...Rhetorical Analysis of Martin Luther King’s Speech “I Have a Dream” Likita M. Taylor ITT-Tech English 1320: Composition I November 12 2012 Rhetorical Analysis of Martin Luther King’s Speech “I Have a Dream” “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” These are the opening words of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream speech”, which he predicted will be the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement and the turning point in finally ending segregation. Time and time again, his speech is credited as being “one of the most successful and most legendary speeches in United States history.”(Martin, 2010, 10 par 1). He was an astonishing, intelligent speaker who often relied on using strong rhetoric devices to get his message across. Through his articulate use of logos, pathos, and ethos, King was able to persuade his generation that "the Negro is not free.” (Martin 2001 par3). His speech became the rallying cry for civil rights and lives on to this day as a perpetual masterpiece. Before one can really understand the analysis of his speech, it is important to understand King’s arguments. His main point is that blacks are not free or equal according to the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. He argues that African-Americans must claim their full rights and demand liberation from inequality and suppression. King's audience is not only Black Americans, but his message...
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...RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 1 Rhetorical Analysis of “I Have Dream” Speech Alfonso Gonzalez Itt Technical Institute Instructor Deana Schoneberg EN 1320 RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 2 The main point of Dr. Kings speech was that an injustice had been done to the black people. They were promised freedom from the emancipation proclamation and up to that point they still were not free. They were segregated and treated like second class citizens. Were they suppose to sit down and let white men at that time humiliate them, beat them, bomb their houses, and strip them of human dignity? No! Dr. King was preaching to all who listened, that now was the time to metaphorically cash this check, a check that will give them upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. But to do this, not with violence or retaliation, “we must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.” (Carson, 1998, p225) This would be the way Dr. King would want to see his dream played out, with non -violence. Were all his efforts done in vain? On August 28, 1963, The March on Washington was organized by Bayard Rustin and led by union leader A. Philip Randolph. The backdrop ironically took place on the steps...
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...A Rhetorical Analysis of MLK Jr.’s “I have a dream” Speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, one hundred years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, which outstandingly furthered the civil rights movement. At that time, racial segregation, police brutality, and other forms of racial inequality were terribly prominent in America. The speech successfully focused the country’s attention at the need for racial equality “Now” (King, I Have a Dream). King gave the speech in order to motivate his followers to peacefully continue to demonstrate, protest, and boycott until they were fully granted the equality and privileges that any other citizen was allowed to have. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech is his most notable, and one of the most influential of Twentieth-Century-America because of his excellent rhetorical use of repetition and anaphora, contrasting metaphors, and appropriate quotations and allusions throughout the speech. Martin Luther King Jr. used a profuse amount of repetition and anaphora throughout his speech. A subtle form of repetition, the repetition of singular words, was mainly used to emphasize key themes in the speech and keep them in the minds of the audience. Such repeated key themes were “freedom”, “justice” and “injustice”, “America” and “American”, and plural nouns such as “we” and “our”. Since the preceding words were repeated so frequently...
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...Contributors:Ethan Sproat, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Allen Brizee Last Edited: 2012-04-27 10:46:02 Example 1: “I Have a Dream” Speech A lot of what was covered above may still seem abstract and complicated. To illustrate how diverse kinds of texts have their own rhetorical situations, consider the following examples. First, consider Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Because this speech is famous, it should be very easy to identify the basic elements of its particular rhetorical situation. Text The text in question is a 17-minute speech written and delivered by Dr. King. The basic medium of the text was an oral speech that was broadcast by both loudspeakers at the event and over radio and television. Dr. King drew on years of training as a minister and public speaker to deliver the speech. He also drew on his extensive education and the tumultuous history of racial prejudices and civil rights in the US. Audiences at the time either heard his speech in person or over radio or television broadcasts. Part of the speech near the end was improvised around the repeated phrase “I have a dream.” Author http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/08/ Page 1 of 9 Purdue OWL: The Rhetorical Situation 9/11/13 7:53 PM Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most iconic leader of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He was an African-American Baptist minister and prominent civil rights activist who campaigned to end segregation and racial discrimi- nation...
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...Rhetorical analysis of Mitt Romney´s republican victory speech On the 7th November 2012 the presidential in America ended. Two candidates, one from each party, the Republican and the Democratic Party participated in the race. The results were as followed; Obama was re-elected for another 4 years in the White House. The participant from the Republican Party was the former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. Even though he didn´t win the election as he had hoped, his road to the top of the Republican Party is also very interesting to follow. For example the Super Tuesday Victory Speech he gave on March 6th 2012 after having won the Republican presidential candidacy on Super Tuesday. Perhaps if this speech had been different he would have been elected president in America? To look closer into this speech, will at first use the SOAPSTONE model to analyse it. The speaker of the text is of course the one delivering it, Mitt Romney. The speech where given as said before on Super Tuesday after having won the Republican presidential candidacy, which is the occasion for it. Especially the occasion is very important for Mitt Romney and his speech, since it will be showed on national television, where his audience most likely will be millions of republican voters, both those who supported him and those who didn´t. Which means that Romney will get the change to convince the republican voters, who supported other candidates in the run, to keep their vote republican in the presidential...
