Analysis on spoken discourse of martin luther king's speech in socio-political perspective ByFheby and Trihartina

1. Critical Discourse Analysis of Martin Luther
King’s Speech in Socio-Political Perspective
by MuhammadAslam Sipra andAthar Rashid
Group 11
PROGRAM MAGISTER PENDIDIKAN BAHASA INGGRIS
UNIVERSITAS NEGERI JAKARTA

2. INTRODUCTION
• Discourse help to produce and reproduce unequal power relations between
different ethnicities, social classes, genders, ages, and professional groups.
• CDA of the selected speech highlights the relationship between language and
power.
• Martin Luther motivates the audience through language of getting freedom and
makes them ready against the racial discrimination

3. Researcher analyzed:
• the linguistic choices used by the speaker in order to find out
the motifs and how the king promote his ideology.
• the stylistic devices like metaphors used in order to represent
the perspective of the black.
• Power relation between the black and the white are analyzed
at wider socio-economic and political perspective through
CDA.
Research Questions:
1. How does the use of textual/stylistic strategies reflect the view of the Afro-
American community in speech?
2. To what extent the ideology of King Martin Luther is reflected through the
linguistic choices in the speech?
3. How do the stylistic features represent the broader socio-cultural and political
relationship between the white and the black community in America?

4. Literature Review
Fairclough (1993)
• The purpose of CDA is to analyze the text in the light of social theory of language
functioning of ideological and political processes.
• It focus on text and sequential events and then relates them with broader socio-
cultural perspective of the discourse of people which reveals uneven and ideology
shaped power relations by exploring how the power is exercised in a society
through hegemonic attitude and ideological text of the elite.
• There are three stages for the analysis of a discourse
1) CDA analyses the personal experience and knowledge of the speaker by
keeping in view his beliefs.
2) How social relations affect the discourse
3) Speaker realizes about the reality and identity.

5. Cont.
Linguistic analysis of discourse practice in socio-cultural background is known as
inter-textual analysis that analyze the text at lexical, syntactic, grammatical,
vocabulary level, cohesion, coherence and organization of the text.
Intertextuality as the characteristic of any text that carries the chunks of other texts
which become a part of that text.
Wodak and Fairclough (1995a, 1996) are of the view that language as a practice of
creating hegemony, power and dominance is being used in a society.
Critical discourse analysis applies certain techniques like textual and stylistic
features to find out the social relations, identities from the linguistic perspective.
The linguistic and social variables in CDA research are closely knitted to each other
where the linguistic perspective can emphasize how choice of language in a
particular discourse pertaining the socio-political context tries to analyze the
discursive practices.

6. Cont.
CDA tries to develop connections between the powers exerted
through language with a wider socio-political context.
The used of metaphors play a significant role in CDA. Metaphors in
a discourse represent an ideology which leads to reality in that
particular context according to an individual’s perception.
CDA brings forth both aspects which sociological and post-modern
perspective for analysis of the discourse.
Sociological feature is related to functional aspect of language in
the constructions and explanation of social relations.

7. Research Methodology
Design Qualitative
Participant A quarter of million people
Data collect Historical speech of King Martin Luther on
August 28, 1963.
Title ‘When I Have Dream’.
Instrument  3D model by Norman Fairclough (1992).
 text, socio-cultural practices and
discursive practices.
 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
Data Analysis Analyzed and interpret

8. Discussion and Analysis
Three aspects basis of critical analyses based on 3d model:
 Text Analysis
 Analyzing Context
 Analysis of Discourse Practices and Socio-Political Aspect of
Speech
3D Model CDA
As a tool to analyze and interpret As theoretical framework that focuses the text
which reveals from socio-cultural perspective

9. 1. Text Analysis
This analysis divided into two sections.
1. Analysis within the clauses or sentences that highlights the Theme,
Rheme, Given and New Information.
2. Analysis of relationship of the sentences or clauses with each other,
by focusing on the four types of thematic progression.

