Translate the text about Pitirim Sorokin into Russian.

READING AND SUMMARIZING

Read an extract from Pitirim Sorkin’s work about social mobility and do the tasks that follow.

Pitirim Sorokin

Conception of Social Mobility and Its Forms

(1) By social mobility is understood any transition of an individual or social object or value - anything that has been created or modified by human activity - from one social position to another. There are two principal types of social mobility, horizontal and vertical. By horizontal social mobility or shifting, is meant the transition of an individual or social object from one social group to another situated on the same level. Transitions of individuals, as from the Baptist to the Methodist religious group, from one citizenship to another, from one family (as a husband or wife) to another by divorce and remarriage, from one factory to another in the same occupational status, are all instances of social mobility. So too are transitions of social objects, the radio, automobile, fashion, Communism, Darwin's theory, within the same social stratum, as from London to California, or from any one place to another. In all these cases, "shifting" may take place without any noticeable change of the social position of an individual or social object in the vertical direction. By vertical social mobility is meant the relations involved in a transition of an individual (or a social object) from one social stratum to another. According to the direction of the transition there are two types of vertical social mobility: ascending and descending, or social climbing and social sinking. According to the nature of the stratification, there are ascending and descending currents of economic, political, and occupational mobility, not to mention other less important types. The ascending currents exist in two principal forms: as an infiltration of the individuals of a lower stratum into an existing higher one; and as a creation of a new group by such individuals, and the insertion of such a group into a higher stratum instead of, or side by side with, the existing groups of this stratum.. Correspondingly, the descending current has also two principal forms: the first consists in a dropping of individuals from a higher social position into an existing lower one, without a degradation or disintegration of the higher group to which they belonged; the second is manifested in a degradation of a social group as a whole, in an abasement of its rank among other groups, or in its disintegration as a social unit.. The first case of "sinking" reminds one of an individual falling from a ship; the second of the sinking of the ship itself with all on board, or of the ship as a wreck breaking itself to pieces.

(2) The cases of individual infiltration into an existing higher stratum or of individuals dropping from a higher social layer into a lower one are relatively common and comprehensible. They need no explanation. The second form of social ascending and descending, the rise and fall of groups, must be considered more carefully.

(3) The following historical examples may serve to illustrate. The historians of India's caste-society tell us that the caste of the Brahmins did not always hold the position of indisputable superiority which it has held during the last two thousand years. In the remote past, the caste of the warriors and rulers, or the caste of the Kshatriyas, seems to have been not inferior to the caste of the Brahmins; and it appears that only after a long struggle did the latter become the highest caste. If this hypothesis be true, then this elevation of the rank of the Brahmin caste as a whole through the ranks of other castes is an example of the second type of social ascent. The group as a whole being elevated, all its members, incorpore, through this very fact, are elevated also.

(4) Before the recognition of the Christian religion by Constantine the Great, the position of a Christian Bishop, or the Christian clergy, was not a high one among other social ranks of Roman society. In the next few centuries the Christian Church, as a whole, experienced an enormous elevation of social position and rank. Through this wholesale elevation of the Christian Church, the members of the clergy, and especially the high Church dignitaries, were elevated to the highest ranks of medieval society. And, contrariwise, a decrease in the authority of the Christian Church during the last two centuries has led to a relative abasement of the social ranks of the high Church dignitaries within the ranks of the present society. The position of the Pope or a cardinal is still high, but undoubtedly it is lower than it was in the Middle Ages. The group of the legists in France is another example. In the twelfth century, this group appeared in France, as a group, and began to grow rapidly insignificance and rank. Very soon, in the form of the judicial aristocracy, it inserted itself into the place of the previously existing nobility. In this way, its members were raised to a much higher social position. (5) During the seventeenth, and especially the eighteenth centuries, the group, as a whole, began to "sink," and finally disappeared in the conflagration of the Revolution. A similar process took place in the elevation of the Communal Bourgeoisie in the Middle Ages, in the privileged Six Corps or the Guilda Mercatoria, and in the aristocracy of many royal courts. To have a high position at the court of the Romanoffs, Hapsburgs, or Hohenzollerns before the revolutions meant to have one of the highest social ranks in the corresponding countries. The "sinking" of the dynasties led to a "social sinking" of all ranks connected with them. The group of the Communists in Russia, before the Revolution, did not have any high rank socially recognized. During the Revolution the group climbed an enormous social distance and occupied the highest strata in Russian society. As a result, all its members have been elevated en masse to the place occupied by the Czarist aristocracy. Similar cases are given in a purely economic stratification. Before the "oil" and "automobile" era, to be a prominent manufacturer in this field did not mean to be a captain of industry and finance. A great expansion of these industries has transformed them into some of the most important kinds of industry. Correspondingly, to be a leading manufacturer in these fields now means to be one of the most important leaders of industry and finance. These examples illustrate the second collective form of ascending and descending currents of social mobility.

