What Are The Rhetorical Devices Used In I Have A Dream Speech

Martin Luther King Jr. is well known for the countless things he did to promote civil rights in the 1960s. He is maybe best known for the speech "I have a dream" during which the audience may pick out the various rhetorical devices that Martin used during his speech. Martin inserted multiple attempts to argue throughout the speech for a change in the way that America's democratic society treats individuals of different races and skin tones. His tone of urgency, sophisticated diction, and finally his syntactical usage of phrases that are reinforced by repetition are three of the numerous rhetorical elements that an audience member can depict from his speech. From evoking an emotional environment with his descriptive phrases, Martin establishes

Martin produces a mood in which his audience feels a certain specific emotion through the use of the strong diction. Martin's audience will be able to better grasp his feelings on the subject of civil rights in America because of the emotions he arouses in them. Martin's statement that "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir" is an illustration of his usage of strong diction (King 1963). The audience member can tell from that statement that Martin did not refer to the founders by their historical title but rather as "the architects of our republic" (King 1963). The audience might deduce from this that the major individuals who laid the basis for our country are those who developed the concept and finished the project of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Martin, proceeding that quote, stated that the promise of the document that guaranteed the unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness for all people included people of color. Martin's statement that all men, including black and white men, will be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" demonstrates this. (King 1963). Martin adds a confident tone, reiterating his convictions that the

When a speaker uses repetition properly, it can help a concept stick with the audience members who are listening to the speech. Martin, for instance, uses the phrase "one hundred years later" twice in the third paragraph (King 1963). Martint discusses how African Americans' views and way of life remain constrained even after they have been freed from white people's ownership of their bodies. Martin's words that "the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination" further demonstrate this (King 1963). After hearing that, the audience can infer that Martin is adamant in his conviction that the country's ongoing practice of segregation is harming the black population. The segregation does nothing to better ties between the various races; on the contrary, it causes a rift between them and increases racial tensions. Martin thinks that ending the country's 100-year-old practice of discriminating against people of color from the general white populace is the only way to resolve