PHÂN TÍCH bài DIỄN văn của MARTIN LUTHER KING ‘BEYOND VIETNAM – a TIME TO BREAK SILENCE’ từ góc độ PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN

Then, it can be inferred from above implications that doing discourse analysis involves innot merely analyzing texts, processes of production and interpretation, but also analyzingthe re

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

There has been much written in recent years about Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA forshort) It appears to be quite difficult to define CDA in simple terms However, CDA is mychoice for the MA thesis because first and foremost, CDA regards language as a socialpractice – language is a part of society, language is a social process, and language is asocially conditioned process These implications have been discussed in details by NormanFairclough (1989)

Then, it can be inferred from above implications that doing discourse analysis involves innot merely analyzing texts, processes of production and interpretation, but also analyzingthe relationship between texts, processes, and their social conditions – or in other terms,the relationship between texts, interactions, and contexts And CDA is critical in the sensethat it shows connections and causes which are hidden – such as the connection betweenlanguage, power and ideology, the problems of inequality and racism – through discourseanalysis More clearly stated, CDA is critical when it explicitly addresses social problemsand seeks to solve social problems through the analysis and accompanying social andpolitical action The intention of the analysts in this view of ‘critical’ is explicitly orientedtoward locating social problems and analyzing how discourse operates to construct andhistorically constructed by such issues They must work from the analysis of texts to thesocial and political context in which the texts emerge CDA thus can be said a verypractical form of discourse analysis It seeks not only to describe language but also to offercritical resources to those wishing to resist various forms of power

For those mentioned reasons, a speech by Martin Luther King “Beyond Vietnam – A Time

to Break Silence” is to be analyzed from the CAD viewpoint together with the hope that

this study may vice versa help illustrate and clarify CDA concepts Despite being delivered

in 1967, this speech was especially mentioned by many Americans when the U.S.government decided to attack Iraq in 2003 It is the ideological and topical features of this

speech that “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence” by Martin Luther King has been

chosen During the course of analyzing the speech, the way power and ideology embedded

in texts and coded in language use will be gradually manifested Although I am a supporter

of Martin Luther King, I will try to be objective towards political issues in the speech – a

crucial demand in CDA – as a base for critical reading of any text and developing scientificand objective standpoint towards any discourse where power relations may exist

Another reason for choosing CDA comes from my own personal interest In general, whenany theory or approach in linguistics appears, it will be studied and, through researches,practically applied to teaching and leaning CDA has shown its role in social sciences, but I

am really interested in the fact that whether CDA viewpoint is of some help in languageteaching and learning I hope to find the answer during the application of CDA approach in

the analysis of the speech “Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence” by Martin Luther

King

2 Scope of the study

The analysis of Martin Luther King’s speech is confined to verbal aspects of the speechand the social context when the speech was delivered Because of some reasons,paralinguistic (intonation, speed, loudness, etc.) and extralinguistic (facial expression, eyecontact, etc.) factors are not taken into account though they are important in the discourse This is a pure linguistic study and for academic purpose only I will not express my ownpolitical view And this study is not for or against any party or to change anyone’s politicalviewpoint

3 Objectives and aims of the study

The objectives of the study in analyzing Martin Luther King’s speech “Beyond Vietnam –

A Time to Break Silence” from CDA standpoint include:

- Providing a theoretical background of CDA – its concepts, its analysis procedures

as well as its role in social scientific research and in general in linguistics inparticular

- Finding out hidden power/struggle and ideology from linguistic elements of thetext In order to realize this aim, the study is supposed to answer the followingresearch questions:

 How are power and ideology realized lexically and grammatically?

 How are power and ideology realized in terms of transitivity and thematic structures?

 How are power and ideology realized macro structurally?

Besides, this study also aims at:

- Providing an objective view as a linguist when approaching texts, especially thoseaddressing power and ideology

- Trying to develop the ability in critical thinking

- Finding the application of CAD approach in language teaching and learning

4 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts They are:

Part A: Introduction: This part presents the rationale, scope, aims, methodology, and

design of the study

Part B: Development: This is the main part and it consists of three chapters.

Chapter 1: Theoretical background.

This chapter gives an overview of CDA – its history, role, concepts, and procedure.Systemic-functional theory is also concerned in this chapter

Chapter 2: A critical discourse analysis of Martin Luther King’s speech: ‘Beyond

Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence’.

The CDA procedure addressed by Fairclough and systemic-functional theory are applied toanalyze the speech to find out the connection between power/struggle, ideology and thelanguage

To put it more specifically, following are techniques involving in the analysis

Techniques

In terms of data collection, number of books and articles about CDA will be collected andthoroughly studied so that I can build the theoretical background of CDA for the anlysis.There may be of course different viewpoints of CDA, so I will read and take those that aremost suitable for my analysis of the speech Besides, as suggested by Norman Fairclough

in his paper (1991) in Discourse & Society : ‘Systemic-functional linguistics also has a

view of texts which is a potentially powerful basis not only for analysis of what is in texts,but also for analysis of what is absent or omitted from texts”, Halliday’s functionalgrammar is also my focus Besides, documents for a panorama of the social context arealso needed

In terms of text analysis, the linguistic features (lexicology and grammar) of the text will

be described to see how power/struggle and ideological position of the speaker are encoded

in the text I will analyze vocabulary with attention to formal words, classificationschemes, synonyms and antonyms Then, as suggested by Fairclough (2001), grammarfeatures will be analyzed including personal pronoun, voice, modes of the sentence,modality and connective values of the text

Apart from that, the text is also analyzed in terms of transitivity, thematization, andmacrostructure I will look at the dominant processes in clauses of the speech howideology and power are hidden in transitivity The text will be also broken into information

units (Halliday, 1994) so that I can identify them theme and rheme in sentence structure to

interpret their structural role in the introduction of new information Regarding

macrostructure or overall idea of the speech, the text will be divided into major sections

and then four procedures namely attributive deletion, predictive deletion, simple generalization, and integration suggested by Van Dijk (1977, 144-146) will be applied In

this part, my aim is to uncover power and ideology hidden behind words

The next step is interpreting the relationship between the processes of text production andinterpretation There are two domains here: interpretation of situation context andinterpretation of intertextual context In the interpretation of situation, I follow questionsgiven by Fairclough (2001): what’s going on, who’s involve, what relationships are atissue, and what’s the role of language In interpretation of intertextual context,presuppositions are in focus

