In modern western society,
public-opinion poll commonly includes the investigation of public opinions,public feelings and
consensus.In Chinese,if public-opinion pull refers mainly to the market investigation of economic life,and consensus the social investigation relating to the media,public feeling will be inclined to mean the research of public attitudes towards social politics.The present paper distinguishes the three conceptions about public-opinion pull from the perspectives of evolution of Chinese words and their pregmatic discriminations.The paper further introduces the institutions and mechanism of public-opinion pull in some western governments,and their chief means of carrying out the poll.Besides,the paper manages to generalize the distributions and characteristics of various
public-opinion poll institutions which appear in China in recent years.And it is viewed as a beneficial attempt to standardize public-opinion poll and attach importance to the
research of public feelings for the construction of the harmonious society and the socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.