Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Region VII, Central Visayas
Division of Bohol
DISCIPLINES AND IDEAS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES
FIRST QUARTER: WEEK 4
Competency : ● Explain the major events and its contribution that led to the emergence of
the social science disciplines

Reference : Arthur S. Abulencia, et al. Disciplines and Ideas in the Social Sciences.
Teachers Guide. Pasig City. Deped-BLR.2017 Edition. p11. Readers Guide.pp
15-16.

Copyright For classroom use only

EMERGENCE OF LINGUISTICS,
LESSON 1: POLITICAL SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY,
SOCIOLOGY, AND DEMOGRAPHY AS A
SOCIAL SCIENCE DISCIPLINE

❖ LINGUISTICS

Linguistics is the scientific study of language and its structure. It involves the description of
languages, the investigation of their origin, the inquiry of how children acquire language, and how
individuals learn languages other than their own. Linguistics also deals with the relationships between or
among languages and with the manner languages change over time.
Noam Chomsky is known as the Father of Modern Linguistics.. Back in 1957, Chomsky, with his
revolutionary book “Syntactic Structures,” laid the foundation of his non-empiricist theory of language.
Two years later, with his review of B. F. Skinner’s “Verbal Behavior,” he argued that Behaviorism, the
dominant approach to language at the time, was no longer to be the way of studying language.
How it emerged?
Linguistics began to be studied systematically by the Indian scholar Pānini in the 6th century
BCE. Beginning around the 4th century BCE, Warring States period China also developed its own
grammatical traditions. Aristotle laid the foundation of Western linguistics as part of the study
of rhetoric in his Poetics ca. 335 BC.
These Areas Trace the Development of a Language From Its Original Form and Pattern:
o Historical linguistics- This sub-area of linguistics explores language changes and the
relationships of language spoken by different ethnic group and/ or nationalities. The historical
development emphasizes the values and relevance of changes that characterize the language
through comparative method.
o Socio linguistics- looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures. This
area includes also linguistic variation, style and prevailing attitudes toward the language.
o Psycho linguistics- explores the imaginative representation of meaning together with the
functioning of the language in the mind.
o Neuro linguistics-explores the imaginative representation of the language in the brain.
Practically, this form of linguistics tells of how it functions in the production, perception and
acquisition of language.
 o Anthropological linguistics- It is the study of language and culture. It explores how language
and culture interact for the beneficial development in the society where the residents are the
developers. It investigates the relations among languages, cultures and societies.
o Applied linguistics-This sub-area has its core in the study of language related issues as applied in
everyday life particularly on language policies on lexicography and translation.
o Bio linguistics- This has reference to the study of natural communication systems in animals as
compared to human-taught language.
o Clinical linguistics- This sub field deals with the application of linguistics theory to the field of
speech-language of pathology
o Linguistics typology- This area explores the study of the common properties of diverse unrelated
languages, properties that, if given much attention, may be taken as an innate aspect of human
language capacity.
o Stylistics-This area of study delves into the linguistic factors that characterize forms of discourse
in context. It primarily refers to the style of writing or manner of speaking suitable for an
occasion relative to a variety of standard usage on literary style.

❖ POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political Science is a social science discipline that studies systems of government, and the analysis of
political activity and behavior. It is the systematic study of politics.
How it emerged?

Political science originated with the ancient Greeks in the first century BCE. During this time, the
philosopher Plato wrote numerous dialogues about politics, asking about the nature of justice, what
constitutes good government, and what is truly best for humanity. His student Aristotle worked in a more
scientific way, observing and describing types of governments systematically. At the start of the
seventeenth century, people began to apply the methods of the scientific revolution to politics. Thomas
Hobbes, for example, employed the methods of geometry to break government down into its most basic
parts in order to understand it. In the nineteenth century, thinkers such as Karl Marx and Max Weber used
sociological methods to analyze politics.

Aristotle, the Ancient Greek philosopher known as "the Father of Political Science." His
works "The Politics" and "Nicomachean Ethics" among many others evaluated political systems
on a philosophical basis. As an academic discipline. Political Science is a relatively new field
that was principally worked on by American scholars in the 19th and 20th centuries

❖ PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. It is “the scientific study of
behavior and the mind.” There are three elements in this definition. First, it emphasizes that psychology
“is a scientific enterprise that obtains knowledge through systematic and objective methods of observation
and experimentation.” Second, it studies ‘behavior,’ which denotes “any action or reaction that can be
measured or observed—such as the blink of an eye, an increase in heart rate, or the unruly violence that
often erupts in a mob.” Third, psychologists study the ‘mind,’ which stands for “both conscious and
unconscious mental states. These states cannot actually be seen, only inferred from observable behavior.”
Basically comes from the two Greek words PSYCHE which means soul or mind and LOGOS which
means to study, therefore, literally psychology means the study of the soul or mind.