And then, explanation concerned with the relationship between those processes and socialcontext – how the discourse change or sustain certain social relationship in social structure– is needed The speech will be looked at as a social practice in relation with other socialpractices

Finally, implications will deduced from my understanding in CDA, in language teachingand learning methodologies as well as my own experience

6 Significance

Theoretically, this study provides a support to CDA theories From an objective view as alinguist when approaching texts, CDA analysts can find out ideology and power hiddenbehind words Practically, this study is submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements of

my degree of Master in Linguistics Moreover, it may provide me another approach tolanguage teaching and learning: looking at language teaching and learning from CDAviewpoint

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CDA as a network of scholars appeared in the early 1990s It is marked by the birth of VanDijk’s journal Discourse and Society (1990) as well as through several books, likeLanguage and Power by Norman Fairclough (1989), Language, Power and Ideology byRuth Wodak or Van Dijk’s first book on racism, Prejudice in Discourse (1984) But sincethe Amsterdam in January 1991, more researchers have started work with CDA, newjournals have been launched, multiple overview has been written, and nowadays CDA is

an established paradigm in linguistics

Many of the basic assumptions of CDA that were salient in early stages and elaborated inlater development of the theory are stated in Kress’s work (1989) CDA considerslanguage as a social phenomenon Not only individuals, but also institutions and socialgroupings have specific meanings and values, that are expressed in language in systematicways In CDA, texts are seen as the relevant units of language in communications, readersand hearers are not passive recipients in their relationship to texts, and there are similaritiesbetween the language of science and the language of institutions, and so on However, aclearer and more general approach to CDA can be found in the work by Fairclough and

Wodak (1997) According to them, CDA regards “language as social practice” and takesconsideration of the context of language use to be crucial.

Language is a social practice means that language is a part of society, language is a socialprocess, and language is a socially conditioned process In Fairclough’s point of view

(2001), firstly, language is a part of society in the sense that linguistic phenomena are

social phenomena, and vice versa although this relationship is not symmetrical Wheneverpeople speak or listen or read or write, they involve in a/some social relationship(s) Andthe language they use is not only socially determined by the social relationships but alsoaffects them in helping to maintain (or change) these relationships Social phenomena arelinguistic, on the other hand, in the sense that the language activity in social contexts is notmerely a reflection or expression of social processes and practices, it is a part of thoseprocesses and practices For example, disputes about the meaning of political expressionsare an aspect of politics

Secondly, language is a social process Language comes into life in form of texts (the term

Michael Halliday uses for both written and spoken texts) In CDA, text is not discourse.Text is the product of text production and the resource for the process of interpretation.During the processes of text production and text interpretation, people have to depend onwhat they have in minds – including their knowledge of language, natural and social

worlds, values, beliefs, assumptions and so on In other terms, text is the traces of the productive process and cues in the interpretative process (Fairclough, 2001)

Thirdly, language is a socially conditioned process as the processes of production and

interpretation are socially determined Text producers and interpreters not only draw uponwhat are there in their heads, they are also socially generated and socially transmitted.People internalize what is socially produced and made available to them and use this toengage in their social practice, including discourse To make it clearer, Fairclough (2001)calls what discourse participants have in their minds during the course of interpreting andproducing texts as Member’s Resources (MR) - resources for productive and interpretativeprocesses MR have both cognitive and social features as they come from people’s mindwhile they are socially originated

Thus, when CDA sees language as discourse and as a social practice, apart from analyzingtexts, productive and interpretive processes, the relationship between texts, processes and

their conditions needs to be taken into account The following figure can be seen as anillustration of this relationship

Figure 1: Discourse as text, interaction and context

(Fairclough, 2001:21)However, CDA is made distinguished in terms of “critical” According to Rogers, R

(2004), the concept of critical is rooted in the Frankfurt school of critical theory (Adorno,

1973; Adorno & Horkeimer,1972; Habermas, 1976) Critical research and theory is arejection of naturalism (that social practices, labels, and programs represent reality),rationality (the assumption that truth is a result of science and logic), neutrality (theassumption that truth does not reflect any particular interests), and individualism Criticalresearch rejects the overdeterministic view of social theory espoused by Marxists andinstead argues for dialectic between agency and structural determinism As with allresearch, the intentions of critical discourse analysts are not neutral

Teun A.van Dijk in the paper Multidisciplinary CDA: a plea for diversity (collected by

Wodak, R and Meyer, M 2001) considers “CDA as a – critical – perspective on doingscholarship: it is, so to speak, discourse analysis “with an attitude” It focuses on socialproblems, and especially on the role of discourse in the production and reproduction ofpower abuse or domination Wherever possible, it does so from a perspective that isconsistent with the best interests of dominated groups

Social conditions of production

Social conditions of interpretation

The term critical in CDA is often associated with studying power relations (Fairclough, 1997) In Language and Power (2001), Fairclough mentions “power in discourse” and

“power behind discourse” In terms of “power in discourse”, discourse is the site ofstruggle, and in terms of “power behind discourse”, it is the stake in power struggle – forcontrol over orders of discourse is a powerful mechanism for sustaining power

Fairclough (ibid:61) shows three types of constraint which powerful participants indiscourse can exercise over the contributions of non-powerful participants: constraints oncontents (on what it is said or done), constraints on relations ( the social relations peopleenter into discourse) and constraints on subject ( subject position people can occupyaccording to their social relation and status) When these constraints are thought of in arelatively ‘structural’ and long-term way as a matter of power behind discourse – that is, amatter of the conventions of discourse types constraining participants’ contributions inthese three ways – they may have long-term structural effects on an institutions or society.(Figure 2 Fairclough, 2001,62)

Constraints Structural effectsContents

RelationsSubjects

Knowledge and beliefsSocial relationshipsSocial identities

Table 1: Constraints on discourse and structural effects

For CDA, language is not powerful on its own In fact, it gains power by the use powerfulpeople make of it This explains why CDA often chooses the perspective of those whosuffer, and crtically analyses the language use of those in power “CDA takes theexperiences and opinions of members of such groups seriously, and supports their struggleagainst inequality That is, CDA research combines what perhaps somewhat pompouslyused to be called ‘solidarity with the oppressed’ with an attitude of opposition and dissentagainst those who abuse text and talk in order to establish, confirm or legitimate theirabuse of power Unlike much other scholarship, CDA does not deny but explicitly definesand defends its own sociopolitical position That is, CDA is biased – and proud of it”