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...ITT-Technical University Rhetorical Analysis of Dr. Martin Luther Kings “I Have A Dream” (Revised) Introduction On August 28th 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave the “I Have a Dream” speech which was addressed to not only the 200,000 white and black Americans but people all around the world. The “I Have A Dream” speech has been considered one of the most greatest and powerful speeches in history. Why was it given? Simply to rectify that all me were created equal despite their race or color. In this Analysis I will be explaining some literary terms he used as strategies in his speech, and also explain how Dr. King used two rhetorical patterns to help him support his argument, those two patters are Ethos, & Pathos. Strategies Dr. King used many literary terms in the “I Have a Dream” speech such as Alliteration, which is the repetition of sounds. For example he says, “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.” The “c” in those three words of that sentence gives it a repetitive rhythm feel which will make that important part of the speech catch and memorable. Also from that same sentence he used Anaphora, which describes the most famous part of the speech, where in this case is “I Have a Dream”. Although he used it many times just buy naming this speech “I Have a Dream” it will make everything...
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...larger operation. This job requires Balboa to confront and physically assault debted customers if unable to make their respective payment. This lays the groundwork for the journey of achieving the “American Dream”. Balboa working such a low-end, odd job just to make ends meet symbolizes the working class, more specifically the lower class. This gives insight to the struggles these people face everyday, not only through Balboa’s work as a loan shark, but the dock worker in a dirty environment who is unable to pay his loan in the same scene. Many signs throughout the early exposition align with the reasoning within the rhetorical framework. For example, Rocky attempts to go to the boxing gym but because of his lack of success and low amount of money, Mick gives Rocky’s locker to...
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...Final Rhetorical Analysis Martin Luther King, Jr. Was an African American, nonviolent, civil rights activist and leader from 1956 until his tragic passing in 1986. On August 28, 1963 King proudly presented his well-known “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, one hundred years after former President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation as well as delivered his prominent speech, the Gettysburg Address. King’s purpose of his speech was an intended aspiration to aim at the white population to advocate for the justices of African Americans as well as to encourage the nation to not stand alone but together for the rights appointed to each citizen under the Constitution. King accomplishes his ambition for his speech as he uses different rhetorical devices with his audience such as: ethos, logos, and pathos, as well as using several different figurative language techniques that include, allusion, anaphora, diction, and metaphors. King begins his speech contended and determined, as he explains this specific day will be one remembered forever. His use of archaic...
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...Using Facebook to Teach Rhetorical Analysis Jane Mathison Fife The attraction of Facebook is a puzzle to many people over the age of thirtyfive, and that includes most college faculty. Yet students confess to spending significant amounts of time on Facebook, sometimes hours a day. If you teach in a computer classroom, you have probably observed students using Facebook when you walk in the room. Literacy practices that fall outside the realm of traditional academic writing, like Facebook, can easily be seen as a threat to print literacy by teachers, especially when they sneak into the classroom uninvited as students check their Facebook profiles instead of participating in class discussions and activities. This common reaction reflects James King and David O’Brien’s (2002: 42) characterization of the dichotomy teachers often perceive between school and nonschool literacy activities (although they are not referring to Facebook specifically): “From teachers’ perspectives, all of these presumably pleasurable experiences with multimedia detract from students’ engagement with their real work. Within the classroom economy technology work is time off task; it is classified as a sort of leisure recreational activity.” This dichotomy can be broken down, though; students’ enthusiasm for and immersion in these nonacademic literacies can be used to complement their learning of critical inquiry and traditional academic concepts like rhetorical analysis. Although they read these texts daily...
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...Rhetorical Analysis – I Have a Dream. A speech, that will be remembered by many and be passed down from generation to generation, had shaped the future of America by the time Martin Luther King had stepped off the stage on August 28th, as he called for an end to racism in the United States during the March on Washington in 1963. This was one of, if not, the most powerful speech America has seen to this day. A beautiful way to begin! Good job! Martin Luther King stood on that stage with confidence and determination to make a change in the United States of America and it was shown through this rhetorical masterpiece titled “I Have a Dream”. The first line of the speech makes the audience aware of not only how serious he is, but also how determined and sure he is that his speech will change the civil rights in the United States of America; he could not have been more right about it. From the very first line, Martin Luther King had his audiences’ undivided attention. “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.” (Line 1-2, Page 1) His audience in this case would not only be his fellow Negroes who are still not free, but the rest of the Americans that attended the March on Washington. Little did he know that the whole world would be his audience… Good! In this first line we see him start off with using logos. He refers to the USA as “our” nation. We see this throughout the...
