Speech Case Study I Have a Dream
l still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted In the American dream. ” Metaphor: The American dream Is indirectly compared to rich soil, a soil In which King has planted his dream of racial equality. Analysis: King reiterates that his dream Is no different than the dream of the Founding Fathers. HIS dream receives Its legitimacy from the deals set forth In the Declaration of Independence and the united States Constitution to which King refers earlier in the speech.
Quote: “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizer drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial Justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make Justice a reality for all of God’s children.
” Metaphor: Inaction is compared to a luxury that civil rights workers must not purchase. Gradual change is compared to tranquilizer. Segregation is compared to a desolate valley. Racial Justice is compared to a sunlit path.
Racial Injustice is compared to quicksand.
Brotherhood Is compared to solid rock. Analysis: King understood human nature. He understood the natural human tendency to relax once things are going well. He urges his followers not to relax. The fight Is not over (anyone who’s played high school sports has probably heard something similar from a coach).
The situation is urgent and to delay is death Read more: http://www. Bright. Com/education/homework’s/articles/ “l have a dream speech” The “l have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King is recognized as one of the best speeches ever given.
Here Steve Edwards looks at what makes it so memorable. Martin Luther King’s ‘l Have a Dream’ speech – what makes memorable? More than 40 years ago, In August 1963, Martin Luther King electrified America with his momentous ‘l Have A Dream’ speech, dramatically delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
HIS soaring rhetoric demanding racial Justice and an Integrated society became a mantra for the black community and is as familiar to subsequent generations of Americans as the US Declaration of Independence.
His words proved to be a touchstone for understanding the social and political upheaval of the time and gave the nation a vocabulary to express what was happening. The key message in the speech is that all people are created equal and, although not the case in America at the time, King felt it must be the case for the future. He argued passionately and powerfully. So what were his compositional strategies and techniques? Certainly King’s speech was well researched.
In preparation he studied the Bible, The Gettysburg Address and the US Declaration of Independence and he alludes to all three In his address.
Stylistically the speech has been described as a political treatise, a work of poetry, and a masterfully delivered and Improvised sermon, bursting with biblical language and imagery. As well as rhythm and frequent is simple – always an aid to memorabilia! It falls into two parts. The first half portrays not an idealized American dream but a picture of a seething American nightmare of racial injustice. It calls for action in a series of themed paragraphs.
“Now is the time” is the first: We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now.
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizer drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation o the sunlit path of racial Justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children.
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Likewise the theme “we can never be satisfied” sets some goals: And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “when will you be satisfied? ” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be testified as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negroes basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.
No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until Justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. The second half of the speech paints the dream of a better, fairer future of racial harmony and integration. The most famous paragraph carries the theme “l have a dream” and the phrase is repeated constantly to hammer home King’s inspirational concepts: I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal. ” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former shallowness will be able to sit down together at he table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and Justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be Judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a taxation where little black boys and black girls will be able to Join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, and rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. While the address has a very strong message for white people and hints at revolution, Kings words are mostly about peace, offering a vision everyone could buy redeem: This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning “My country ‘its of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
” And if America is to be a great nation this must come true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California.
But not only that ? let freedom ring from Stone Mountain in Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to Join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Three factors added to the impact of the speech: The remarkable emotion of Kings delivery in terms of both voice and body The site at which it was delivered – on the steps of the memorial to the President who defeated southern states over the issue of slavery The mood of the day, a sense of perpetuated slavery among black people and the gradual realization of a sense of guilt among white people Described by one linguistic scholar, Kings ‘l Have a Dream’ speech was “not a legal brief on the intricacies of the civil rights movement in America, nor an intellectual treatise on the plight of black people. Rather, it was a fervent emotional sermon, forged out of the language and spirit of democracy.
