A Study of Literary Devices used in the Posts on Instagram

Abstract

Reading plays an important role in human life. Good literature offers food for the soul. A few years back, the relaxed life style of people allowed them to read a lot in their free time. But, the hectic pace of today’s 24-hour lifestyle does not allow people to make time for reading books. So, the question arises how the purpose of ‘brain food’ rather ‘life food’, which was previously served by books is now served. The answer may lie in the increasing number of people active on social media. This research paper deals with the study of posts shared on Instagram. These posts are studied linguistically and variations of normal forms of language are found. Various techniques or ways of the presentation of matter in these posts is also one of the topics of study. The researcher has tried to explore how oxymoron, pun, repetition, wordplay, metaphors etc. are used to create special effects in the posts. Different types of posts are studied in order to study different factors. With the help of this study, the researcher has tried to find out whether these posts are serving the purpose of literature to some extent in human life.