Dear Seniors,

As new to Sociology, i have worked on a few definitions of Sociology to clear the concept. please check my below assignment.

SOCIOLOGY – INTRODUCTION

Sociology is the study of society and human social interaction. The term sociology was coined by Auguste Comte (1798-1857) in 1838 from the Latin term socius (companion, associate) and the Greek term logia (study of, speech). Comte hoped to unify all the sciences under sociology; he believed sociology held the potential to improve society and direct human activity, including the other sciences.

It is the study of the groups and society’s people build and how these affect our behavior. Sociology begins with the observations that humans are intensely social creatures.

Sociology is a social science which makes a scientific study of the social structure, with its subcultures, customs, and institutions, in order to understand how these functions, their meanings, and the processes by which they change. It deals with the process of social relations, and explains formation and structure of groups. It also explains the affects of social customs and institutions on purpose and changes of groups, and it examines problems which arise in social relations and social structures.

Definitions:
As sociology is such a broad subject, it is difficult to define. Below are a few definitions by remarkable sociologists.

Definition No. 1:
“Sociology is the study of the general characteristics common to all classes of social phenomena, of the relationship between these classes ad of relationship between the social and non – social phenomena.” – Pitrim A. Sorokin

Explanation:
Sorokin has come out with the views that all the social sciences are related with each other. Social phenomena include various aspects of the social and sociological studies. Thus sociology is a general science which studies individual aspects of life and their relationship with each other.

Definition No. 2:
“Sociology is the study of basic structure of society and the factors that play a part in weakening or strengthening that structure.” – Meyer Weinberg and Oscar

Explanation:
It is the study of the groups and societies human build and how these affect human behavior. Sociology is interested both in changing mode of society and its inherent stability. It also studies factors which strengthen and weakens the society and hence bring changes in the social order.

Definition No. 3:
"Sociology in its broadest sense may be said to be the study of interaction arising from the association of living beings.” – Gillin and Gillin

Explanation:
By interaction, we mean that action through which individuals are influenced by each other. Man undergoes some experiences in his collective life which brings him to contact with other persons. The experiences which man has due to contact with other persons are in nature of a type of bond or estrangement. Man is the slave of his needs. In order to fulfill his needs, he associates with others. These contacts establish relation s among the persons. The origin of these relations lies in social interaction.

Definition No. 4:
“Sociology is an attempt to account for the origin, growth, structure and activities of society by the operation of physical and physical causes working together in the process of evolution” – F. H. Giddings

Explanation:
Sociology helps in explaining the evolution of society. It explains the origin, its development, culture and activities of a society. It also explains the facts and causes which bring changes to the society.

Definition No. 5:
“Sociology is ‘about social relationship’, the network of relationship we call society”. – Maciver and Page

Explanation:
Society refers to a group of people who shares a defined territory and culture. Society is often understood as the basic structure and interactions of a group of people or the network of relationships between entities. Societal conditions unite people into a unit with a spirit of cohesion. The people are tied together and have been forced to live together. It is our needs which make us create social relations with others.

Definition No. 6:
“Sociology is the science of collective representations.” – Emile Durkheim

Explanation:
Collective Representation means those collective symbols that are accepted by majority of the people. Since collective representation is social facts as they are instrumental in controlling and guiding the individual behavior, they become patterns of culture and get the shape of a body

Definition No. 7:
“Sociology is the science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a casual explanation of its course and results.” – Max Weber

Explanation:
Any behavior may be termed as action if the acting individual attaches subjective meaning to it. It may be oriented to the past, present and future behavior. But all actions are not social. The presupposition for a social action is that it must have subjective meaning and secondly it must be oriented to the behaviors.

Definition No 8:
“Sociology is the scientific study of structure and functions of human groups.” – Talcott Parsons

Explanation:
Parsons tried to formulate a systematic general theory of human behavior. According to him, the scheme i.e. relative to the units of action and interaction is a rational scheme. Sociology analyses the structure and processes of the system, built up by the relations of their situations.