Martin Luther King is an expert on using strong language to effect his audience. We see this often in his speech I have a Dream, in this excerpt from the speech he mostly uses language to cause an emotional effect on his audience and to provoke action from them.
Repetition in Martin Luther King’s speech is used overall to evoke emotion within the audience members. He often repeats the using sentences that begin with “go back to …”. The repetition of this phrase expresses his passion and relates it to the audience by showing that is just as worked up over the situation they are in just as much as they are, if not more. By repeating the phrase “I have a dream that …” Martin Luther King gets the audience emotionally involved and , and gives them the same dream and hope that it will one day be a reality, not just a dream. The more the phrase is used the more emotion it evokes. The more emotion that is evoked, the more the audience want to make change in the nation….
In this excerpt he alludes to the Declaration of Independence. By alluding to the Declaration of Independence, he gives the audience support behind what the nation’s true belief is supposed to be and why their current state should be changed into one that is more accepting.
Martin Luther King often utilizes hyperboles throughout his speeches, however, in this excerpt he only uses one. He talks about not wanting the audience to “wallow” in “the valley of despair” by doing this he uses exaggeratory emotions to make the audience more emotionally involved in the cause. It also makes the audience want to change their circumstances even more than they already…