(Teun van Dijk, Multidisciplinary CDA: a plea for diversity collected by Ruth Wodak &

Michael Meyer (Eds.), 2001: 96)

Fairclough and Wodak (1997) offered eight foundational principles of CDA Theseprinciples are a useful starting point for researchers interested in conducting CDA Theyinclude:

 CDA addresses social problems

 Power relations are discursive

 Discourse constitutes society and culture

 Discourse does ideological work

 CDA is a socially committed scientific paradigm

(taken from Rogers, R 2004)CDA as an approach is of an important role in social scientific research Researchers whoare interested in the relationship between language and society use CDA to help themdescribe, interpret and explain such relationship CDA is different from other otherdiscourse analysis methods because it includes not only a description and interpretation ofdiscourse in context, but also offers an explanation of why and how discourses work

To put it more specifically, CDA addresses social problems and seeks to solve socialproblems through the analysis and accompanying social and political action The intention

of the critical discourse analysts is locating social problems and analyzing how discourseoperates to construct and is historically constructed by such issues In this perspective,analysts believe that analyzing texts for power is not enough to disrupt such discursivepowers Instead, the analysis must work from the analysis of texts to the social andpolitical contexts in which the texts emerge

Before the analysis of texts begins, it is often thought that data collection is the first phasethat must be completed However, there is no typical CDA way of collecting data, and inthe contributions of Van Dijk and Norman Fairclough, there is no evidence concerningdata collection requirements In CDA many studies mostly deal with only small corporawhich are usually regarded as being typical of certain discourses So, to identifyparticipants and mediational means which are relevant for the research question, doing

surveys may be one suitable way The surveys should narrow down the scope of theresearch to a few highly salient places or scenes, in which the actions interested in aretaking place Besides, surveys aim to identify the specific social actions taking place withinthe scenes we have identified which are of relevance to the study of mediated action

In the surveys, focus groups should also be identified and thoroughly analyzed Thepurpose of such groups at this stage is twofold: The researcher wants to know to whatextent the identification of specific scenes, media, and actions have reliability and validityfor members of the group under study, and they wants to understand how important orsalient the categories which have been identified are for the population being studied aswell (Scollon, 2001: 158)

In terms of textual analysis, CDA strongly relies on linguistic categories This does notmean that topics play no role at all, but that the core operationalizations depend onlinguistic concepts such as actors, mode, time, tense, argumentation, etc Van Dijk suggests

that the analysis should concentrate upon the following linguistic markers: Stress and intonation, word order, lexical style, coherence, local semantic moves, topic choice, speech acts, schematic organization, rhetorical figures, syntactic structures, turn takings, repairs, hesitation

Norman Fairclough in his book Language and Power (2001) provides a more detailed and

clearer method In his opinion, “The systemic-functional theory of language is particularlyhelpful in textual analysis (Halliday 1978; 1985; Hodge and Kress 1988; Thibault 1991),both because its approach to studying grammar and other aspects of language form is afunctional one, and because it is systematically orientated to studying the relationshipbetween the texture of texts and their social contexts” and “Systemic-functional linguisticsalso has a view of texts which is a potentially powerful basis not only for analysis of what

is in texts, but also for analysis of what is absent or omitted from texts.” (Fairclough,Linguistic and intertextual analysis within discourse analysis, 1992) As a result, Faircloughsuggests first of all structural analysis of the context, and secondly interactional analysis,which focuses on linguistic features such as: agents, time, tense, modality, and syntax.More concretely, he sets out three stages of CDA as follows

Three stages of CDA are description, interpretation and explanation Description is thestage which is concerned with the formal properties of the text Interpretation is concernedwith the relationship between text and interaction – with seeing the text as a product of a

process of production, and as a resource in the process of interpretation And explanation isconcerned with the relationship between interaction and social context – with the socialdetermination of the processes of production and interpretation, and their social effects.Fairclough (2001: 21-2)

In the first stage, ten main questions and a number of sub-questions introduced byFairclough could be useful when analysing a text in terms of formal features This is notintended as an exhaustive or all-encompassing list, but is a suggested list of possibledirections or areas that could be investigated The ten questions are divided into three maingroups:

A Vocabulary

1 What experiential values do words have?

What classification schemes are drawn upon?

Are there words which are ideologically contested?

Is there rewording or overwording?

What ideologically significant meaning relations (synonymy, hyponymy, antonymy)

are there between words?

2 What relational values do words have?

Are there euphemistic expressions?

Are there markedly formal or informal words?

3 What expressive values do words have?

4 What metaphors are used?

B Grammar

5 What experiential values do grammatical features have?

What types of process and participants predominate?

Is agency unclear?

Are processes what they seem?

Are normalizations used?

Are sentences active or passive?

Are sentences positive or negative?

6 What relational values do grammatical features have?

What modes (declarative, grammatical question, imperative) are used?

Are there important features of relational modality?

Are the pronouns we and you used and if so, how?

7 What expressive values do grammatical features have?

Are there important features of expressive modality?

8 How are (simple) sentences linked together?

What logical connectors are used?

Are complex sentences characterized by coordination or/ subordination?

What means are used for referring inside and outside the text?

C Textual structures

9 What interactional conventions are used?

Are there ways in which one participant controls the turns of others?

