| 1. to deal with | a) to be unlucky to have (someone or something) |
| 2. to prohibit | b) to send or carry |
| 3. to comprise of | c) to be concerned with; treat (a subject) |
| 4. to convey to | d) to forbide |
| 5. to correlate with | e) to force (someone) into something or doing something |
| 6. to curse with | f) to raise to a higher rank or position |
| 7. to promote | g) to compose of, to consist in, to consist of |
| 8. to coerse into | h) to (cause to) be like or close to (something else) |
| 9. to recognise | i) to show a true or exact copy of (something such as an idia) |
| 10. to reflect | j) to accept; to admit |
IV communicative practice
a. Make a quick guess. How many new words did you learn during the lesson?
b. The research says: ”Those who learned their second language early learned it best. “ (Jacqueline Johnson and Elissa Newport, 1989). Do you agree with it?
c. Do you agree with Chomsky that children are biologically prepared to learn language as they interact with their caregivers?
d. At what age do you think people should start learning foreign languages to be a success?
e. Language is considered to be the basic element of culture. In modern serials young people often use foul language. How does it influence culture?
f. What is the difference between a farmer’s and a politician’s speech?
Unit V
Sociology and values
Text 1
Why SHOULD WE study values? What is meant by values?
Some sociologists have argued, at least as early as the work of Karl Marx, that not only is sociology not value-free, but it also has a normative or value dimension. This means that we cannot escape the moral implications of the social conditions we observe. This kind of regarding the moral nature of sociology has led some sociologists to clarify which values are basic or most important. It is essential for this analysis to difine what values are and how we may recognise and analyse their role in a system of motivated social action. A common notion is that value refers to any aspect of a situation, event, or object that is invested with a preferential interest as being “good,” “bad, ”desirable,”and the like. This conception is not enough for present purposes. Any formal definition of value is likely to be too general to be of great use to a sociological analysis. It is enough if we circumscribe the boundaries of value. What is experienced by individuals as values have these qualities:
(1) They have a conceptual element – they are more than pure sensations, emotions, reflexes, or needs. Values are abstractions drawn from flux of the individual’s immediate experience.
(2) They are affectively charged: they represent actual or potential emotional mobilisation.
(3) Values are not the goals of action, but rather the criteria by which goals are chosen.
(4) Values are important, not “trivial”or of slight concern.
In the consideration of values a useful point lies in the elementary facts of preference and selection. Men prefer some things to others; they select particular objects and courses of action out of a range of possibilities present in a situation. The world is not emotionally neutral for us, nor are all things equally desired or esteemed. Accepting this, we must still be careful to see the highly consequential distinction between “value” in the sense of an evaluation of an object of regard, on the one hand, and the standards by which such evaluations are made. As Kluckhohn has noted, there is a basic distinction between that “ which is desired” and that “ which is desirable”. Values in the sense of standards are “conseptions of the desirable”. They are criteria for deciding what we should want. Empirically considered, value is not an all-or-none matter, but a continuum. At one pole, we find those intense moral values that are true matters of conscience. Values of this order are present when the individual who violates them shows a reaction of strong guilt or overwhelming shame and the group imposes strong censure upon the offender, or when the person who acts in accord with an accepted standard of evaluation is rewarded and honord by his fellows. Such moral values are the core of the individual’s internalized conscience. They also define the central institutional structure of the society. Our basic questions are: (1) what, in fact, are the conseptions of the desirable to be found in this society; and (2) what does the presence of these values tell us about the actual functioning of the social system? It will be necessery to deal with some clusters of belief-and-value which are diffuse and vague, as well as with highly generalised and explicit value-orientations. In its most simple formulation, a belief is a conviction that something is real, whereas a value is a standard of presence. Thus, a man may believe that there is life after death, but this statement tells us nothing directly as to whether immortality is for him a positive or a negative value, or a matter of indifference.
The empirical study of values in society indicates so many “operational definitions” of value: value as an overt choice or preference, as attention or emphasis, as statement or assertion, as a referent of social sanctions to human beings. When used in combination, these several different approximations gain reliability in so far as they are mutually consistent.
I Vocabulary
- dimension – 1) измерение, 2) размеры, величина
- clarification – прояснение
- to circumscribe – описывать
- boundaries – границы
- flux – течение, поток, постоянная смена
- to desire – жаждать, сильно жела
- to esteem – оценивать
- consequantional distinction – важные отличия
- conscience – сознательный
- inhanced self-image – завышенная самооценка
- cluster – группа
- explicit – ясный, подробный
- conviction – убеждение, уверенность
- immortality – бессмертие, вечность
- mutual(ly) – взаимный (взаимно – нареч.)
- consistent – совместимый
II Comprehension check
- What qualities do values have?
- What are values criteria for?
- How do people react when a person acts against or in accord with values of conscience?
- What values define the central institutional structure of the society?
- What is the difference between a belief and a value
- Give a summary classification of dominant values.
