Rhetorical Devices in Sociological Analysis.

The purpose of this essay is to examine some of the uses and abuses of rhetorical devices in sociological analysis and inquire into their function in applied research. Implicit in this inquiry are the following assumptions: (1) that sociological analyses and explications are based upon rhetorical devices; (2) that sociologists would be better sociologists if they understood rhetoric; (3) that a study of the rhetoric of sociology would prove immensely useful to the discipline. This paper is meant to be suggestive of the directions which could be undertaken in a more extended study. Rhetoric is defined here to mean on the one hand the principles which guide the effective use of language and on the other hand the forms and sequence of forms which structure a language. It is to the latter area, the study of rhetorical forms, that this paper is directed. Some rhetorical devices which have been a basic part of literature are metaphor, simile, analogy, allegory, irony, satire, caricature, metonymy, synecdoche, understatement, overstatement, paradox, allusion, personification, parable, epigram, epithet, oxymoron, catachresis, kenning, periphrasis. This paper can explore briefly only two devices: the metaphor and irony and forms closely associated with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]