10 What larger scale structures does the text have?

Fairclough (2001: 92-3)

The definitions of three terms: experiential, relational and expressive, are of great

importance to the understanding of the framework In Language and Power (2001),

Fairclough claimed that formal features of texts have experiential, relational, expressive orconnective value, or some combination of these By looking at experiential values CDAattempts to show how ‘the text producer’s experience of the natural or social world’ (ibid:93) effects and is shown in a text A person’s views of the world can be identified byassessing formal features with experiential value Relational values may identify theperceived social relationship between the producer of the text and its recipient The thirddimension, expressive value, provides an insight into ‘the producer’s evaluation (in thewidest sense) of the bit of the reality it relates to.’ (ibid: 93) This should identify therelevant parties to the text’s social identities Fairclough (2002: 93) goes on to identify

another value that any formal feature may possess, connective value, as its function may be

to connect together parts of a text He also stresses that ‘any given formal feature maysimultaneously have two or three of these values’ (ibid: 93) However, in my opinion,Fairclough’s list of questions seems capable of generating an astonishing amount ofanalysis and it may be less suitable for larger quantities of text

The three values of formal features of texts are connected with three aspects of socialpractice which may be constrained by power (contents, relations and subjects) and theirassociated structural effects (on knowledge and beliefs, social relationships, and socialidentities) (Fairclough, 2001).However, it is obvious that one cannot directly infer from theformal features of a text to structural effects upon the constitution of a society Values oftextual features only become real when they are put in social interaction In other words,texts are produced and interpreted against the background of common-sense assumptions

(part of members’ resources - MR) Here, the second stage interpretation is needed to deal

with these discourse processes and their dependence on background assumptions Asummary of interpretative procedures are shown in Figure 2

Explanation is the third stage in CDA According to Fairclough, the objective of this stage

is to portray a discourse as part of a social process, as a social practice It tries to show howdiscourses are determined by social structures, and what reproductive effects discoursescan have on those structures, sustaining them or changing them These socialdeterminations and effects are mediated by MR: that is social structures shape MR while

MR in turn shape discourses; and discourses sustain or change MR, which in turn sustain

or change structures These processes can be summarized in Figure 3

As a fairly new branch of linguistics, CDA also receives many criticisms Critics likeWiddowson (1995), who favors pragmatic approach to discourse analysis, object that CDA

“constantly sits on the fence between social research and political argumentation”.Widdowson also criticizes the lack of a clear-cut difference between discourse and text inCDA And the most noteworthy thing, however, is his criticism that as CDA is anideological interpretation, it is not an analysis and therefore the term critical discourseanalysis is a contradiction in itself

Despite criticisms, CDA is attracting more and more attention of linguists because CDA, inthe majority of cases, sides with the underprivileged, the dominated and attempts to revealthe linguistic means employed by the powerful, privileged people to stabilize and even

intensify inequalities in society CDA is undeniably the first approach to language thatpractically serves the human beings

Figure 2: Interpretation (Fairclough, 2001:119)

Societal Societal

Institutional MR Discourse MR Institutional

Situational Situational

Figure 3: Explanation (Fairclough, 2001:136)

1.2 Systemic Functional Linguistics and its role in CDA

As Fairclough’s model is chosen as a base for my study, his method and analyzingprocedure have been presented in detail Besides Fairclough’s model, Halliday’s SystemicFunctional Linguistics (SFL) is also taken into account and the following part is a brieflook at SFL and the reason why and how it is used in CDA

SFL says that we perform functions through language, i.e what we intend to do with apiece of language Clearly, speakers have reasons for saying something and for saying it inthe way they do As a result, speakers have to make choices SFL sets out to investigatewhat the range of relevant choices are, both in the kinds of meanings that we might want toexpress (or functions that we might want to perform) and in the kinds of wording that weuse to express these meanings, and to match these two sets of choices

However, the term ‘choice’ does not necessarily imply a conscious process of selection bythe speaker, what SFL aims to uncover a functional analysis are the reasons why thespeaker produces a particular wording rather than any other in a particular context What,

in a kind of society we live in, do we typically need or want to say? What are thecontextual factors which make one set of meanings more appropriate or likely to beexpressed than another?

It now can be seen that both CDA and SFL approach functionally to textual analysisthrough studying grammar and other aspects of language form, and they are systematicallyorientated to studying the relationship between the texture of texts and their socialcontexts This also explains why SFL is of great help in doing CDA

Within SFL, three kinds of meaning (or functions) have been identified: (Thompson, 1996)

1 We use language to talk about our experience of the world, including the worlds inour own minds, to describe events and states and the entities involved in them(experiential meaning)

2 We also use language to interact with other people, to establish and maintainrelations with them, to influence their behaviour, to express our own viewpoint onthings in the world, and to elicit or change theirs (interpersonal meaning).

3 Finally, we organize our message in ways which indicate how they fit in with theother messages around them and with the wider context in which we are talking orwriting (textual meaning)

The unit for analyzing the meanings at the lexico-grammatical level is clause

The Experiential meaning is realized through the System of Process Types (or

Transitivity system) The experiential meaning is the means of representing reality in the

linguistic system It answers the question “What is going on?” And the language has the

function to express the experiential aspect of the meaning through the system oftransitivity The system of transitivity consists of different process types, participants andcircumstances In English, six process types are recognized: material process, behaviourprocess, mental process, verbal process, relational process, and existential process

Material process is the process of doing things; express notion that some entity ‘does’

something, which may be done to some other entity Behavioural process is the process of physiological and psychological behaviour such as breathing, crying, drinking…Mental

process is a kind of activity in people’s mind, requires a conscious participant such as

thinking, loving, wanting, hearing Verbal process is the process of saying such as saying, telling, speaking, talking Relational process is the process of ‘being’, ‘having’ and ‘being

at’ in form of three subtypes: the intensive, the possessive, and the circumstantial.

Existential process is the process of existing, indicating that something or some natural

force exists Table 2 is an overview of these processes

Process types Category

Actor, Goal, Recipient

The mayor dissolved the committee.

The mayor resigned

Behavioural : ‘behaving’ Behaver, (Phenomenon) She cried softly.

Cognition ‘thinking’ You can imagine his

Value, Token

This bread is stale.

Pat is her brother.

Existential: ‘existing’ Existent Maybe there’s some other

darker pattern

Table 2: Overview of process types (adapted from Halliday, 1994)

The Interpersonal Meaning is realized through the Mood Structure Through

Interpersonal meaning, we answer the question “How do we use language to exchange?”

Besides Mood structure, Thompson (1996) offers kinds of areas to be explored in theanalysis of Interpersonal meaning in text and these areas seem useful in my textualanalysis

Figure 4: Aspects of interpersonal management (Thompson,1996:69)

The first factor I would like to mention in the figure is speech roles When a speakerinteracts with others to exchange information or to influence their behaviour and get thingsdone, he inevitably adopts for himself a certain role such as ‘questioner’ and, in doing so,simultaneously assigns a corresponding role, such as ‘informant’, to the other person.Halliday (1994) provides a table to characterize the primary speech roles as follows

modality personal

evaluation

Interpersonal

enacted roles (speech roles)

interactive projected roles

Commodity

exchange

Role in exchange

(a) goods -&- services (b) information

Would you like this teapot?