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...Rhetorical Analysis of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist who boldly called an end to racism in the United States. On August 28, 1963 he delivered a speech in front of more than 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial; a speech that became famous for its inspiration; a speech that was a defining moment for the American Civil Rights Movement; a speech plainly known as “I Have a Dream.” This infamous speech was so influential and moving because of the many rhetorical devices and appeals used that effectively related to the emotions and knowledge of the common people. Techniques used so beautifully and words spoken so genuinely that the hearts of those listening...
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...Letter From Birmingham Jail Vs. “I Have a Dream Speech” The first way that a “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “ I have a Dream” differ are in their intended audience, as one is intended for a group of white clergymen while the other is intended to rally a large group. This difference in audience and how Dr. King chooses to appeal to each of his audiences causes for the choices in language and the purpose of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and “I have a Dream” to differ. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is addressed to white clergymen, and the purpose of the letter is to defend the demonstrations that were taking place. As Dr. King is trying to defend the demonstrations to these white clergymen, his language choice is quite interesting. One brilliant way that he chooses to defend the demonstrations is by appealing to the white men through his choice of Anglo terms. For instance, in the letter, Dr. King writes, “Just as the prophets of the eighth century century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saint the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns…I am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town” (King). This choice of wording makes Dr. King’s argument stronger since as these white men disagree with Dr. King and his form of peaceful protest, the white clergymen will not be able to argue back because he is using religious references that if the white men chose to argue against, it would make them look like hypocrites (Eubank). While...
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...that a life can have managed to make before it passes. The above is what Barack Obama’s speech at the Groundbreaking Ceremony of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial from 2006 is about. Through the use of many of the same rhetorical instruments that Martin Luther King used before him, Obama establishes not only what Martin Luther King meant to America but also what he means to Obama on a personal level. In the following, I will make a rhetorical analysis and interpretation of the speech. The speech can be described as being an occasion speech which means that Obama’s aim is for him to entertain his audience at the memorial, by interpreting his vision of Martin Luther King Jr. The speaker is Barack Obama who is an African-American senator and soon-to-be presidential candidate in the United States. The audience for his speech is the participating to the national memorial, but primarily the speech is meant for the African-American inhabitants. He entertains his audience by reminding them of the great things that King has accomplished for the African-Americans in the United States of America: “I will tell them that because he did these things, they live today with the freedom God intended, their citizenship unquestioned, their dreams unbounded” (p. 2, l. 63-64). Obama’s main claim of his speech is for Martin Luther King to be remembered for his great accomplishments. The ground for his claim is that King was a good man, which Obama inter alia expresses by the use...
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...the rhetoric of a speech. As we know where rhetoric is concerned we should inevitably deal with literature. In other words rhetoric is like a joint which connect literature with politics and establish a method of analyzing political speeches called polio-linguistic approach. Thus we can consider political discourses as pieces of literature. Literary techniques especially rhetorical devices serve as one of the most distinctive features of the greatest and most influential speeches of all time. There is no shortage of rhetorical devices used in these speeches, but we can prioritize them by count of repetitions in political discourses. In this study first I have represented the necessity of using these types of persuasive skills in political discourses, the methods within which politicians take advantages of these skills and the different sides of a successful speech. Then after a glance through different rhetorical devices, excerpts from four of the greatest speeches in history are provided with the rhetorical devices indicated in them. Finally a quite deep examination of the most important of these rhetorical devices is presented and the conclusion is made through comparing these samples. The primary purpose of every presenter or rhetorician is to grab people`s attention. After that he/ she needs to convey people`s thoughts and beliefs in his/her to desirable direction. This is a hard job and needs a big deal of effort and commitment. In...
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...vision of the country (United States) and to set forth their goals for the nation. With that being said, this paper will use the strategy of genre analysis to critique to examine Barack Obama’s second Inaugural Address and John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech. Genre analysis is a type of rhetorical analysis that examines speeches based on the artifacts or commonalities that contain. The artifacts of speech are created by the rhetor as a response to a specific exigency. So as Bitzer’s essay, The Rhetorical Situation, saw it, in order for a text to be rhetorical, it must come in response to a rhetorical situation. Furthermore a rhetorical situation has three characteristics, an audience, an existence of constraints, and as mentioned above, an exigency. One manner, in which we can analyze an artifact, is through...
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