The phrase "a sort of association" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when describing a relationship or connection that is not strictly defined or is somewhat informal.
Example: "The two organizations formed a sort of association to collaborate on community projects."
Alternatives: "a kind of connection" or "a type of relationship".
The Patriot Act, for instance, allows the government to deport people who have any sort of association with a group that has been judged as terrorist by the State Department, even if they had no intention of furthering the group's illegal activities.
It is noteworthy that none of the jihadis, whether born Muslim or converted, has to my knowledge campaigned as part of a pro-Palestinian movement or belonged to any sort of association to combat Islamophobia, or even an Islamic NGO.
"We need to be eliminating any sort of association between children and guns, rather than promoting it," she said in a video interview with the station.
They're trying to demonize and vilify us by making up any sort of association between us and them...We're not manufacturing unhappy individuals out there the government's doing that.
Representatives of about 30 alternative weeklies met recently in Seattle to discuss, among other matters, the possibility of forming a sort of trade association.
Virtually all local United Ways file annual returns with the Internal Revenue Service, but few have ever submitted them to the United Way of America, which has functioned as a sort of trade association.
It begins with Godard asking someone whether he (addressed in the formal "vous") remembers the name of a café; then, in a sort of free association, Godard tries to remember.
Three of these the mainland's, Hong Kong's and Macau's are looked after by their governments and one—Taiwan's by a sort of trade association, since the other three authorities do not recognise its government.
"I still like to leave gaps revealing the original layers, as these random moments are important as they often suggest advances in the next stage, which is a kind of excavation of the object mixed with a sort of free association re-allocating of the various parts".
I think it's probably a sort of free-association from the idea of black hole firewalls, which suggest that entangled particles falling into a black hole would cause Problems with fundamental principles of black-hole physics.
