How King successfully used Empathy and Non Verbal/ Verbal Communication to hold the attention of his audience in his speech “ I have a dream”-1963
My hypothesis: Was that the audience will respond to rhetorical devise (use of colloquial language and repetition) and appropriate motivation, a strong sense of empathy. Martin Luther King used these effectively in his speech “ I have a dream”-1963 with an appropriate observation sheet, I detailing his verbal, non verbal communication along with his relationship with the audience
Michael Argyle (1983) pointed out eye gazing can be an index of the closeness of a relationship people share. King’s gazing plays a major part throughout his speech. It reduces his non- verbal leakage and minimises the ambiguity in this speech. King on a pulpit, which gave him more space and according to E.T Hall’s (1959) theory about proximity the pulpit shows his power and authority as a dominant figure. His paralanguage varied throughout his speech; on some occasions his paralanguage was serious with rising intonation to signify his determination. At other occasion he used an aggressive tone with appropriate use of volume and emphasis to increase the impact of his point.
King equally was sensitive in his use of language. B.Z commented (power of Speech) that King understood that the majority of black Americans in the sixties weren’t well educated and need to get across them. He used rhetorical devises ranging from repetition (paragraph 16 line 1), contrasting pairs (Paragraph 20 line 4), Catchphrases (Par 14 line 6) to colloquial language (Par1 line 1). According to Berstein (1971) there are two types of codes, restricted and elaborated. King’s language is simple, but includes a wide- reaching elaborated code that expresses his views on the world. It has a complete syntax and is much harder to predict. Which itself often functions as a barrier to communication. The audience were engaged by King rather than put off.
