We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
Sociology Needs a Common Language: A Response to Cole and Wallace.
- Authors
Chapman, Victoria
- Abstract
The article presents a response to sociologists Walter L. Wallace and Stephen Cole on the topic of sociology needing a common language. There are many nonscientific disciplines that have a core terminology. For example, few would call music a science, yet if every musician had a different definition of middle C or thought adagio meant something more like allegro, then imagine the mess that would be made of Bach keyboard concertos. A variety of music texts are clear on the meaning of the broader term under which such concepts fall: tempo. Again word tempo is the speed of the succession of counting units and indicates several different tempos; Allegro is gay, fast, light, Adagio means slow, Allegretto is slower than allegro and Andante is faster than Adagio but slower than Allegretto. An introductory text describes tempo as the musical pace, the speed of the rhythm where andante is at a walking pace and adagio is slow. Here are several writers, coming to the subject with different agendas, from different generations and yet they all have the same basic understanding of the term tempo and corresponding terms such as adagio and andante. There is nothing in this argument suggesting that disciplines that are not sciences do not need core terminologies.
- Subjects
SOCIAL sciences; CIVILIZATION; SOCIOLOGY; LANGUAGE &; languages; ANTHROPOLOGY; ETHNOLOGY; INFORMATION theory
- Publication
Sociological Forum, 1996, Vol 11, Issue 4, p639
- ISSN
0884-8971
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/BF02425310