King’s mastery of the spoken word, his magnetism, and his sincerity raised familiar platitudes from cliche© to commandment. ” Click on the following link for a full transcript of the Martin Luther King Speech Footnote: ‘l Have A Dream’ has been widely acclaimed as a rhetorical masterpiece. What is Rhetoric? Here are some famous definitions: Plato: [Rhetoric] is the “art of enchanting the soul. ” (The art of winning the soul by discourse. Aristotle: Rhetoric is “the faculty of discovering in any particular case all of the available means of persuasion. ” Cicero: Rhetoric is one great art comprised of five lesser arts: invention, disposition, elocution, memoriam, and pronunciation.
” Rhetoric is “speech designed to persuade. ” Quintillion: “Rhetoric is the art of speaking well. ” Francis Bacon: “The duty and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will. ” George Campbell: [Rhetoric] is “that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end.
The four ends of discourse are to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passion, and influence the will.
” Note – Image was sourced from the Library Of Congress. There were no restrictions n the image so it is presumed to be copyright free. A stylistic Analysts of Martin Luther King’S I HAVE A DREAM posted:2008-4-24 1 visit:7547 Chinese Version Related News Bookmark and Share Abstract: This paper begins by describing the definition of stylistics, and the United States on the basis of well-known black leader Martin. Luther.
King’s famous speech ‘l Have a Dream’ in the style used by means of a detailed analysis, thus The style of presentation style are briefly discussed.
Keywords: Stylistics; style means; analysis; speech As an interdisciplinary field of study, stylistics promises to offer useful insights into literary eroticism and the teaching of literature with its explicit aims and effective techniques. It is very useful in the analysis of various styles of writing. In this thesis, the author tries to offer a stylistic analysis of the famous speech by Martin Luther king, Jar. I Have a Dream. 1.
Introduction: Definition of Stylistics and Stylistic Analysis As far as the definition of stylistics is concerned different scholars define the branch of study in different ways. Wales defines stylistics simply as’ the study of style ‘(1989:437), while Widows provides a more informative definition as’ the study of literary discourse room a linguistic orientation ‘and takes’ a view that what distinguishes stylistics from literary criticism on the one hand and linguistics on the other is that it is essentially a means of linking the two’ (1975:3). Leech holds a similar view .
He defines stylistics as the ‘study of the use of language in literature’ (1969:1) and considers stylistics a ‘meeting-ground of linguistics and literary study’ (1969:2). From what Widows and Leech say, we can see that stylistics is an area of study that straddles two disciplines: literary criticism and linguistics.
It takes literary discourse (text) as its object of study ND uses linguistics as a means to that end. Stylistic analysis is generally concerned with the uniqueness of a text; that is, what it is that is peculiar to the uses of language in a literary text for delivering the message.
This naturally involves comparisons of the language of the text with that used in conventional types of discourse. Statisticians may also wish to characterize the style of a literary text by Systematically comparing the language uses in that text with those in another. Holiday points out, ‘The text may be seen as’ this’ in contrast with’ that ‘ , with another poem or another novel; stylistics studies are essentially comparative in nature ‘(1971:341).
On this points, Widows is of the same opinion as Holiday. He says:’ All literary appreciation is comparative, as indeed is a recognition of styles in general ‘(1975:84).
Thus, we may conclude that stylistic analysis is an activity that is highly comparative in nature. 2. Related Information of the Speech I HAVE A DREAM and Its Author Martin Luther King, Jar. Was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of a clergyman and the grandson of a slave.
After attending several colleges he received his Ph. D. N theology from Boston University in 1955. He led the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955-1956. As president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he then led civil rights demonstrations in many cities.
In 1963 he helped organize the march on Washington, which brought together more than 200,000 people.
A leader in establishing a nonviolent civil rights movement, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1964. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968, shortly before his fortieth birthday. Since then, he King was signed by President Riga, effective January 1986, making the third Monday f January a national holiday. He is the only US citizen other than George Washington to be recognized in this way. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves in the United States.