Statement

He is giving her the teapot.

Give me that teapot! What is he giving her?Question

Table 3: Primary speech roles (Halliday, 1994:69)

However, the speaker may also project a role on to himself/herself or the other person by

the way he/she talks about them This is clearest with naming, where the way that thespeaker names the other person indicates how he/she thinks of that other person For

example: Reader, I married him

In textual analysis, modality is paid much attention to While the Mood is concerned withYes/No, semantically there are intermediate stages – points between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ such as

‘maybe’ or ‘sometimes’ or ‘susposedly’ – which are expressed by modality

If the commodity being exchanged is information, the modality relates to how valid the

information is in terms of probability (how likely it is to be true) or usuality (how

frequently it is true Some of the basic points on the probability scale are: possible /probable / certain; on the usuality scale, they include: sometimes / often / always

On the other hand, if the commodity is goods-&services, the modality relates to howconfident the speaker can be in the eventual success of the exchange In commands, this

concerns the degree of obligation on the other person to carry out the command (the scale

includes permissible / advisable / obligatory) In offers, the modality concerns the degree

of willingness or inclination of the speaker to fulfill the offer (the speaker may signal:ability/ willingness / determination)

Evaluation is the last factor to be mentioned in studying interpersonal meaning According

to Thompson (1996), evaluation is the indication of whether the speaker thinks thatsomething (a person, a thing…) is good or bad The good or bad scale can be seen as thesimplest and most basic one and there are many other scales of evaluation Represented

through lexical choices, evaluation is the central part of the meaning of any text and textanalysis must take it into account.

In terms of Textual meaning, thematic structure is under investigation The textual

meaning deals with creating relevance between parts of what is being said and between the

text and the context It asks “How the content of the text organized?”

Lexico-grammatically, it is expressed through the system of theme and information focus.Relevant to the realization of the system of theme are two elements: the Theme and theRheme The Theme serves as the point of departure of the message, which in English isinitial elements of the clause; and the Rheme is the remainder of the message Byanalyzing the thematic structure of the clauses in a text we can find out the text’s mode ofdevelopment, i.e how speakers construct their messages in a way which makes themsmoothly fit into the unfolding language event

A theme is single when the thematic element itself is presented by just one constituent – anominal group, an adverbial group, or a prepositional phrase, or even a clause in the case

of predicated theme Meanwhile, the theme is multiple when it has further internalstructure of its own The following is the summary of components of multiple theme

theme

Continuative elementsStructural elements (conjunction or WH-relative)

Conjunctive elements (Adjunct)

Yes, no, well…

WH – (interrogative)Vocative element

modal vocative finite topical

In brief, the textual and interpersonal elements signal how the fitting-in (placing the

content) is going to work In a sense, they indicate the location of the starting-point in thetext’s semantic space without in themselves constituting the starting-point Experientialcontent of the clause is the actual staring-point of the clause and it tells what is going to befitted in

Looking at Theme in a broader perspective, and to explore how Theme choices worktogether through a text to signal its underlying coherence, there are four possible main,related functions: (Thompson, 1996)

1 Signalling the maintenance or progression of ‘what the text is about’ at that point.This is especially done through the choice of Subject as unmarked Theme:maintenance is done by keeping to the same Theme as preceding clause,progression often by selecting a constituent from the preceding Rheme

2 Specifying or changing the framework for the interpretation of the following clause(or clauses) This is mostly done by the choice of marked Theme, especially

Adjunct, or a thematic equative or predicated Theme A ‘heavy’ Subject theme,giving a large amount of information, can also be used for this purpose

3 Signalling the boundaries of sections in the text This is often done by changingfrom one type of Theme choice to another

4 Signalling what the speaker thinks is a viable/ useful / important starting point This

is done by repeatedly choosing the same element to appear in Theme (a particularparticipant, the speaker’s evaluation, elements which signal interaction with thehearer, etc.)

The above-mentioned functions of language have been proved to be useful in manydiscourse analyses In addition, there is one aspect that I found of particular importance to

my analysis of the text It is the macrostructure of text In Halliday ‘s viewpoint, themacrostructure represents relations between blocks of sentences and the globalorganization of texts, while the microstructure represents the relations between sequences

in actual text The macrostructure of a text can be understood as the construction of globalorganizational patterns As communicative purpose plays an important role in determiningthe macrostructure for writers/ speakers, when doing CDA, one cannot ignore mentioninghow ideology is revealed in the writer/ speaker’s choice of the text’s overall scheme

Chapter 2:

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

OF MARTIN LUTHER KING’S SPEECH:

‘Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence’.

2.1 Textual description and Analysis

2.1.1 Analysis in terms of vocabulary

Text analysis is an indispensable process in discourse analysis generally and in CDAparticularly As given by Faiclough (1989), the first stage in text analysis is description tofind out linguistic features such as features of vocabulary, grammar, types of speech act,the directness or indirectness of expression and features to do with the overall structure ofinteractions All these features will finally lead to the uncovering of power relations andideological processes in discourse The analysis of vocabulary used is undeniablyimportant According to Van Dijk (Wodak, R and Meyer, M., 2001), lexical meanings (or

“local meanings’ depending on Van Dijk’s perspective) are the result of the selection made

by speakers or writers in mental models of events (their personally relevant beliefs about

an event, that is, knowledge, opinions and probably emotions) or their more general,socially shared beliefs At the same time, they are the kind of information that (under theoverall control of global topics) most directly influences the mental models, and hence theopinions and attitudes of recipients Together with the topics, these meanings are bestrecalled and most easily reproduced by recipients, and hence may have most obvious socialconsequences

Although there are many ways to study meaning, Fairclough’s approach is chosen because

of its more detailed features The vocabulary will be explored in terms of experiential,

relational, and expressive values Experiential value deals with contents and knowledgeand beliefs Relational value reveals relations and social relationships which are enactedvia the text in the discourse And expressive value concerns subjects and social identities.Apart from this, connective value which connects parts of the text together is alsoanalyzed My job now is to see how these values are expressed in the vocabulary use ofMartin Luther King Before analyzing the text, it is also important to note that the textwithin single asterisks is absent from the audio while other media printed the full text.King may have for some reason left out those parts while delivering the speech, butbecause everyone including those at the meeting can read the full text, I take the full textfor my analysis while paying attention to King’s intention when he omitted those texts aswell.

