REVIEWER:

DISS Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences

Research methods

1. Survey research – lots of data, statistical validity possible,

dependent on knowledge of population and quality of instrument;
difficult to administer
2.
Interview – high quality, low quantity
3.
Life histories – valuable but narrow use
4.
Participant observation – requires lengthy fieldwork; difficult to
compare
5.
Documentary research – written materials only
6.
Clinical experimentation – measurement

How does social science related to society?

a. it is used to study and understand society.

What are the roles of social science in the society?

a. Social science can open up debate and give us a say in

shaping our collective future.
b. Social science helped people understand the
consequences and application of the new technologies
of the age, such as steam power.

Humanities vs Social Sciences

Humanities and social sciences deal with human aspects like politics, law,
linguistics, economics, and psychology.

One of the major differences between the two is that humanities involve a
more critical and analytical approach whereas social sciences deal with more
The Major Branches
of a scientific approach.

a. Social- cultural Anthropology.

a. a branch or sub-discipline of anthropology which
Humanities are considered to be more philosophical than social sciences. studies man as Homo-faber and Homo socius. It studies
man in the context of society and culture.
b. Physical (Biological) Anthropology.
Natural Sciences vs Social Sciences a. Physical anthropology is the study of the nature of the
similarities and differences in the make up of different
1. Natural Sciences (NST) is a branch of science concerned with human population the world over.
the description, prediction, and understanding c. Archaeological Anthropology.
of natural phenomena, based on observational and empirical a. the study of the prehistoric cultural past of Man-going
evidence as far back in time as remote past when the evidences of
2. Social science is a major category of academic disciplines, the beginning of Man’s cultural activity is attested by
concerned with society and the relationships among individuals the availability on pebble tools or eoliths, which are
within a society. It in turn has many branches, each of which is hardly indistinguishable from the rocks broken and
considered a "social science smoothened by the natural processes.
d. Linguistic Anthropology.
Basically Natural Sciences deals with organic and inorganic things and social a. The study of the relationship between language and
science deal with "relationships" among individuals in the society, culture and the importance of language as an instrument
organization or group. of communication between members of a society.
e. Applied Anthropology
a. The comparative study of cultures in historical
perspective through ETHNOGRAPHY- The descriptive
account of the total way of life of the people at a given
time.
The social sciences include:

Anthropology
History (in some of its aspects)
Sociology
Psychology (in some of its aspects)
Economics
Political Science
Geography (in some of its aspects)
Linguistics

A few definitions
Microeconomics vs. macroeconomics
1. society- is the external, visible activities of people in cultural
groups – our collective form of survival
The difference between micro and macro economics is simple.
2. culture -is the internal rules and knowledge they have that enable
them to behave in an organized fashion
3. social behaviour- includes relations, roles, and whatever people do, Microeconomics is the study of economics at an individual, group or
make, think, feel, and believe that is collective company level.

4. Social groups: associations – a general term for organizations in Macroeconomics, on the other hand, is the study of a national economy as a
society, such as age groups, guilds, clubs … (can be voluntary, whole.
ascribed … )
5. Status groups – class, caste, rank Microeconomics focuses on issues that affect individuals and companies.
6. Power – authority or ability to make decisions and control
others/resources
7. Status – prestige; rank in a hierarchy Macroeconomics focuses on issues that affect the economy as a whole.
8. Family – not quite the same for all (examples of kinds of family)

