Showing papers in "British Journal of Sociology in 1959"

Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya

Abstract: An analysis of the political organization of the traditional government of the Malay Sultans before the introduction of British rule in 1874.

A public language: some sociological implications of a linguistic form

Abstract: YN AN EARLIER PAPER an attempt was made to show a | relationship between two forms of linguistic expression and the way Xrelationships to objects were established.l It was argued that one form of language use, called a public language, facilitated thinking of a descriptive order and sensitivity to a particular form of social interaction. In the earlier paper a public language was discussed with reference to its use by the unskilled and semi-skilled strata, but approximations to a public language may well be spoken in such widely separated groups as criminal sub-cultures, rural groups, armed forces and adolescent groups in particular situations. Characteristics of a public language are: 2 I. Short, grammatically simple, often unfinished sentences, a poor syntactical construction with a verbal form stressing the active mood. 2. Simple and repetitive use of conjunctions (so, then, and, because). 3. Frequent use of short commands and questions. 4. Rigid and limited use of adjectives and adverbs. 5. Infrequent use of impersonal pronouns as subjects (one, it). 6. Statements formulated as implicit questions which set up a sympathetic circularity, e.g. 'Just fancy?', 'It's only natural, isn't it?' 'I wouldn't have believed it.' 7. A statement offact is often used as both a reason and a conclusion, or more accurately, the reason and conclusion are confounded to produce a categoric statement, e.g. 'Do as I tell you', 'Hold on tight', 'You're not going out', 'Lay of that'. 8. Individual selection from a group of idiomatic phrases will frequently be found. 9. Symbolism is of a low order of generality. IO. The individual qualification is implicit in the sentence structure, therefore it is a language of implicit meaning. It is believed that this fact determi-'es the form of the language.

Understanding and Explanation in Social Anthropology

Abstract: , NY REASONED INQUIRY seeks to understand its subject> matter, and the kind of understanding appropriate in any £ Xparticular case will depend both upon the interests of the inquirer and upon the kind of material he is investigating. Social anthropologists have not always been agreed as to exactly what their subject-matter is or as to the nature of their interest in it. It may therefore be useful to see, first of all, what it is that present-day social anthropologists really study and, secondly, to consider how they attempt to make sense of what they study, that is, to understand it. One way of understanding things is to explain them, so I shall undertake a brief review of some of the types of explanation used in, and appropriate to, social anthropology.l What follows does not purport to be an original contribution to the methodology of the social sciences; its aim is the very limited one of making more explicit certain methods of analysis already commonly used. First of all, how do present-day social anthropologists conceive their own subject? Here are a few fairly characteristic answers. For RadcliffeBrown social anthropology was 'that branch of sociology which deals with "primitive" or pre-literate societies', 'sociology' being defined as 'the study of social systems', and a 'social system' as consisting of 'individual human beings interacting with one another within certain coniinuing associations'.2 (The same author had earlier defined social anthropology as 'the investigation of the nature of human society by the systematic comparison of societies of diverse kinds'.3) According to Evans-Pritchard social anthropology studies

The Dynamics of Joint Consultation

Abstract: r 10 DEVISE a social organization of industry acceptable to the majority of those employed in it remains one of the essential > . problems of present-day society. In particular, the making of decisions and the exercise of authority give rise to crucial conflicts. Joint Consultation seeks among other things to establish formal discussion of questions of mutual interest between management and employees and so make decisions more acceptable to the latter. Scientific investigations of its effects 1lpon the social structure of industry have tended to focus upon the organizational setting and structure of the machinery rather than upon its dynamic aspects. This study set otlt to analyse Joint Consultation in a nationalized enterprise not as ar institution with fixed rules to be applied in a predictable fashion, but rather as a social process changing the social system. From December I956 to May I957 an investigation was made into the structure and functioning ofJoint Consultation in the enterprise concerned, including an analysis of the work of several committees. After this, attention was focused on the work of one local committee and its development over a period offour years; minutes of the meetings were analysed and members of the committee were interviewed.