Tasks

1. Read passage 1 and condense its content. Begin with:

The author points out that …

The passage describes …

The main idea of the passage is …

2. Name the passages that illustrate the examples of Sorokin’s horizontal and vertical social mobility.

3. Find the key sentence of passage 5.

4. Summarize the text.

SPEAKING

Taking part in the conference

Vocabulary to use

a meeting/ a session

a plenary meeting

a chairman/ a chairwoman/ a chairperson

to give the floor to someone

to fix the time limit

to break the time limit

to call attention to the time limit

to stimulate discussions

to ask somebody a question

to call for questions

a speaker

to take part in/ to participate/ to attend a conference

to submit abstracts/ to present papers

to take the floor

to digress from the subject

Answer the questions:

1. Have you ever participated in international conferences?

2. When did you last take part in a conference?

3. What problems were considered?

4. How many participants attended the conference?

5. Which reports attracted general attention?

6. Whose report was of particular interest?

7. What problem did it deal with?

8. Did you present a paper at the conference?

9. Why is it necessary for a scientist to know foreign languages?

Work in pairs:

Tell your partner about the experience of attending a conference.

Act out the situation: you are to discuss your research, its progress and results. One person is the chairman, the rest are the speaker.

GRAMMAR NOTES

Conditional sentences

	English	Russian
1type –real condition	If I find this data, I ’llmake some conclusions.	Если я найду эти данные, я приду к каким-либо выводам.
2type –unreal condition (present, future)	If I found this data, I would make some conclusions.	Если бы я нашел эти данные, я бы пришел к каким-либо выводам. (сейчас, в будущем)
3type –unreal condition (past)	If had found this data before, I would have made some conclusions.	Если бы до этого я нашел эти данные, я бы уже пришел к каким-либо выводам. (в прошлом)

Read the following conditional sentences, determine their type. Translate the sentences into Russian.

1. If his hypotheses were true, they would become classic.

2. If such generalizations are assimilated to sociological theory, they will be found in the sociological literature.

3. It would be foolish to pretend that such questions can be readily resolved, either on a theoretical level or even in relation to concrete empirical problems.

4. From another point of view, it must be added that if men were really forced to project their own image into things, the first sacred beings would be conceived in their likeness.

5. If we were to imagine a continuum between pure research and pure practice, applied sociology would occupy a space in the middle of this continuum.

6. If the theory is true, we’ll find the solution.

7. If we had this definition the social wholeness it would mean that the organization is understood by its members as some stable social formation.

8. If the man didn’t belong to the multiple organizations, this task wouldn’t be difficult.

9. If the society didn’t influence the fates of many people, it wouldn’t be necessary to develop the model of its functioning and development.

10. If they had revealed the problem before, they wouldn’t have had to consider this question.

11. If the organization generally solves the ordinary problems the mechanism of development will not mean a lot and its functions will be executed by the leaders of the organization.

12. If the behavior and activity of the members are regulated, ability to self-development and self-training will appear.

13. If we analyzed the known concepts, we would understand the nature of the whole thing.

14. If they take this idea into account, they will be able to do the research.

15. If the theory is based on new models, sociology will use it.

16. If there is an ability to solve the problems, there will be an opportunity to adequately respond on calls.

17. Nothing could be more normal than an economic system consisting of markets.

18. If we remove land from the market, it will mean incorporation of land.

19. If they wanted to ensure freedom, they would follow this way.

20. If the governing elite is composed mostly of Class II types, then it will fall into a bureaucratic, inefficient and reactionary mess, easy prey for calculating upwardly-mobile Class I's.

21. If before proceeding with their researches mathematicians had insisted upon deciding whether or not the postulate of Euclid corresponded to concrete reality, geometry would not exist even today.

UNIT 8

READING AND SPEAKING

Pre-reading task

1. Once Robert Merton said: “Sociology is a very young science about a very ancient subject of knowledge”. What do you know about the history of this science? Name the first sociologists.

2. The centre of the world sociology at the first stage of its development is considered to be three European countries: France, Germany and England. Will you name the most prominent sociologists of these countries?

