Rhetoric in the Sociological Community

Sociology defines our lives. It studies the function of the world. It defines interactions. To
communicate research, sociologists use rhetorical devices. Language is chosen carefully to
appeal to those devices. This is evident in Victor Rios book, Punished and Jim Leitzels research
paper, Race and Policing, and the lectures given by Rios and Ross in the Intro to Sociology
class.
Rios and Leitzel use rhetoric effectively. Both texts appeal to the same aspects of the
readers mind. These texts discuss a controversial subject, which requires appeal towards the
emotional, logical, and ethical parts of the readers mind, also known as pathos, logos, and ethos
respectively. These devices are essential to effective sociological writing.
Rios appeals to pathos in Punished. He uses examples of young people being treated
unfairly to appeal to emotions, such as Tyrell, a boy from Oakland who believed that the teacher
was not the only person who saw him as a threat, because of his height, when he was younger.
(Rios) As a result, Tyrell, a sixth grader, was constantly bullied by authority figures such as
teachers or police officers. Rios recounting of Tyrells story makes the reader pity him, as no 12
year old boy should be preyed upon for something so trivial. Using rhetoric to appeal to the
emotions ingrains the story and message into the readers mind.
Race and Policing also appeals to the readers emotions. Leitzel quotes the ACLU,
stating that blacks constitute 13 percent of the countrys drug users; 37 percent of those arrested
on drug charges; 55 percent of those convicted; and 74 percent of all drug offenders sentenced to
prison. (Leitzel) The reader is forced to feel sympathy for this group. Leitzel uses context to
appeal to the emotions, similarly to Rios.

Each author appealing to these devices does not exclude the quotes from appealing to the
logical or ethical rhetorical devices. Each of these quotes can also be used for ethos and logos.
As Rios discusses the story of Tyrell, the reader may think that there is no logical way to single
out a sixth grader due to his height. In this sense, the story of Tyrell appeals to the logos
rhetorical device. The quote from Leitzels paper also appeals to ethos, as the disparity in the
crime rates in the US versus the amount of black people imprisoned displays that something is
amiss with the ethics of the judicial system, and it is not morally right to send black people to
prison at such a high rate.
There are other instances in Punished where Rios appeals to the emotional, ethical and
logical aspects of the readers mind. One example is when Rios asked young boys of color where
they first encountered the police. Many responded with in or near school. (Rios) Again, this
passage appeals to the pathos and logos rhetorical devices, but strongly resonates with ethos, as
most readers can see that no schoolboy should be encountering the police in school, regardless of
the situation.
This ties in to the lecture given by guest speaker Richard Ross in my sociology class.
Richard Ross is a professor of photography at UCSB who also travels across the country
documenting and photographing the juvenile justice system and how it treats children unfairly.
This project is called Juvenile in Justice. Youth in schools, specifically low income schools or
youth of color, have unfair expectations placed upon them that often create a self-fulfilling
prophecy in their lives. Ross gave his lecture to a class of over 400 people and fascinated the
entire hall. Ross utilized each rhetorical device, giving statistics of how much of the Philadelphia
youth correctional facilities were filled by certain areas, or how women are unfairly treated in
correctional facilities to highlight the injustice within this system. His presentation raised

awareness to the problems faced by youth in the prison system in a way that appealed to the
students emotions, logic, and ethics. He was so effective in doing this that he convinced dozens
of people to inquire about becoming a research assistant and working to teach children in the
Santa Barbara area how to read. The Richard Ross lecture is a prime example of how someone
can appeal to rhetorical devices in order to convey an argument.
In the other lecture I observed, the teacher discussed the recent attack on a student in a
South Carolina school. In the video, a white police officer manhandles a tiny black girl because
she does not get out of her seat despite being asked to. The officer then throws the girl to the
ground, despite her being completely peaceful leading up to the event, while the class and even
the teacher just watch the officer assault the girl. Similarly to the Richard Ross lecture, Rios
appeals to the ethos, pathos, and logos rhetorical devices. He did so in a way that caused the
students to pay attention to the problem at hand, which was in this case, the systematic racism
that caused the officer to be unnecessarily violent towards the girl. Rios demonstrates in this
lecture that is easy to appeal to the pathos, ethos, and logos devices.
Each lecturer appealed to the logical, emotional, and ethical aspects of the listeners to
teach a lesson efficiently. Ross appealed to all three rhetorical devices, albeit more to pathos and
ethos than logos. Rios similarly provoked the ethical and emotional aspects, but appealed to
logos more effectively than Ross did. Rios lecture was based more on hard evidence, while Ross
discussed his lecture in a more personal setting. These anecdotes seemed to appeal to the ethos
and pathos devices instead of the logical device.
Within sociology, the three rhetorical devices are used to help the author relay their
findings in a way that will affect the reader most efficiently. While studying racism in this
community, these devices must be employed more fully to provide undeniable proof that there is

a problem. Leitzel states in his article that Police profiles of criminals should not include
race. (Leitzel) Although this may seem logical while regarding logos, Leitzel appeals to the
emotional and ethical aspects. He claims it could create biases against certain minorities as well
as police officers, saying that Race-based policing generates an unfair perception that many or
most police officers are at best insensitive to the concerns of minorities or, at worst, racists. This
appeals to ethos and logos, as historically a conflict between the police and the populace has
been both dangerous and unethical. Within sociology, and especially the sociology of racism,
rhetoric is used to rationalize arguments.
Sociology uses rhetoric to strengthen its argument. There are myriad societal problems
pertaining to each rhetorical device, displayed in the texts studied. Each is discussed with
extensive use of sociological devices. Punished, the lectures by Rios and Ross, and Race and
Policing all demonstrate this. Each sociologist uses rhetoric as a central device in their writing,
dictating the flow of the work and the readers interpretation of it.

Sources:
Leitzel, Jim. "Race and Policing." Soc Society 38.3 (2001): 38-42. Web.
Rios, Victor M. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: New York
UP, 2011. Print.