【Fri. Dictionary】什么是制度？《牛津简明社会学词典》词条译文
原文：JohnScott,2014, A Dictionary of Sociology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
译文：参考了吕炳强：《凝视、行动与社会世界》，台北：漫游者文化，第325-326页。
制度，社会制度 制度一词在社会学里用作指社会里业已确立的诸方相（aspects）。……。
某些方面上，一个制度可以视为某种“超级俗成”（super-custom）、一组规矩、风俗，和应付众多的主要的社会利益的行为的诸纹路（patterns）：例如法律、教会和家庭。因此，一个社会制度包括了一群特定化了的诸规范期待（specialized normative expectations）和一个社会所有的结构组件（structural components）。通过这些期待和组件，主要的关注（concerns）和活动（activities）被组织起来，诸社会需求（social needs）（诸如对秩序、信仰和生育的需求）得到满足。可以肯定，斯宾塞和帕森斯是在这个意义上使用该词的。……。
不过，功能论的观点（现在）已经让位给建基在“社会是在流动状态中”（society as being in a state of flux）”之上的理念，……。
现时，制度这个概念是（比从前）松动，例如家庭或教会被视为是建基在比较稳定的价值系统之上却又是（本身）在变动中的行为纹路所组成的。这使得社会学家得以去考虑人类行动的价值含糊性（moral ambivalence）以及这种含糊性对社会变迁的诸种创造性影响（creativeeffects）
（制度这个）术语通常用以参照团体（group）或组织（organization），例如戈夫曼对精神病院中的“总体制度”（totalinstitution）。(see Asylums, 1961)然而，从一个组织起来了的团体（a group is organized）的角度来说，其制度是严格地基于其规范性纹路（normativepattern），而不是其团体本身（the group itself）。这可能含糊，但是这样的双重用法可能过于根深蒂固以致难以扭转。这样的意涵，也可能要从其脉络中加以厘清。
链接———
第32期：【Friday Dictionary】什么是社会秩序（Social Order）
第29期：什么是集体表象（collective representations）
第26期：【Friday Dictionary】什么是结构（Structure）
institution (social institution) The use of the terminstitution in sociology, meaning established aspects of society, is close tothat in common English usage. However, there have been some changes over timein the exact conceptualization of the term, and there are differences in theanalytical precision with which it is used.
In some ways an institution can be seen as a sort of ‘super-custom’, a set of *mores, *folkways, and patterns of behaviour that dealswith major social interests: law, church, and family for example. Thus, asocial institution is a cluster of specialized normative expectations andconsists of all the *structural components of a *society through which the mainconcerns and activities are organized, and social needs (such as those fororder, belief, and reproduction) are met. This was certainly the sense in whichthe term was used by Herbert *Spencer and Talcott *Parsons , for both of whomit was central to the notion of society as an organism or functioning system.However, as the functionalist perspective gave way to ideas based on society asbeing in a state of flux, with less consensus over values, so the strongParsonian association between institution and *function also withered away.
The current concept of institution is more fluid,seeing kinship or religion, for instance, as comprising changing patterns ofbehaviour based on relatively more stable *value systems. This allowssociologists to consider the moral ambivalence of human behaviour as well asits creative effects on social *change.
The term is often used to refer to a group ororganization, as in Erving *Goffman ’s studies of the mental hospitalas a *total institution (see Asylums, 1961). However, an institution isstrictly the underlying normative pattern in terms of which a group isorganized, rather than the group itself. This may be confusing, but the dualusage is probably too deeply entrenched to alter. The meaning will usually beclear from the context. See also SOCIAL STRUCTURE .
链接——
（Sociological理论大缸第40期）