How it emerged?

While psychology did not emerge as a separate discipline until the late 1800s, its earliest history
can be traced back to the time of the early Greeks. During the 17th-century, the French philosopher Rene
Descartes introduced the idea of dualism, which asserted that the mind and body were two entities that
interact to form the human experience.
Wilhelm Wundt is the man most commonly identified as the Father of Psychology. Wundt is
bestowed this distinction because of his formation of the world's first experimental psychology lab, which
is usually noted as the official start of psychology as a separate and distinct science. In 1879, Wilhelm
Wundt established the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig (Germany) thereby effectively making
Psychology a formal field of study.
 ❖ SOCIOLOGY

Sociology is the scientific study of human social relations or group life. It primarily deals with
social interaction or the responses of persons to each other. Social interaction is arguably the basic
sociological concept as it is the rudimentary component of all relationships and groups that compose
human society.
How it emerged?
Sociology has a long past, but only a short history. The study of human society in scientific way
is said to have begun with August Comte. The emergence of sociology as a discipline of academic
interest is of recent origin. Its emergence as a discipline can be attributed to the vast changes that took
place in the nineteenth century.
Sociology is one of the newer of the academic disciplines, tracing its origins no further back than
the middle of the nineteenth century. It has a short history. Sociology, the science of society, is the
youngest and it came to be established only in the nineteenth century. The French philosopher, August
Comte gave sociology and a programme for its development. For thousands of years, society has been a
subject for speculation and enquiry. Yet sociology is a modern science which originated only within last
hundred fifty years or so. Various strains and tendencies, some intellectual and some social, combined to-
form the science of sociology. To quote Bottom ore, “The conditions which gave rise to sociology were
both intellectual and social”.
❖ DEMOGRAPHY

Demography is the interdisciplinary study of the size, growth, and distribution of human
populations. It examines statistics such as births, deaths, income, or the incidence of disease, which
illustrate the changing structure of human populations.
John Graunt is recognized as the Father of Demography for his systematic yet critical use of
population data to investigate demographic processes. He originated a number of demographic techniques
and demonstrated a healthy skepticism of his own data.
How it emerged?
Like many branches of the sciences, demography began in the 19th century, when the general
craze for cataloging information about the world really took off (think Darwin.) A common related word
is demographics, referring to the raw statistical data that's used for analysis.

ACTIVITY: Illustrate how the following disciplines emerged as social science disciplines by filling
in the table given below.

Social Science Disciplines How It Emerged?

Linguistics

Political Science

Psychology

Sociology
 Demography

ASSESSMENT
Multiple Choice. Read and analyze the following questions carefully. Choose the letter that corresponds
to the correct answer.

1. If you were to explore why one group of people speak the way they do, which discipline would
be best relevant?
A. Demography B. Linguistics C. Political Science D. Psychology

2. Social interaction: Sociology; Behavior and mental processes: ________

A. Demography B. Linguistics C. Political Science D. Psychology

3. Father of Psychology: _________; Father of Demography: John Graunt

A. August Comte B. Aristotle C. Noam Chomsky D. Wilhelm Wundt

4. Political science: government systems; ____________: size, growth, and distribution of human
populations.
A. Anthropology B. Demography C. Psychology D. Sociology

5. Which discipline emerged when the general craze for cataloging information about the world
really took off?
A. Demography B. Linguistics C. Political Science D. Psychology

6. Which emergence of discipline is considered as the youngest and it came to be established only in
the nineteenth century?
A. Anthropology B. Demography C. Psychology D. Sociology

7. Which discipline began to be studied systematically by the Indian scholar Pānini in the 6th
century BCE.?
A. Demography B. Linguistics C. Psychology D. Sociology

8. If you were to understand why your classmate keeps on laughing without any reason, which
discipline does it imply?
A. Demography B. Linguistics C. Political Science D. Psychology

9. One of your assignments in your Araling Panlipunan class is to gather the updated record of
households recipients of the SAP (Social Amelioration Program) during the first wave of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Which discipline does it apply?
A. Anthropology B. Demography C. Linguistics D. Sociology
 10. Rappler counts at least 163 families whose members include a senator, House representative, or
governor, serving at the same time as relatives in other local positions. If you wish to clarify this
issue, what discipline of social science is engaged?
A. Demography B. Linguistics C. Political Science D. Psychology

ANSWER KEY:
1) B
2) D
3) D
4) B
5) A
6) D
7) B
8) D
9) B
10) C