Any communicative event involves the speaker and the audience Let’s look at the speaker

first The speaker here is Dr Martin Luther King, Jr (often called King) (January 15,

1929 – April 4, 1968) who was an American political activist, the most famous leader ofthe American civil rights movement, and a Baptist minister Considered as a peacemaker

throughout the world for his promotion of nonviolence and equal treatment for differentraces, King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 before he was assassinated in 1968.The identity of the speaker is mentioned several times in the King’s speech

“…the path from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church the church in Montgomery, Alabama, where I began my pastorate leads clearly to this sanctuary tonight…”

(line 38, 39)

“Since I am a preacher by trade…” (line 52)

“…and I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for "the brotherhood of man.” (line 111, 112)

“I speak as a citizen of the world…” (line 278)

“I speak as one who loves America…” (line 279)

The identity as an activist for the American civil rights movement is tacitly referred to:

“At the heart of their concerns this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr King?" "Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" "Peace and civil rights don't mix," they say.” (line 30-32)

As told by King, in many people’s viewpoint, peace and civil rights are two differentfacets, and they are surprised when King talked about the war while he is the leader of thecivil rights movement in their mind

When all the identities of the speaker are defined, analyzing other linguistic features of thetext becomes a bit easier

The speaker has to set up a position for typified audience The audience Martin LutherKing addressed is rather obvious in different parts of the text either directly or indirectly.This speech was delivered in 4 April 1967 at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned atRiverside Church in New York City and the audience is clarified in the very first place ofthe speech

“I come to this magnificent house of worship tonight because my conscience leaves

me no other choice I join you in this meeting because I am in deepest agreement with the aims and work of the organization which has brought us together: Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.”

The first and direct audience of the speech is those at the meeting regardless of theiridentities as clergy or laymen who are not the members of the clergy However, they allshare the common concern about Vietnam King himself once more emphasizes the type ofaudience his speech is aimed at when saying:

“Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellowed Americans.” (line 49-50)

King addresses his audience as my fellowed Americans and the scope of his audience is

now bigger In the original text, King wrote: “Tonight, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellowed Americans, *who, with

me, bear the greatest responsibility in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents” but in his speech, the part “who, with me, bear the greatest responsibility

in ending a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents” was omitted.

Everyone who is American should listen to his voice when he breaks the silence, listen to

his ‘passionate plea to a beloved nation’ (line 40) Pragmatically, ‘my fellowed Americans’

implies all Americans to be a unified block when he calls for action Interestingly, although

the plea is directed at fellowed Americans, it is also directly addressed to a relevant

destinatary: the government

“I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation…” (line 279) “I would like to suggest five concrete things that our government should do immediately…” (line 301)

With the use of vocative and referring phrases, the targeted hearers are set unambiguousthroughout different parts of the speech

As a pastor and leader of the civil rights movement talking to the U.S people, King hasshow the formality of the social relations in a formal situation (a meeting of Clergy andLaymen concerned about Vietnam) Through the relational values of vocabulary, wordchoice becomes an effective tool for him to demonstrates the formality Easily seen aresome formal words which are chosen instead of informal ones

in deepest agreement with

I found myself in full record perplexed

on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty vocation of agony

rejoice mandate of conscience this query

descendants burden of responsibility overtures for peace bring a halt to molding a recalcitrant status quo unfolding conundrum of life and history procrastination

The use of formal language shows the proper manner of a politician, appropriate politeness

of an important meeting and reveals speaker’s concern about the face of participantsincluding him The formality also emphasizes the importance of the speech and thusattracts the attention of listeners And all of these influences of formality is not beyondKing’s ideological intention

Adding some degree of the formal atmosphere to the speech are words relating to religion.

It is not difficult to see that the God is mentioned in many parts of the speech in severalforms:

Jesus Christ (line 115) the One (line 119) the living God (line 125, 346) the Father (line 127)

God (line 274) the God Samaritan (line 369)

In addition, there are words expressing the church directly or indirectly:

conformist (line 12) pray (line 23) sanctuary (line 39) cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love (line 386) ecumenical (line 422)

sectional (line 422) epistle (line 435) worship the god of hate (line 439) bow before the altar of retaliation (line 439) crusade against the war in Vietnam (line 335) psalm of peace (line 480)

Even they are original phrases quoted from the Bible:

…the first epistle of Saint John: "Let us love one another, for love is God And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." "If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us." (line 435-438)

“every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain." (line 418-420)

Although the speech is not a sermon in a church, a solemn atmosphere has been created.Besides, intentionally or unintentionally used, all these words imply King’s career In otherwords, throughout the speech, they remind listeners of King as not movement leader but apastor who serves the God, and on behalf of the God serves American people Breaking the

silence becomes a duty assigned by the God King himself affirmed this when he says: “I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ.

To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious” (line 115).

The speech becomes more persuasive when it comes from the heart of a person whoservers others or their profits and when people feel that it is natural and compelling foranyone who believes in God to follow and do what God says

From CDA theory, we know that lexical meanings are the result of the selection made byspeakers or writers from members’ resources (Fairclough, 2001) In other words, the wordschosen are nor anywhere else but in their personally knowledge, opinions and probablyemotions with experiential values and expressive values And vice versa, those words areevidence for their ideology

As mentioned, experiential values show the speaker’s view of the world or his negative orpositive attitude towards an issue while the expressive values show how the speaker’sevaluation is expressed In analyzing these values, Fairclough (2002) suggestsclassification schemes i.e system in terms of which vocabulary is organized As bothexperiential and expressive values can be referred to through classification schemes, theywill be at the same time analyzed in the following part

Salient in the speech is a classification scheme describing King’s negative attitude towardsthe war in Vietnam Negative words are used again and again in the speech Firstly, theyare definitions assigned to the war

