Sociological Jargon

School of
Social Sciences

___Introduction to Sociology

Sociological
Jargon

What they say and what they mean: a guide to the language

Perplexed by post-modernism? Stumped by structuration? All sociologists feel they have to use words that no-one understands instead of ordinary words, otherwise they wouldn't be doing sociology properly. This simple guide should help you to translate sociological texts into English. Find that word that has been haunting your dreams and rest easy.

Sociologism	English
Social agents, individuals, social units, or social actors	people
Consumers	people when they buy things
Workers	people when they do things
Social totalities, status groups, collectivities, networks or classes	groups of people
Society	a lot of groups of people trying to live together
Discourse	what people say they do
Consciousness	what they think they do
Action	what they actually do (always very different)
Oppression	what some people do to other people when they do things they disapprove of
Repression	what people do to themselves when they think things that other people disapprove of
Historical context	the way people have done things in past influences how people do things now
Structure	the fact that way in which other people do things influences how you do things
Agency	means the opposite of 'structure'

These pages were originally written by:	Angus Bancroft and Sioned Rogers
Redesigned and updated by:	Pierre Stapley - 2010