3. What do you know about British sociology?

4. Read the text.

British sociology

In a global age, the concept of British sociology poses an interesting question with regard to the viability of national sociologies. Neither academic disciplines nor the subjects studied fit easily into national boundaries. An academic's closest colleague may be in New York or Delhi rather than in Lancaster or Birmingham. Key figures in British sociology, such as Dahrendorf, Westergaard, and Bauman are not British but have spent some or all of their careers working in British institutions (Halsey 1989). As sociologists working in Britain they were well placed to investigate questions related to British society. Then there are the British sociologists who have left Britain to research and teach elsewhere; John Goldthorpe to Sweden and Germany, and John Hall and Michael Mann to the United States, for example. British sociologists have often studied other nations too: Ronald Dore focuses on Japan, David Lane on Russia, and John Torrance on Austria to name a few. With all of these international influences exemplifying the present status of sociology in Britain, how ''British'' then is British sociology? This entry briefly explores the range of sociology that has developed in Britain from its origins to the present day, and ends by noting possible implications for its future.

The discipline of sociology in Great Britain has a history that stretches back to the early 1900s. Martin White and the London School of Econo­mics (LSE) figure prominently in the development of British sociology. In 1907, White effectively founded the study of sociology in Britain by investing about £1,000 to fund a series of lectures at the LSE, as well as to establish the Sociological Society. The first annual report of the society indicated 408 members distributed throughout Great Britain, and thirty-two overseas. Early members of the society included an interesting variety of prominent public and literary figures, such as H.H. Asquith, Hilaire Belloc, and the Bishop of Stepney; British academics including Bertrand Russell, Gra­ham Wallas, and Beatrice Webb; as well as international academics such as Emile Durkheim and Ferdinand Tonnies, among others. Also in 1907, White gave the University of London £10,000 for a permanent chair in sociology to be located at LSE. White also donated additional funds for lectureships, bursaries, and scholarships in sociology. Because of White's prominence in supporting these early initiatives, Dahrendorf has argued that ''it is not too much to say that one man, Martin White, established the discipline of sociology in Britain.”

Despite this promising start, by 1945 the LSE remained the only university with a department of sociology in Britain. Several reasons have been identified for this late development. Among these was the long-standing opposition to the creation of sociology as a university subject by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which were at the top of the educational establishment in Britain. In addition, two other disciplines had claims on similar social research that predated the emergence of sociology. Anthropology and political economy both focused on social research that suited the interests of Britain at the time.

Studies of foreign shores while Britain was still a major empire was of greater interest than social research focused on issues closer to home. Empirically based scholarship on the political economy was preferable to the theoretical emphasis of many sociologists because of its perceived lack of application to the real world. The purported lack of credibility of those promoting the study of sociology, many of whom were either located on the outside or on the margins of academe, did not lend a helping hand to the development of sociology either. But, the most persistent obstacle was the hierarchical social structure of British society that prevented the effective interrogation of its social structures.

Answer the following questions

1. Speak about the British sociologists. What do they do? Where do they work?

2. Who is considered to be the founder of British sociology? What did he do?

3. What were the main reasons for such a slow development of sociology in Britain afterwards?

4. Do you agree that the achievements of science are not sufficient to ensure adequate support for science? Why? Why not?

READING AND TRANSLATION

Read the text and answer the following questions:

1. Name Pareto’s most famous works.

2. What is “utility” for him?

3. What is his attitude to ideologies in general?

4. What reason for human activity does he find?

5. What are the main points of Pareto’s theory of society?

6. Why were the Fascists attracted by his works?

7. Speak about the impact Pareto had in sociology and economics.

Vilfredo Pareto

(1848-1923)

Vilfredo Pareto was born in 1848 to an Italian aristocratic family. His father, a Ligurian marchese (marquis) and civil engineer, had fled to Paris in 1835 in self-imposed exile, following the example of Mazzini and other Italian nationalists. Vilfredo was the third child (and first son) of his marriage to a Frenchwoman.

Vilfredo Pareto wrote his famous Cours, where his main economic contribution was his exposition of "Pareto's Law" of income distribution. Over the years, Pareto's Law has proved remarkably resilient in empirical studies. Pareto was also troubled with the concept of "utility". In its common usage, utility meant the well-being of the individual or society, but Pareto realized that when people make economic decisions, they are guided by what they think is desirable for them, whether or not that corresponds to their well-being. Thus, he introduced the term "ophelimity" to replace the worn-out "utility".

In a famous 1900 Rivista article, Pareto declared that all ideologies were just smokescreens foisted by "leaders" who really only aspired to enjoy the privileges and powers of the governing elite. For Pareto, humanitarianism, liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism, whatever, were all the same in the end. Pareto decided to have none of it - and went on a crusade to expose the sham of political ideology and doctrine. He condemned socialists of all stripes roundly in a 1902 book, but took particular aim at logically demolishing the "new gospel" of Marxian economics. As revealed in the Cours and in his own introduction to an abridged 1893 edition of Karl Marx's Capital, Pareto applauded Marxian theories of class struggle and even thought historical materialism was on the right track (albeit not deep and general enough, in his view). But he deplored Marx's Wizard-of-Oz-like conclusion. For Pareto, class struggle is eternal; the promised "classless" society that would emerge under communism was merely ideological fodder for socialist leaders to lay on their flock. Of course, as a good Neoclassical, Pareto could not fathom the labor theory of value either.

