Construct · 4 fields · 5 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
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The pattern of behaviour expected of whoever occupies a position in a social structure. In his 1957 paper on the role-set, Merton treated a role as the conduct a status calls for, and pointed out that any one status carries not a single role but an array of role relationships, its role-set, whose competing expectations are a standing source of strain. The referent is a social position and the expectations attached to it, held by the surrounding role-set, not by the person alone. This differs from the theatre meaning, where the part is scripted in advance, and from the linguistics meaning, where a role is a slot in a verb's grammar rather than a place in a group.[1]
The set of task and social behaviours an organisation expects of an employee in a given job, and how clearly and consistently those expectations are sent. Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal built the work-role account in 1964 around role conflict, incompatible demands sent to the same person, and role ambiguity, expectations that are unclear; Rizzo, House, and Lirtzman turned the two into a widely used self-report scale in 1970. The referent is one employee's job and the demands others in the organisation place on it. This narrows the sociological role to the workplace and operationalises it as felt clarity and conflict, so it measures how a job is experienced rather than a position in society at large.[2][3]
The semantic relation a participant bears to the action or state named by a verb, such as agent, patient, or instrument. In The Case for Case, Fillmore argued that every clause assigns its noun phrases a small set of underlying case roles, and later work called these thematic roles or theta-roles. The referent is an argument slot in a verb's meaning, filled by whatever noun phrase plays that part in the sentence, not a person occupying a position. In She opened the door with a key, she is the agent, the door the patient, the key the instrument. This is a fact about grammar and meaning, and it does not concern the behaviour expected of anyone.[4]
A part played by a performer, and, by extension, the self a person presents to others as if before an audience. In its first meaning a role is the character written into a play and taken on for a performance. Goffman borrowed the image in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, treating everyday conduct as dramaturgical: people stage a role for an audience, manage a front, and keep a back region out of view. The referent is a part enacted, scripted or improvised, rather than a position in a structure or a slot in a verb. What marks it is performance before others, so the same word names a stage part, a social position, and a grammatical relation.[5]
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