(line 14)(line 42)(line 43)(line 63)(line 84)(line 149)(line 160)(line 268)(line 294)(line 300) (line 303)(line 328)

dreadful conflict ambiguity of the total situation tragedy of Vietnam

demonic destructive suction tube masses doses of violence

tragic decision tragic attempt brutalizing process horrible, clumsy and deadly game this tragic war

nightmarish conflict

a dishonorable and unjust one

(line 332)(line 338)

No flattering words are used Strongly negative words are applied King describes this war

as dreadful, demonic, destructive, tragic, horrible, clumsy and deadly, nightmarish It is

clear to King and to listeners that this war brings nothing good for the people involved

Especially, King uses the word demonic when talking of the war As a pastor, fighting

against something demonic is a duty and it is also the duty for all believing in the God and

in the good These words are not only the negative attitude of King toward the war but also

an implicit call to fight against this terrible war “This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.” (line 382-386)

To engrave the natural terrible nature of the war, two ideological contrastive classificationschemes are employed in the description of the war involvers In King’s experientialworld, there are two contrastive sides in the Vietnam war One side is the America andDiem’s regime and one side is the Vietnamese people who “have been living under thecurse of war for almost three continuous decades” (line 138)

Table 5: Two ideological contrastive classification schemes the America and Diem’s regime the Vietnamese people

murderous reign of Diem (line 214)

tremendous cost (line 243)

ruthlessly rooted out all opposition (line 166)

support extortionist landlords (line 167)

poison their water (line 181-184)

kill a million acres of their crops (line 181-184)

bulldozers roar through … areas preparing to

destroy the precious trees (line 181-184)

killed a million of them, mostly children (line

181-184)

test latest weapons (line 192)

trembling under violence (line 89) their broken cries (line 140) watched and cringed (line 166) insurgency (line 170)

languish under bombs (line 176) wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury (line 184) see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals (line 184-189)

destroyed two most cherished institutions: the

family and the village (line 195)

computerized plans of destruction (line 218)

emerge a pattern of suppression (line 350)

see the children degraded … as they beg for food (line 184-189)

see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers (line

184-189)King only mentions the word ‘victim’ once in line 132, then he talks of Vietnamese people

as “the peasants”, “people of that peninsular” However, it is obvious from the above tablethat who is victim of the war and who causes the misery to the victims No words in thespeech mention which side Kings supports, which side King opposes but it seems he morefavors the miserable people of Vietnam in the war who are the voiless, who are one of thereasons for which he breaks the silence

Another victim of the Vietnam war is also concerned – the poor in America In King’sopinion, “the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home” (line

65) and is seen as “the enemy of the poor” (line 63) Not many words are used but their

experiential and expressive value is prominent:

The poverty program becomes broken and eviscerated (line 59) young men…crippled by our society (line 69)

cruel manipulation of the poor (line 76) desperate, rejected, and angry young man (line 79) smashed hopes (line 277)

The antiwar ideology is not only an explicit call for a crusade against the war in Vietnam

(line 335), it becomes stronger when the victims of the war both in Vietnam and Americaare so pitiful and helpless

King’s attitude to the American government is also worth being analyzed to see theexperiential and expressive values of the vocabulary Most actions of the governmentconcerned here relates to the Vietnam War In other words, King shows what the Americangovernment did to the war

(line 169)

(line 170)

(line 165)

(line 209)

…all this was presided over by the United states’ influence …

…increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused support one of the most vicious modern dictators

permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem

King opposes to the government’s involvement in the war when he considers it a

disgraceful commitment In his belief, his knowledge, the government has been

wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam (line 296)

detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people (line 297)

on the wrong side of the world revolution (line 349)

… fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long (line 148)

And King overtly calls the American government “strange liberators” (line 141) and “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” (line 87)

Time magazine at that time called King’s speech "demagogic slander that sounded like ascript for Radio Hanoi" as there are no allusions to outside authorities but direct naming.However, what King says simply comes from his own experiential world He calls the

American government “the greatest purveyor of violence” from the viewpoint of a

peacemaker who favors nonviolence King criticizes the government as what thegovernment does is encouraging violence He also implicitly reminds people of his motives

“social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action” (line 82)

Throughout the words revealing the reality and King’s attitude toward the reality, it cannot

be denied that word meanings are ideologically embedded Besides classification schemes,the relations of antonymy are also found in the text In many places, antonymous phrasesand clauses are used and put in parallel structures

by clearly indigenous forces But instead there came the

line 118line 118line 118line 129line 146line 155line 151line 163

would come again…

rooted out all opposition

the most powerful nation of the

world speaking of aggression

line 124line 215

line 257line 261

line 375line 377

line 368line 380line 391line 405line 406line 407line 411

line 422line 441line 450line 454line 456

is censored and controlled

we pour every new weapon

of death into their land built up its forces

it drops thousands of bombs

on a poor, weak nation more than eight thousand miles away from its shores.

wealth

no concern for the social betterment of the countries present

nothing to learn from them pursuit of war

new systems of justice and equality

… seen great light

antirevolutionaries sectional (line 422) individuals

ebbs our neglect violent

line 167

line 191line 198

line124

line 257line 262

line 375line 377

line 368line 380line 391line 405line 406line 407line 411

line 422line 441line 450line 454line 456

Antonymous pairs are a special textual feature which is often used in rhetoric speeches.When giving a contrastive sense, the speaker adds one more emphatic level to the ideas infocus and creates very strong effects on the ‘taking-in’ of the audience This feature helpsform the impressive tune of the speech, attract the attention of the listeners and positivelytrigger listeners’ thinking The speech becomes more persuasive and the messagesconveyed can be easily got across Now, it can be said that the use of antonyms has more

to do with expressive values than experiential values It is clearly more concerned with theeffects of the text on the audience than with the speaker’s view of the world And surely,the use of this textual feature is also within the ideological basis

2.1.2 Analysis in terms of grammar features

2.1.2.1 The use of personal pronoun

In the discussion of relational values of grammatical features, Fairclough mentions the use

of pronouns we, you The statistical table of the use of We can be seen in Appendix II

(page VIII).