In 1906, Pareto published his Manual of Political Economy, his magnum opus on pure economics. Unlike the Cours, the Manual concentrates on presenting pure economics in an explicitly mathematical form. The focus is on formulating equilibrium in terms of solutions to individual problems of "objectives and contraints". It is in the Manual that we find the first representation of what has since become known (and misnamed) as the "Edgeworth-Bowley" box. His sociological observations also begin to indicate the future course of his ideas. In 1900, Pareto had entered into a brief controversy in the Giornale degli economisti with Benedetto Croce. Croce had criticized economists' positivistic approach, particularly the assumption of "rational economic man". Pareto defended economists, but, at the same time, realized that the conventional defense was not even convincing enough to himself. Why did the predictions of economics fail to correspond to reality? Why were its policy recommendations, to him logically irrefutable, not adopted? The explanation, he concluded, echoing Georges Sorel, was simply that much of human activity was driven not by logical action, but rather by non-logical action. On this, of course, economics has nothing to say - which is why, ultimately, economics will always fail empirically. Pareto realized that he had to move beyond economics to look for his answer.

Pareto's theory of society claimed that there was a tendency to return to an equilibrium where a balanced amount of Class I and Class II people are present in the governing elites. People are always entering and leaving the elite thereby tending to restore the natural balance. On occasion, when it gets too lopsided, an elite will be replaced en masse by another. If there are too many Class I people in a governing elites, this means that violent, conservative Class II's are in the lower echelons, itching and capable of taking power when the Class I's finally make a mess of things by too much cunning and corruption (he regarded Napoleon III's France and the Italian "pluto-democratic" system as an example). If the governing elite is composed mostly of Class II types, then it will fall into a bureaucratic, inefficient and reactionary mess, easy prey for calculating upwardly-mobile Class I's (e.g. Tsarist Russia).

Pareto colored his sociological theory with numerous classical and contemporary illustrations of his theory. His quasi-mystical arguments about the non-logical motivations attracted many Italian Fascists (Mussolini himself claimed to have attended his lectures at Lausanne). Pareto, however, was largely disdainful of the Fascist movement - he never had patience for ideologies or ideologues - but he found them quite amusing. He died a mere ten months into Mussolini's reign - before the uglier aspects of Fascism became obvious. The Fascists continued to use his name unreservedly to give intellectual veneer to their movement.

Despite his association with Fascism, Pareto's sociological work has been taken seriously, going through recurring phases of popularity and critical scrutiny. Freudian psychology has given much weight to some of his notions. It is not so much its main thrust, but its roughness, simplicity and incompleteness that are the main sources of complaint.

Pareto's social economics have had a great impact. Pareto managed to construct a proper school around himself at Lausanne, including G.B. Antonelli, Boninsegni, Amoroso and others as disciples. Outside this small group, his work also influenced W.E. Johnson, Eugen Slutsky and Arthur Bowley. But Pareto's big break came posthumously in the 1930s and 1940s, a period which we have decided to call the "Paretian Revival". His "tastes-and-obstacles" approach to demand were resurrected by John Hicks and R.G.D. Allen (1934) and extended and popularized by John Hicks (1939), Maurice Allais (1943) and Paul Samuelson (1947). Pareto's work on welfare were resurrected by Harold Hotelling, Oskar Lange and the "New Welfare Economics" movement. Finally, Pareto's ruminations on the potential efficiency of a collectivist society were aired in the Socialist Calculation Debate that arose between the Paretians and the Austrians.

1. Translate the following proper names:

Ligurian; Mazzini; Benedetto Croce; Georges Sorel; Mussolini; Lausanne; Antonelli; Boninsegni; Amoroso; Johnson; Eugen Slutsky; Arthur Bowley; John Hicks; Allen; Maurice Allais; Paul Samuelson; Harold Hotelling; Oskar Lange; the Paretians; the Austrians.

2. Translate the words and phrases of foreign origin:

marchese; Cours; Rivista; elite; magnum opus; Giornale degli economist; en masse.

3. Translate the following words and phrases:

marquis; self-imposed exile; main economic contribution; resilient in empirical studies; utility; ophelimity; go on a crusade to expose the sham of political ideology; condemn; demolish; Wizard-of-Oz-like conclusion; ideological fodder; fathom a theory; equilibrium; quasi-mystical arguments; be disdainful of; disciples; ruminations;

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