One hundred years after this decree was signed, however, the life of blacks was still ‘sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the Chains discrimination. ‘ On August 28, 1963, a quarter of million people of all races came to Washington, DC, to show their support for freedom and Justice for all Americans, and for black people in particular. At that demonstration, Martin Luther King, Jar. Levered this famous speech I HAVE A DREAM, widely regarded as the most eloquent statement of the black people’s dreams and aspirations ever made. In his speech, Dry.
King told the world, ‘l have a dream’ that equality would come ‘to all of God’s children .
‘He said he wanted everyone to be able to’ Join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! . A Stylistic Analysis of the Speech (An analysis of some of the stylistic devices used in the speech) Martin Luther King’s speech of August 28, 1963 is widely regarded as one of the most powerful ever delivered in the United States. Although this address was delivered orally, it was read from a written text composed with GREat care. It is an example of formal English with a convincing style.
Here are some of the stylistic devices (which maybe considered traditionally as rhetorical devices) used by Dry King to inspire and persuade. 3.
1 Repetition: Throughout the speech, Dry. King repeats words and sentence. This is a very outstanding feature in this speech called repetition. It belongs to the stylistic device of syntactic over-regularity. The term repetition is restricted to mean the case of exact copying of a certain previous unit in text such as a word, phrase or even a sentence (Leech, 1969), because all the over- regular features in literature are in some sense repetitious.
Used in speech, repetition not only makes it easy for the audience to follow what the speaker is saying, but also gives a strong rhythmic quality to the speech and makes it more memorable. In paragraphs 8 through 16, for example, King uses the words ‘l have a dream’ nine times. This repetition helps to achieve the function of coherence in discourse and the function of reinforcement in mood and emotion, expressing the beaker’s strong emotion of longing for freedom, Justice, righteousness and a much more united nation of all of God’s children.
If we study the whole speech more carefully, it is easy for us to find many other examples of repetition used. (j) But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro.
@ is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
Here the phrase ‘one hundred years later’ has been repeated three times, seemingly indicating that it is really a long time for the Negro to wait for the coming of the time of Justice and righteousness. @ But we refuse to believe that the bank of Justice is bankrupt. We of this nation.
(Par. 4) the phrase ‘we refuse to believe that has been used twice to indicate the speaker’s good hope. @ Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation all of God’s Children .
Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.
(Par. 4) In this short passage, the clause ‘Now is the time to has been used four times to emphasize the fierce urgency of ‘NOW’ and to encourage and persuade the blacks to take immediate action to rise above and gain their own rights and freedom . Other examples of repetition can still be easily found throughout the speech. In par. 7, the words ‘we can never / cannot be satisfied as long as has been used as many as five times to show the termination and persistence of the black people; in par.
7, the words ‘with the faith we will be able to has been repeated twice for the purpose of showing how strong the faith of the black people is to struggle for the brotherhood of ‘all of God’s children’ , and how strong the faith of the black people is to believe that they ‘will be free one day’. Now let’s enjoy another example. @ And if America is to be a GREat nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire! Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city (Paragraphs 19 through 25) the words ‘Let Freedom ring has been repeated as many as nine times to indicate that it is the whole of the United States rather than any part of it that should be bathed in the sunshine of freedom.
3. 2 Use of Parallelism Parallelism is another syntactic over-regularity. It means exact repetition in equivalent positions.
It fifers from simple repetition in that the identity does not extend to absolute duplication, it ‘requires some variable feature of the pattern-some contrasting elements which are’ parallel ‘ with respect to their position in the pattern ‘(Leech, 1969:66). To put it simply, parallelism means the balancing of sentence elements that are grammatically equal. To take them parallel, balance nouns with nouns, verbs with verbs, prepositional phrases with prepositional phrases, clauses with clauses, and so forth.
In his speech, Martin Luther King uses parallelism to create a strong rhythm to help the audience line up his ideas.
Here are few examples: ($) by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination (Par. 2, two parallel noun phrases) @ ‘This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizer drag of gradualism. ‘ (Par. 4, two parallel infinitive phrases: to engage to take
