Structural-Functionalism – Flashcards

Structural Functionalists are interested, above all, in Social Order. They believe that various structures emerge which allow societies to function properly. These cultural entities are things like education, legal, religious and economic systems. In a "properly" functioning society common values and norms hold society together and the Family is the key.

Structural functionalism is a type of consensus theory it says that society is based on mutual agreements. It sees the creation and maintenance of shared values and norms as crucial to society, and views social change as a slow, orderly process.

He believed that a society was a system of relationships. Unlike Malinowski who put focus on individuals, Radcliffe believed that individuals are irrelevant. Radcliffe-Brown proposed that most stateless, "primitive" societies, lacking strong centralized institutions, are based on an association of corporate-descent groups.

Argued that the Nuer (Africa) were primarily organized around unilineal (traced through maternal or paternal line) descent groups. Such groups are characterized by common purposes, such as administering property or defending against attacks; they form a permanent social structure that persists well beyond the lifespan of their members. In case of the Nuer, these corporate groups were based on kinship which in turn fitted into the larger structures of unilineal descent; consequently Evans-Pritchard's and Fortes' model is called "descent theory".

•Downplays the role of the individual in society •Ignores inequality based on race, gender etc that causes tension and conflict •Does not truly account for change (sees it as orderly process which is to bring society back to equilibrium) •Society cannot have needs like a human does so has no needs that must be met

A synchronic study or analysis, limits its concern to a particular moment of time. Thus synchronic linguistics takes a language as a working system at a particular point in time without concern for how it has developed to its present state.

A diachronic study or analysis concerns itself with the evolution and change over time of that which is studied; it is roughly equivalent to historical. Thus diachronic linguistics is also known as historical linguistics.