A Shining Example of Rhetorical Practice——A Stylistic Analysis of “I Have a Dream”.pdf

1、"Dream", whose author Martin Luther King is a master of language, is very popular all around the world for the skillful use of rhetorical devices in it. Its stylistic features are very special since it displays the doubl

2、e features of both spoken and written language and is a face-to-face argumentation. And rhetorical devices used in it are at various levels of language, the levels of phonetics and phonology, lexis, syntax and text.

3、At those different levels, many figures of speech are employed, including alliteration which creates the musical effect in the speech and makes it easy to remember, metaphor which visualizes abstract concepts and evokes

4、aesthetic emotion, parallelism which arranges and organizes ideas and sentences in good order, repetition which projects and emphasizes the main idea of the speech and contrast which vividly presents the idea that King w

5、ants to express to the audience. All these figures of speech are used together to enhance the expressive effects of King's speech. Other rhetorical devices such as appropriate arrangement of stressed and unstressed sylla

6、bles, the use of common words and a variety of sentence structures are also of great importance in achieving a successful expression. As a result, the speech becomes very powerful and touching. The conclusion can be

7、 drawn by analysis from the perspectives of functional stylistics, reception rhetoric and aesthetics. In all, the impact of "Dream" comes from King's wonderful mastering of language. It has been a significant achiev