There are 128 instances of we However, only four cases of we are exclusive while in 124 other cases, we is inclusive In the four exclusive cases of we, King refers to his group

when they formed the Southern Leadership Conference But the relational values lie in

‘inclusive’ we, inclusive that is of the speaker and the audience King implies he and the

audience – those at the meeting and American people – are on the same boat, which helps

create a solidarity sense, firstly among those present With ‘inclusive’ we, the duty of the

speaker is also the duty of the audience The opinion of the speaker naturally becomes thecommon idea of all Kings aims at finding the approval and opinion sharing from theaudience Regarding activities of the U.S government in the Vietnam War, King still uses

we Obviously, King opposes to the government’s involvement in Vietnam but he does not

exclude himself and others from those activities King shows his goodwill here He feelsresponsible for that involvement and he wants others to feel the same when they kept

silent, they did not raise their voice before The use of we becomes the premise connecting

people when the call for action is given

The pronoun you is not common in King’s speech (five cases) and it does not show much relational value Thus, I spend more time on the first personal pronoun singular I (see

Appendix 3, page XVI) 69 instances of I are found in this speech In these cases, King sets

a subject position for himself as an individual – a pastor and leader of the civil rights

movement When using I, King separates himself from the crowd talking to the crowd and

becomes outstanding This shows King’s self-confidence and credibility The audiencefeels the speech more persuasive when talking to them firstly is an individual who can bearresponsibility for what he says

2.1.2.2 The use of voice

In grammatical features, both Faiclough (2001) and Van Dijk (Wodak, R and Meyer, M.,2001) see the importance in the choice of active or passive voice According to Van Dijk(Wodak, R and Meyer, M., 2001), these forms generally do not directly expressunderlying meanings and hence beliefs, but rather signal ‘pragmatic’ properties of acommunicative event, such as the intention, current mode or emotions of the speaker, theirperspective on events talked about, opinions about co-participants, and especiallyinteractional concerns such as positive self-presentation and impression formation InKing’s speech, among 465 clauses are 53 passive clauses, accounting for 11.4% of the totalclauses That means in most cases, the agent is clear The audience can easily see who didwhat and to whom In terms of message convey, King creates the clarity to the audience ofwhat he wants them to know Maybe in his mind, to a variety of audience, a large number

of active voices mean minimizing the ambiguity and misunderstanding Naturally, forthose reasons, the use of passive clauses is of important implication (see Appendix 4, pageXVIII)

It is necessary to notice that in many passive clauses, the agent is not omitted It appears at

the end of the clause after the preposition “by” King implies that it is the agent not

anything else causing the action This kind of emphasis is especially used in the followingcases when the actions are negative actions An impression may be deeply carved inlisteners’ mind that who or what has to be responsible for this As they are negativeactions, a sense against them may arise

line 168 all this was presided over by United States' influence…

line 180 they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

line 224 the Saigon press is censored and controlled by the military junta.

line 241 …the men who …and were betrayed by the weakness of Paris and the willfulness of the

colonial armies.

line 395 Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons.

line 440 The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate

In many other cases, the agent is left out Although there is no agent, the clause doesn’tpuzzle the audience as the audience from the context, from their own knowledge can inferthe doer, or the agent of that action is not necessary mentioned at all Behind the omission

of the agent is the ideology The audience will pay more attention to the message In otherwords, the ideology is in the emphasis on the patient (one that suffers or undergoes theprocess - SFL) and action The following sentences are some examples

line 95 America would never be free or saved from itself until the descendants of its slaves

were loosed completely from the shackles they still wear.

line 105 It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over.

line 201 Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military

bases

line 293 the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible,

clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play.

line 386 This business of burning human beings… cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice,

so, they are the facts that no one would want it to happen Passive voice effectively showsthe urgency of the matter

In a nutshell, using the passive sentences, the speaker does not obscure the meaning of themessage, and besides the emphatic effects, the passive voice may create additionalmeaning to the sentence when its focal point is the patient and the process The experientialvalues of the passive voice are obvious

2.1.2.3 Modes of the sentence

As suggested by Fairclough (2001, p104), there are three major modes: declarative,

grammatical question and imperative In grammatical questions, there are two types:

wh-questions and yes/no-wh-questions All these modes appear in King’s speech Among 294 sentences, 267 sentences have declarative mode, 22 sentences are questions (13 wh- questions and 9 yes/no questions) and 6 sentences are imperative

Table 6: Summary of modes of the sentence

The number of questions is not many in the speech but they play an important role In theSystemic Functional Language (Thompson 1996, p47), the question has an interpersonal

structure In yes/no-questions, it is primarily the polarity of the message which the speaker wants the listener to specify (yes or no) In wh-questions, the main purpose of the speaker

is to demand that the listeners fill in a missing part of the message and the WH-elementsignals which part is missing In other words, the speaker/writer is asking something of theaddressee (it is information in this case), and the addressee is in the position of a provider

of information Let’s look questions in the speech and interestingly, they appear in cluster

what about Vietnam? (line 83)

Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all men for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them? What then can I say to the Vietcong or to Castro or to Mao as a faithful minister of this One? Can I threaten them with death or must I not share with them my life? (line

116-121)

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where

are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones? (line 190-194)

Could we blame them for such thoughts? (line 203)

What of the National Liberation Front, that strangely anonymous group we call

"VC" or "communists"? What must they think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of "aggression from the North" as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? (line 207-

215)

How do they judge us when our officials know that their membership is less than twenty-five percent communist, and yet insist on giving them the blanket name? What must they be thinking when they know that we are aware of their control of major sections of Vietnam, and yet we appear ready to allow national elections in which this highly organized political parallel government will not have a part?

as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message

of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? (line 464-468)

On one hand, questions show the interaction between the audience and the speaker Theyform a less formal atmosphere when the speaker cares for the audience’s opinion On theother hand, this is a speech and it is impossible to get feedback from the audience In fact,King raises the questions without expecting the answers from the audience because healready knows the answers and he already knows the audience has the same answers Toput it more accurately, King imposes the answers on the audience This is the power of thespeech maker exerted on listeners

Questions are asked but the emphasis is put on the answers that all people share Thismakes listeners fell that both the speaker and they have the common voice, which helpsthem easily take in the following information Apart from making the listeners unable toignore the issue mentioned, successive questions also add a profound impression onlisteners through their rhythm The persuasiveness is also enhanced