I have just finished MA Sociology and plan to apply for PhD next year. I really enjoyed doing my MA dissertation and have been told by my supervisor that the topic I did it on is interesting and original. I would like to know how acceptable it is to use the same topic as a PhD research proposal, and do the PhD as basically as an expanded version of my MA dissertation. Is this acceptable, or will it be seen as pointlessly going over the same ground again?

That seems to be the way it's done in Social Sciences so it should be fine especially if it is original!

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I'm also doing pretty much this very same thing. The advice I was given before graduating the Masters (and having the University doors slammed shut behind me - after support not a strong-point) was - Don't cling to your methods. Methods may change as required by the research and may be entirely different from the PhD. Some people switch from cultural analysis to SPSS! I have heard horror stories of people trying to use previous works as a chapter of the finished PhD and it going very, very badly. Looking back on mine, (MA thesis) it seems quite basic now.

Sorry about below edit, whenever I post is generates two identical posts? The spellcheck is also set to US English.