Everyone in general refers to the soft or hard tissues of the body. Clearly the hard are bones, teeth etc. Soft the rest it.

Your mandible has several different types of bone in it predominantly the hard cortical bone on the outside and the osseous or porous interior sometimes referred to as trabecular bone. (There is more but this is just the basics) On the outside of the bone you have multiple layers of soft tissues, that start with the periosteum closest to the bone to the upper epithelium furthest from it. In the mouth this top layer is the mucus membrane, and obviously there are lots of other layers in the middle of all this. All these layers combined, are along with other structures of the mouth like the tongue, lymphoid tissues of the tonsils etc., the soft tissues. So there isn't something as simple as the gums (the gingiva) there are lots of components of it all.

So I guess it is easier to say that something is affecting the soft (or hard) tissues, to paint a big brush stroke statement of things, rather than get into the details of describing things more specifically/further for some simple statements/explanations. What I have just described is a gross over simplification of a complex interconnected group of various cell types and tissue layers and names. Sometimes it is just easier to say "he hit me in the face" rather than saying he hit me in the zygomatic arch and orbit of my right eye.......