BRANCHES
Physical geography
Physical geography (or physiography) focuses on geography as an Earth
science. It aims to understand the physical problems and the issues
of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, pedosphere, and
global flora and fauna patterns (biosphere).
Human geography
Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of
patterns and processes that shape the human society. It encompasses
the human, political, cultural, social, and economic aspects
METHODS
Quantitative methods
Geostatistics deal with quantitative data analysis, specifically the application
of statistical methodology to the exploration of geographic phenomena.
Qualitative methods
ABRAHAM LINCOLN – HISTORY IS NOT HISTORY UNLESS IT IS
THE TRUTH.
Historiography
- is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an
academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a
particular subject.
LINGUISTICS
Language
is the expression of ideas by means of speech-sounds combined
into words. Words are combined into sentences, this combination answering
to that of ideas into thoughts
Linguistics
the scientific study of language and its structure, including the
study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics. Specific branches of
linguistics include sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics,
computational linguistics, historical-comparative linguistics, and applied
linguistics
Phonology - the study of sound systems and how they pattern
Phonology, a major branch of linguistics, deals with sounds of a language. It
is the study of the patterns of sounds in a language. It deals with how speech
sounds are organised and used in a language; especially how the sounds are
organised in the mind and how they are used to convey meaning.
For example, in English, there are many examples of t's in the middle of
words that sound quite different from t's at the beginning or end of
words. Listen to the t's in "toted" and you’ll hear that they don’t sound
the same. The first t is pronounced with a puff of air (put your hand in
front of your mouth to check this) but the second is not and it sounds
like the d in “coded.” This sound is called a tap because your tongue
taps the roof of your mouth briefly and it is very similar to the
tapped r sound in languages like Spanish or Japanese (this leads to
misperceptions of the English middle t as an r for speakers of these
languages).
Syntax - the study of sentence structure
Syntax is the way in which words and punctuation are used and arranged to
form phrases, clauses and sentences. This can mean the selection of a word or
the word's tense, the arrangement of the words and the selection of the
punctuation.
Syntax is also known as the study of the rules that must be followed to create
well-formed phrases, clauses and sentences.
English and many western European languages have a phenomenon
called “wh-movement.” wh-words are the question words who, which,
what, where, when, why, and how. Think about the sentence “I eat
an apple” as a possible response to the question “What do you eat?”
The word what corresponds to apple, but it shows up at the beginning
of the sentence.
In many languages, though, the wh-word corresponds to the same
position as the word it refers to. For example, in Chinese you would say
“I eat apple” in response to “You eat what?” We say then that in
languages like English, wh-movement has occurred and the structure is:
“What do you eat what?” A lot of other properties of a language are
predicted by whether it has wh-movement or not, but we’ll have to
leave those to another time!
Morphology
Morphology is a branch of linguistics which deals with the study of
words; precisely the study of the internal structure of words. The term
originates from the Greek and it deals with ‘morph’ which means ‘shape’ or
‘form’.
Two kinds of classification of languages practiced in linguistics:
The man looked at the horses.
 s is the plural marker, dependent on the noun horse to receive meaning
 Horses is a word: can occur in other positions or stand on its own
EG:
The horses looked at the man.
– What is the man looking at? – Horses.
Types of Linguistic Classification
 Genetic Classification
o based on assumption that languages have diverged from a common
ancestor
o uses written remains and reconstruction procedure to recreate the
ancestor
 Typological Classification
DEF.:
Classification based on a comparison of the synchronic formal similarities
which exist between languages rather than any on a historical relationship.
Such classifications may consider the use of sounds in different languages,
their word order, morphological features, etc.
An example of typological classification might be Schlegel & Humboldt's
(1818, 1836) classification based on morphological criteria
o isolating/root/analytic languages:
there are no endings - words are not inflected
all grammatical relationships are shown through the use of word order and/or
independent grammatical units (particles, words).
e.g. in Bejijng Chinese
Wo mai juzi chi
I buy orange eat
Typical languages of this type are classical Chinese and Vietnamese
Census is the other common direct method of collecting demographic data.
POLTICAL SCIENCE
Deals with the systems of the government, and the analysis of
political activities, political thoughts and political behaviours.
Government
Instrumentality or agency through which the will of the state is
expressed, realized and acted upon.
State
is a form of human association distinguished from other social
groups by its purpose, the establishment of order and security; its methods, the
laws and their enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or geographic
boundaries; and finally by its sovereignty.
Politics
the academic study of government and the state./
is the study of the ways in which countries are governed.
Psychology
the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially
those affecting behavior in a given context.
the four primary goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and
change behaviour
Syntax - the study of sentence structure

Syntax is the way in which words and punctuation are used and arranged to
form phrases, clauses and sentences. This can mean the selection of a word or
the word's tense, the arrangement of the words and the selection of the
punctuation.

Syntax is also known as the study of the rules that must be followed to create
well-formed phrases, clauses and sentences.

English and many western European languages have a phenomenon

called “wh-movement.” wh-words are the question words who, which,
what, where, when, why, and how. Think about the sentence “I eat
an apple” as a possible response to the question “What do you eat?”
The word what corresponds to apple, but it shows up at the beginning
of the sentence.

Psychology

the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially
those affecting behavior in a given context.

the four primary goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and
change behaviour

A few definitions

1. society- is the external, visible activities of people in cultural

groups – our collective form of survival
2. culture -is the internal rules and knowledge they have that enable
them to behave in an organized fashion
3. social behaviour- includes relations, roles, and whatever people do,
make, think, feel, and believe that is collective

4. Social groups: associations – a general term for organizations in

society, such as age groups, guilds, clubs … (can be voluntary,
ascribed … )
5. Status groups – class, caste, rank
6. Power – authority or ability to make decisions and control
others/resources
7. Status – prestige; rank in a hierarchy
8. Family – not quite the same for all (examples of kinds of family)

Microeconomics vs. macroeconomics

The difference between micro and macro economics is simple.

Microeconomics is the study of economics at an individual, group or

company level.

Macroeconomics, on the other hand, is the study of a national economy as a

whole.

Microeconomics focuses on issues that affect individuals and companies.

Macroeconomics focuses on issues that affect the economy as a whole.