Text 2
What are “dominant values”? What are value systems? Major value-orientations
What can we say about the hierarchy of values? Are there any “dominent” values? Which values are common (shared), which are intense or less intense, which are persistent or transitory, which take precedence over others? Some concrete tests of value dominance are obviously needed.
Dominant and subordinate values for a group or social system as a whole can be roughly ordered to these criteria:
1. Extensiveness of the value in the total activity of the system. What propotion of a population manifests the value?
2. Duration of the value. Has it been persistently important over a considerable period of time?
3. Intensity with which the value is sought or maintained, as shown by: efforts, crucial choices, reactions to threats etc.
4. Prestige of value carriers – that is, of persons, objects, or organizations considered to be bearers of the value. Culture heroes, for example, are significant indexes of high generality and esteem.
The application of these criteria may be illustrated by the complex we call democracy. Let us define democracy as a combination of (1) high evaluation of individual persons apart from their extrinsic characteristics or positions; (2) elective rather than appointive choice of leaders; (3) reliance upon discussion and group consensus in determination of collective policy; (4) reservation of certain minimal social rights on an equal basis to all group members. How would we, then, test the hypotheses (1) that democracy is or is not highly valued, and (2) that democracy does or does not occupy a dominant position in the value hierarchy?
The first step is to secure evidence of democracy in the various institutions and subcultures of the society. To what extent is there democracy in family, education, religious group, stratification system, government, economic system? At once we are aware of great variation among and within the several institutional sectors. The criteria of democracy are met in full in some sectors of our political system, but hardly at all in others. In the economic system, direction by authority is more usual. The generalized value-orientations which may lie behind specific institutional arrangements are not easily disentangled. Just what standards of value are used for evaluating “democracy” as good or bad? The answer is not obvious, and it is complicated by the fact that such relatively specific evaluations represent a mixture of values, as such, together with knowledge, cognitive beliefs, and a wide variety of other factors particular to the actual social situations in which we look for evidence of values. We cannot remind ourselves too often that values are not identical with institutions and with all behavior.
It is clear that in our society the range of interests, beliefs, values, knowledge, and so on is so great that precise and detailed characterizations can be done only for care segments of the society. Furthermore, values change through time. These considerations explain why we speak of value-systems, rather than of values.
In describing value systems in a society we are mainly concerned with the distinctive elements of these systems, and not with “universal” features shared by the human species as a whole. For example, we do not speak about the unlearned biogenic “drives” or “needs” such as hunger, thirst, sex, activity, rest, and the like. However important, this substratum of behavior is it does not specifically explain problems that are definitely sociogenic or cultural. We shall deal with certain universal social values that exist in cultures. Clashes of value become crucial for social organization when they emerge in those areas of person – to-person interaction that are essential to the maintenance of the system – for example, family life or in work relations. Persistent value-conflicts in these areas will lead, variously, to personality disorganization of the system of interaction. Similarly, in mass behavior, persistent and widespread value-tension leads to political struggle.
We can now outline certain major value-configurations in culture. For convenience, we will proceed by abstracting certain dominant themes from the many important regional, class, and other variations.The simplified picture will be innacurate in every concrete detail – it will be a series of ideal types, subject to numerous exceptions.
Nevertheless, these abstracted patterns will serve as working models and present tendences. As a first approximation, we can use these tentative formulations in each instance as test cases. For each value-pattern let us ask: Is it actually an important value? How do we know whether it is or not? Where does it stand in relation to other values? Within the total society, what groups or subcultures are the main bearers of the value, and what groups or subcultures are indifferent or opposed? How do the mutually supporting or antagonistic value-systems work toward or against the integration of the culture as a whole? We will list a value or theme frequently observed. Some authors list seven major patterns: monogamous marriage, freedom, accquisitiveness, democracy, education, monotheistic religion, freedom and science.
I Vocabulary
1. hierarchy – иерархия
2. focal values – основные ценности
3. extensiveness – экстенсивность
4. duration – продолжительность
5. intensity – интенсивность
6. verbal affirmation – вербальное подтверждение
7. esteem – оценка
8. evaluation – оценивание
9. to secure – гарантировать
10. prevalence – (здесь) господство, преобладание
11. cognitive believes – осознанные верования
12. reciprocal – взаимный, обоюдный
13. species – (биолог.) вид
14. sociogenic – (неологизм, социолог. термин) порожденный социоусловиями, социогенный
15. universal social values – универсальные общественные ценности
16. persistant – настойчивый
17. tentative formulations – пробные формулировки
18. value-pattern – (ожидаемая) модель поведения
19. acquisitiveness – страсть к наживе, приобретательности
II Comprehention check
1. How do you understand
a) extensiveness of the value?
b) duration of the value?
c) intensity of the value?
d) prestige of the value?
2. What is democracy?
3. In what system are the critiria of democracy met?
4. Why do we speak of value-systems, rather then of values?
5. What are we concerned with in describing value systems?
6. When do clashes of value become crucial?
7. What will persistent value-conflicts lead to?
8. What questions should we ask for each value-pattern?
9. What major patterns do some authors list?
