I.D.
END TERM EXAMINATION, APRIL 2017
B.A.LL.B. (HONS.)
SEMESTER-II
Sociological Thought
Max. Marks: 60 Time Allowed: 3:00 Hrs.
Note: Answer five questions including Question No. 1 which is compulsory. The marks carried by each
question are indicated at the end of the question.
1. Answer the following (each answer should be in approximately 100 words): (Marks 2×10=20)
a. Define Commodity Fetish
b. Explain Anomie
c. Renunciation of the Past
d. Explain this- Wordly Asceticism
e. Social Engineering
f. Explain Sankritization
g. Importance of Public Sphere
h. Dominant caste
i. Kondratieff waves
j. Speech communities
2. Because of exploitation and overproduction, global capitalist economy goes through cycles of
expansion and depression. Each cycle is deeper than the previous; and the cycles eventually
reach a point where the economy can't rebound. Illustrate this idea with relevant examples.
(Marks 10)
3. Racial, ethnic, gender, sexual identity and religious groups have all been and are being
disenfranchised in modern society. How does the ideal speech situation "enfranchise" these
groups? In other words, how does the ideal speech situation do away with the possibility of
disenfranchised groups? (Marks 10)
4. "Taste is part of habitus and habitus is embodied cultural capital. Class is not simply an
economic classification, nor is it merely a set of life circumstances of which people may
become aware that is inscribed in our bodies." Elucidate the quote with right theoretical
orientation and relevant examples. (Marks 10)
5. "An ideal type is an analytical construct that serves the investigator as measuring rod to
ascertain similarities as well as deviations in concrete cases." Elucidate the statement with
practical and theoretical insights. (Marks 10)
6. "Consumers are not passive victims, but actors within a social system that is perpetuated by
the use of it, no matter for what end; consumption, and its attendant social system, survives as
a language, which consumers choose to speak through, perpetuate it; consumption is directly
and totally collective- Baudrillard." Explicate the given statement with your critical outlook.
(Marks 10)
7. Has the proletariat, or working class, sunk deeper and deeper with the advance of industry as
Marx suggested? Why or why not? How prevalent is alienation in contemporary capitalist
societies? Don't some people like their jobs? If so, have they been "fooled" somehow? Why
or why not? (Marks 10)