The Rhetoric of Social Research

The Rhetoric of Social Research: Understood and believed. Edited by Albert Hunter. Rutgers University Press, 1990. 179 lk

Mul pole enam aimugi, miks ma selle raamatu hoidlast tellida lasin. Võib-olla ma tahtsin teada, mis on retoorika ja selle asemel, et googeldada define:rhetoric, pidasin targemaks lugeda läbi terve raamat? Mitte, et ma seda kahetseksin. Nii palju kui ma aru sain, oli huvitav. Enne kui asun raamatut ennast tsiteerima, kleebin siia ka google vastuse: "using language effectively to please or persuade". Iseäralik oli see, et teos sisaldas sõna sociology samavõrd ülearuselt nagu mõned semiootikaraamatud kasutavad sõna semiotic (Randviiri artikkel kaasa arvatud). Randviiriga seostub veel see, et siin kritiseeritakse sotsioloogidele omast kirjutamisstiili, nö "sotsioloogilist proosat" e sociologese.

nomothetic - relating to or involving the search for abstract universal principles
heteroscedasticity - The property of a series of random variables of not every variable having the same finite variance
enthymeme - is an argument in which one or more of the propositions is suppressed or taken for granted
synecdoche - form of the metaphor in which the part mentioned signifies the whole. A good synecdoche is based on an important part of the whole, the part most directly associated with the subject under discussion.
bombast - Pompous or overly wordy; High-sounding but with little meaning; Inflated, overfilled

To be understood, requires careful communication, to be believed demands persuasive argument.
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In the written language of science the ego dissapears, the scientist is rendered transparent, and the active creative agency of the scientist's "I found" is rendered as the more passive discovery of receiving truth, "It is found". (Albert Hunter)

Setting the scene of a case study is like presenting in words the first impression one gets when entering a theater, what one senses in that momentary pause of actors posed on the stage as the curtain rises and before the action begins. One has come to see a play, actors in action, and one is first confronted with a static physical stage. One senses that things have not yet started, not until the first actor appears moving and talking on the stage. But the stage itself is full of meaning and significance. It is a physical embodiment, a residue of others' action - playwright, stage designer, carpenters, and painters, among others (Becker 1982).

People tend to think taht what makes something scientific is the systematic and logical way information is gathered about some empirical phenomen. But science equally involves the act of communicating this information to others. In order to communicate with another scientist, a scientific writer must adhere to the use of particular representational formats, highly specific schemes for conveying what has been observed. Put another way, a written text can't be taken by a reader to be scientific until it has conformed to the forms of science.
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In general, when a scientific article conforms to standard representational formats, its mere appearance begins to communicate the message that the study was conducted "scientifically". When everything in an article appears as it should - that is, it appears in a prestigious journal, it bows to the appropriate literature, it describes the methods used to gather the data, it has tables, and so forth - readers may assume that everything is "business as usual" and simply go about getting whatever information they want from the article, without conscious concern for the rigor with which the research was conduceted. That is, the readers tend to assume scientific rigor as long as everything is presented the way it should be. (Lawrence T. McGill)