10. Cont.
Informative Structure cohesion sequence coherence
developed through a
series of Theme,
Rheme, Given and
New Information.
Create an organization
in the
sentences of the
speech
Make sentences
grammatically and
thematically correct
heightens the impact
of the
message and
feelings by the
speakers
gives a power to the
speaker to have a
deep impact on the
audience.
creates a logical
sequence within the
sentences.
help in making
the
speech effective.
serve as a bridge
between the
speakers and the
audience.
developed
through Given
and New
information.
Audience gets
from the speech
through the
related sentences
that
show cohesion
and coherence.

11. Cont.
Thematic Progression of the speech is developed through
Constant Theme Pattern.
 Created with the help of chain of related ideas and
appropriate words focusing on the main idea.
 This technique keeps the feeling of the audience intact.
Constant Theme Pattern aims at maintaining the emotional
impact on the audience by focusing on the main idea or
theme.

12. Cont.
Ex : by used repetition.
phrase of “one hundred years later” has been repeated
four times, clearly indicating that there has been a longtime
these African-Americans aspiring for the freedom and equal
rights without any discrimination based on color and creed.
Parallelism means the balancing of sentence elements
that are grammatically equal.
• to create a strong rhythm to help the audience line up
ideas.

13. Cont.
 ......by the manacles of segregation and the chains of
discrimination… (Par.2, two parallel noun phrases)
Luther used the noun freedom 20 times in this speech which
reflects that Freedom and inequality are the major themes of
the speech keeping in view socio-political background of the
speech.
 Other pronouns like ‘We’, ‘Ours’ and ‘You’ have been used 30, 17
and 08 times in speech respectively which indicate the intimacy
between the speaker and the audience.
 Other lexemes like nation, America and justice have also been used
several times which indicate that King’s speech conveyed the
message of justice, equality and unity as one nation

14. Cont.
Metaphor is a stylistic device which is used to associate the
abstract ideas with the concrete images.
ex: to contrast segregation with racial justice, King has
contrasted the metaphors of dark and desolate valley (of
segregation) and sunlit path (of racial justice).

15. 2. Analyzing Context
• Luther’s prime motifs were to get equal rights and to get rid of
the discriminatory attitude of Whites towards the Blacks.
• Negroes were considered socially, economically and politically
inferior as compared to the other race living in America.
• Luther King tried to make people aware of their rights and that
of discriminatory and hegemonic attitude of the whites.

16. 3. Analysis of Discourse Practices and Socio-Political
Aspect of Speech
 Analysis of Genre refers to the analysis of text.
Ex : The words flame means the fire and withering, refers to the
gloomy and desolate picture of the blacks. Their faces have been
withered due to continuous chain of slavery in their neck.
The word vast ocean refers to the great economy and wealth of the
America.
He used the word nation many a times which indicate that his
stance was that the blacks and the whites are one nation without
any discrimination.

17. Cont.
 Style of the speaker.
Expressive value indicates the expression of personal experiences
of the speaker.
Ex: He used pronoun ‘We’ and ‘Ours’ several times in the speech which
ultimately indicate that the speaker considers himself of being a member of
that group. Speaker with the help of these lexical choices gets involve in
the sentiments of the oppressed ones.
 Representational value.
King criticized the American authorities for being not fulfilling the
promise which they mentioned in the constitution. Negroes were not
given liberty, equal rights and economic equality which were being
mentioned in the constitution.

18. Conclusion
 In this speech certain textual and stylistic devices have been used in order to
achieve some specific purpose. It carries all those prerequisites which a speech
must have to propagate the ideology in a sophisticated manner.
 The ideology of King Martin Luther is reflected through the linguistic choice by
using repetitions that emphasizing the main theme which is inequality of socio-
cultural rights and racial discrimination on the basis of color and creed. Although
the choice of the lexemes is not well ordered according to situation but also
recapitulating background and indicating the relational and expressive values of
the speaker.
 Luther king with the help of metaphors and other devices identifies the broader
socio-cultural and political relationship between the powerful and oppressed. He
persuasively succeeds in achieving the strength and support of the powerless
without creating any conflict with the powerful (white). His speech very peacefully
sheds light on the institutionalized social inequalities.

19. Thank you!
Any Questions?