Functional Stylistic Analysis Of The Speech "I Have A Dream"

Adopting the major principles from functional grammar, functional stylistics is a mechanism that can effectively investigate the stylistic features of a discourse. This present research attempts to apply functional stylistics to analyze the famous speech "I Have a Dream" delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr.The thesis first analyzes the register of the speech of "I Have a Dream" by illustrating the variables of field, tenor and mode. The register of the speech and its three variables on the one hand determine the use of language in the speech, and on the other hand are simultaneously realized by different levels of the language—the levels of word, clause and grammar.Then the thesis discusses the realization of the ideational meta-function of the speech to probe how King delivers his belief effectively. The discussion covers the lexical and clausal levels. On the lexical level, the theory of lexical set is used to research how profound political concepts are presented. On the clausal level, transitivity analysis is employed to investigate what processes are used most in the speech. And traditional rhetorical device—parallelism is used to explain the clause deflection in the speech.The thesis then investigates the interpersonal meta-function in the speech. Efforts are made to summarize the stylistic features of the speech in terms of the interpersonal meaning. Then the writer employs the modality, mood, speech function analysis and the lexical density approach to test the hypothesis.And the thesis analyzes the textual meta-function of the speech from the aspect of thematic progression. This reveals how King employs various types of thematic progression to convey his thoughts coherently.In the last chapter, the conclusion presents the answers to the research questions raised at the beginning of the thesis, summarizes some advice for public speech writing, and points out the limitations and prospects of the thesis.