Studies On Giddens' Construction Pattern For "Structuration Theory"

Sociology is a newly developed discipline. It has been only a little more than hundred years since Comte put forward clearly the term"sociology"and established the discipline. Even though in these hundred years, sociology has developed a lot, compared with other disciplines in social sciences, it is still relatively lagging behind. Many"meta-questions"remain unsolved, including questions like"what is the object in sociological study?"and"how should sociological theory be constructed?"and so on. The answers to these questions are not unified, which leads to a comparatively confusing state in sociology. To lead sociology on a correct and smooth road, we must answer these"meta-questions".Giddens is a master of contemporary sociological theory, and his"structuration theory"occupies an important place in the system of sociological theory. Even though this theory has also been questioned like other sociological theories, the author of this thesis holds that his construction pattern of the theory is worth learning from and can be used for reference. The author of the thesis hopes to do a little exploration to the"meta-question"of how to construct sociological theories through analysis of the construction pattern in"structuration theory".Due to the limited time of development, traditional sociological theories have comparatively simple construction patterns which can generally be divided into two types—"one-sided"theoretical construction and"simple synthetical"theoretical construction. The representatives of the former pattern are Durkheim and Weber. Durkheim takes"the similarity between society and nature"as his premise for his theoretical construction, thus constructing a positivist theoretical system of sociology which only emphasizes the important function of"restrictiveness of social structure"while ignoring the function of"initiative of individual behaviour". In contrast to him, Weber does not think that society is similar to nature. He is not wrong in this, but he goes to another extreme, that is, he emphasizes the function of"initiative of individual behaviour"and ignores the function of"restrictiveness of social structure". The opposition of their opinions represents the famous binary opposition in sociology. Therefore,we can find that the"one-sided"theoretical construction pattern is one which stresses only one aspect of the two, and as a result, ignores the other aspect. Theories based on this pattern have problems that can not be solved due to the one-sidedness of the theories. Some sociologists after them have realized the serious problem of binary opposition and want to mix the two. The two sociologists who are comparatively successful in this are Simmel and Parsons. Simmel, doing sociological from the angle of social interaction, wants to change the angle of study so as to achieve the purpose of mixing the two. Similar to him, Parsons wants to mix the two from the angle of social function theory. But after the successful construction of their theories, along with the deepening of their research, they finally turn to"restrictiveness of social structure". We have to say that it shows the problem of their theoretical construction which is the"simple synthetical"theoretical construction pattern. Theories based on this hope to achieve the purpose of combination through a change in the research angle. This synthesis is obviously simple.Giddens'construction pattern for"structuration theory"is obviously better than the above two patterns. The author of the thesis thinks that the construction pattern for"structuration theory"is a kind of"innovative synthetical"pattern. When Giddens established his"structuration theory", his original intention was still to solve the problem of binary opposition. And he has deeper understanding of some"meta-questions"in sociology. Giddens believes that sociology should be concerned with those issues closely related to our social life. Therefore when he constructed his"structuration theory", he paid special attention to its association to contemporary social reality. So we may say that the construction of"structuration theory"is based on contemporary social reality. Meanwhile Giddens didn't give up straightening out, criticism and reference of traditional sociological theories, thus giving a solid theoretical foundation to the construction of"structuration theory". In this way the construction of"structuration theory"is done in the vein of traditional sociological theories. The construction pattern for"structuration theory"is called the"innovative synthetical"pattern with the key lying in innovation. The above mentioned"simple synthetical"theoretical construction pattern failed in solving the problem of binary opposition, the chief reason is that it is not innovative. It can not meet the demand of the fast developing trend of social reality. Though based on traditional sociological theory in his construction of"structuration theory", Giddens mercilessly re-interprets or even gives up those concepts in the traditional theory which can not explain reality. Along with the innovative re-construction of concept system in"structuration theory", the whole theoretical system is successfully constructed. Hence, the construction pattern for"structuration theory"is a kind of"innovative synthetical"pattern different from traditional ones. It is through this set of theory that Giddens really solves the problem of binary opposition in his theoretical frame. Many people suspect that"structuration theory"solves the problem by creating concepts, but it should be stressed that"structuration theory"has become a flag in contemporary sociological theory because of its innovation of the concepts. This innovation is the strong point of the construction pattern for"structuration theory".Through the above comparison between and reflection on traditional theoretical construction pattern in sociology and construction pattern for"structuration theory", we may arrive at a few principles about the theoretical construction pattern in sociology. First, we should always take social reality as the basis for the theoretical construction in sociology. Second, we should always construct a new theory in the theoretical vein of sociology. Third, we should pay attention to the innovation of concepts and frames in the construction of new theories. Only by following these three principles in the construction of sociological theories, can the newly constructed theory be supported by traditional theories as well as capable of description and analysis of society in reality. As for the construction of sociological theory in China, these three principles should also be followed. China is in a period of social transition with unprecedented fast changes in social reality. We should base our theory on social reality and traditional theory, and pay more attention to the value of innovation in theoretical construction, thus the theory we can construct can really make contributions to our society.