Martin Luther King Jr’s Delivery Style in Political Context: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The effect(s) of delivery style may be in the form of punctuation and accentuation of speech, or they may be of subtler nature like adding emotion and force to utterance(s). This article then, investigates the position of paralinguistic factors: pace of delivery, pitch, intensity and pause pattern in King Martin Luther’s speech “Have a Dream” in political context. These factors carry attitude, psychological condition and emotional state of the speaker to the audience and affect their attitudes and emotions. These factors have been called the factors of delivery style because they can be used only in spoken language. These factors are the physical properties of speech and thus they are observable. These factors, thenwill be analyzed and studied with the help of van Dijk Model of CDA to answer To what extent the ideology of Martin Luther King Jr is reflected through the paralinguistic choices “I Have Dream”. In terms of the findings, the analysis found that persuasion is not the result of the use of the persuasive strategies in words and syntax alone as delivery style also plays an important role in persuasion. Pace of delivery along with pitch intensity and pause pattern are the main components of political speech delivery style for persuasive end. Moreover, the delivery style adds certain effect to other rhetorical strategies. Martin Luther King Jr. is a master of speech delivery style as he makes the best persuasive use of pace, pause, pitch and intensity in his speech.