1. Answer the questions:

1. What is a value?

2. What values does the society teach us?

3. How do norms arise?

4. How are values determined?

5. Who uses findings of sociologists?

2. Are the sentences true (t) or false (f)? Correct the false sentence.

1. The most important value the society teaches us is the value of work.

2. Some values lead to the establishment of norms.

3. The best way to find out people’s values is to watch them carefully.

4. Sociologists work with advertising people because they are doing similar tasks.

5. Values cannot be created and sold.

3. Fill in the gaps.

1. A ……………… is an idea or belief about a goodness or badness of a person, thing, situation, or action.

2. ………………usually develop from society’s basic beliefs, its values.

3. The advertising industry, for instance, uses ………………… data to make ads which will convince people to buy certain products.

4. Sociologists try to find out people’s values by asking questions in surveys of public ………………...

5. Another way sociologists determine the values of a ……………. is by examining the ways in which people spend time and money.

What do you think?

• Relationships change with time, partly because we continuously change our values. How do our values affect our friendships?

• Does it also work the other way around? In other words, do our friends and friendship affect the values we hold?

Unit 6 Communication

In your relationship with other people you communicate constantly in many ways. As a matter of fact, you communicate with others even when you are not talking to them or writing letters. How many times have you thought that someone is angry or “didn’t care” because you hadn’t heard from that person? Communication with others is the main way you have of knowing what your relationships are with people. When you tell someone how you feel about him or her, you tell that person what kind of a relationship you have with each other. Or, you may be telling that person what kind of relationship you would like to have. Communication is basically a process of making, keeping, and changing relationship with others.

Communication isn’t always easy. Even when people try to communicate, they sometimes don’t understand each other. Let’s see why.

People communicate on two levels: the verbal level and nonverbal level. The verbal level is that which is communicated by written and spoken symbols.

Much communication takes place on nonverbal level. An important kind of nonverbal communication is called body language. The way you pose yourself or move your body tells other people much about what you think and feel. Sometimes body language tells people something quite different from what you actually say. For example, if you are frowning, few people would believe that you are excited and happy, no matter what words you used. Body language gives clues about how you really feel.

Obviously, in order for communication to take place, there must be at least two people interacting with each other. Both people must want to communicate. But communication in any situation takes place on both the verbal and nonverbal levels. Watch carefully the next time you see two people talking. Observe the words they use, and the way they both act. Do the same whenever you communicate with others. You will be surprised at how much better you understand them.