makes conforming to many conventional middleclass patterns of life difficulty - are also subject to definition as deviant. Physical traits, too, may be the basis of deviance, as members of racial minorities in America know well. Men with many highly visible tatoos on their body may be seen as deviant, as are women with any tatoo at all. Even being unusually tall or short, or grossly fat or exceedingly thin, may be the basis of deviance. Physical disabilities are yet another reason for being seen by others as deviant.
Deviance, therefore, is based on any dimension of difference that is considered to be significant and provokes a negative reaction that serves to make the deviant person an outsider. In addition to the experience of social isolation, deviance is subject to social control, by which others attempt to bring deviant people back into line. Like deviance itself, social control can take many forms. Socialization is a complex process of social control in which family, peer groups, and the mass media attempt to influence our attitudes and behaviour. A more formal type of social control is the criminal justice system — the formal process by which society reacts to alleged violations of the law through the use of police, courts, and punishment. Social control does not have to take the form of a negative response to conformity. Praise from parents, high grades at school, laudatory mention in newspapers and other mass media, and positive recognition from officials in the local community are all forms of social control that serve to encourage conformity to conventional patterns of thought and behaviour.
Exercise 7. Choose the right answer.
1. What is the most obvious and familiar type of deviance?
a) traffic violation; b) homicide;
c) minor offense; d) crime.
2. What is deviance based on?
a) industrial societies; b) cultural standards;
c) dimension of difference; d) negative reaction.
3. What is deviance subject to?
a) social control; b) social isolation;
c) social difference; d) social reaction.
4. What is a complex process of social control?
a) deviance; b) socialization;
c) nonconformity; d) isolation.
5. To what does social control not have to take the form of a negative response?
a) conformity; b) nonconformity;
c) punishment; d) positive recognition.
Exercise 8. Fill in the gaps using the words given below, and translate the sentences into Russian.
conform culture reacts norms communities
reaction social control violate socialization negative
1. Deviance describes actions or behaviors that … social norms. 2. … are rules and expectations by which members of society are conventionally guided. 3. Deviance is a failure to … to norms. 4. Social norms are different in one … as opposed to another. 5. Deviance can be observed by the … social reaction of others towards these phenomena. 6. Criminal behavior, such as theft, can be deviant, but other crimes attract little or no social …. 7. Deviance and social norms vary among societies, …, and times. 8. The study of deviance can be divided into the study of why people violate laws or norms and the study of how society …. 9. … is important in producing conformity to social rules and it is when this conformity is broken that deviance occurs. 10. … theory focuses on how deviants are attached, or not, to common value systems and what situations break people’s commitment to these values.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Conflict theory.
Unit 14.
SPENCER
Warm up
READING
Spencer and his time
The birth of sociology in England is linked with the name of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). In the middle of the nineteenth century, when his scientific activity was beginning, British capitalism was at the zenith of its prosperity. England, having completed the industrial revolution before all other countries, had far outstripped them in level of economic development. In the eyes of mid-century world opinion, she was the symbol of prosperity and liberalism. In spite of acute class contradictions, the British middle classes were proud of the progress made, and looked to the future with confidence. That mood had its effect, as well, on Spencer’s social philosophy.
Spencer worked from 1837 to 1841 as an engineer and technician on a railway, simultaneously studying mathematics and natural sciences. Then, for several years, he contributed to the press. In 1853, having inherited a tidy legacy from an uncle, he resigned his post and began the modest life of an independent scientist and publicist. Even after he had attained fame, he refused all official honours.
In the early 1860s Spencer made a tremendous effort to create a system of synthetic philosophy that would unite all the theoretical sciences of the time. This work included ten volumes, consisting of five separate titles: First Principles (1862), Principles of Biology (1864,1867), Principles of Psychology (1870-1872); Principles of Sociology ( 1876, 1882, 1896), which was anticipated in 1873 in an independent book The Study of Sociology, and Principles of Ethics (1892, 1893).
What were the sources of his ideas?
In his youth he was not interested in philosophy; later he did not read philosophical and psychological books, preferring to derive the necessary information from conversations with friends and popular editions. According to his secretary, there was not a single book by Hobbes, Locke, Hume, or Kant in his library. His knowledge of history, too, was very weak.
Spencer borrowed much more from the natural sciences, especially from those parts in which the idea of development was being born or worked out. When Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared in 1858, Spencer warmly welcomed it. Darwin in turn highly valued Spencer’s theory of evolution, acknowledged its influence, and even placed Spencer intellectually above himself. Yet, in spite of this respect and influence, Spencer’s evolutionism was more Lamarckian than Darwinian.
A second line of influence, perceived and acknowledged by Spencer himself, was the works of English economists of the eighteenth century, especially those of Malthus and Adam Smith.
Finally, the ideas of the English Utilitarians, in particular of Bentham, whose individualism Spencer intensified even more, had quite a clear influence on him. He had already, in his first book Social Statics (1851), formulated a “law of equal freedom”, according to which “every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with the possession of like liberty by every other man”. Freedom of individual actions, competition and survival of the fittest were all that were needed for the development of society.
Spencer’s attitude to Comte presents special interest. His own ideas had already been formed in the main when he became acquainted with Comte’s works. On the whole he highly appreciated Comte, ascribing to him “the credit of having set forth with comparative definiteness, the connexion between the Science of Life and the Science of Society”.
Later, however, there began to be serious disagreements. Spencer was, first of all, much more naturalistic than Comte. Spencer rejected the idea of uniform, linear progress, in the light of which the different forms of society presented by savage and civilized races all over the globe, are but different stages in the evolution of one form. In his view the truth was that social types, like types of individual organisms, do not form a series, but are classifiable only in divergent groups.
Finally, Spencer posed the question of the relation of the individual and the social whole quite differently to Comte.
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 15.
ECONOMY
Warm up
READING
WRITING AND COMMUNICATION
Unit 1.
BIOGRAGHIES
Warm up
Exercise 1. Match the English words on the left with their Russian equivalents on the right. Learn the words by heart.
| 1. to enter | a) основатель; |
| 2. sincere | b) опыт; |
| 3. to earn | c) жениться, выходить замуж; |
| 4. a founder | d) хмурый, угрюмый; |
| 5. experience | e) неблагодарный, неприятный; |
| 6. to suffer | f) посвящать; |
| 7. sombre | g) ссориться; |
| 8. ungrateful | h) зарабатывать; |
| 9. to devote | i) искренний; |
| 10. to quarrel | j) поступать. |
READING