Distinctive voice essay

A distinctive voice creates an emotional response to texts through its ability to connect with an audience and position them to understand their purpose through the use of a range of written techniques. The two speeches “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King and “Address to the Plenary Session” by Severn Cullis-Suzuki and the song “dear Mr president” composed by pink will be used throughout to help show you how a distinctive voice creates an emotional response to texts. “ I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King and “Address to the Plenary Session, Earth Summit” by Severn Cullis-Suzuki, both have strong an powerful speakers/ composers presenting the speech. In the speech “I Have a Dream”, Martin addresses prominent issues by exposing the racial injustice African Americans faces. In the speech “Address to the Plenary Session, Earth Summit” Severn Cullis-Suzuki raised her concern about the destruction of the environment. Both authors use their distinctive voice to pass the power in order to create some kind of hope and awareness to the audience. Both Speeches require action to be taken to fix the concern of the speaker and the well-being of the individual. Martin Luther King’s distinctive voice is a composition of techniques that enables him to alternate the concern of his context. In this speech Martin also demonstrate that hope exists if action is taken in order to abolish discrimination.

Martin Luther King’s speech brings hope to the African American culture, that his reason to engage with the audience is to get a closer relationship with them making it easier for him to communicate and immense the audience into a realm manifested by the distinctive concerns of his time. The quotes “we cannot walk alone” and “Let Freedom ring”, the combination of the 2 quotes brings hope into the audience. ” We cannot walk alone” the meaning of this quote is, the power of one person is unable to change anything, but together they’re able to stop racial segregation and make changes to their life. “Let Freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi” this quote is very demanding, he wants freedom to fall on Mississippi City. Martin Luther King uses anaphora and repetition to emphasize his point. “I have a dream”, each and every individual in this world have their own dream, and every single African American has their own hope and dream. The African American ‘s dream was to become free with equal rights, their dream came true due to Martin Luther King ‘s speech that have given them those hopes and made a huge changes to the country and their life. “Address to the Plenary Session, Earth summit” spoken and composed by a 13 year old girl, Severn Cullis-Suzuki.

Her distinctive concern was about the environment. Suzuki’s speech brings awareness to the audiences, forcing them to take action and fix all the issues that they have created in the environment. Suzuki’s speech targets the audience and making them feel guilt of the action they have caused. “I used to go fishing in Vancouver with my dad until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers” this is a recount, it allows the audience to relate to her perspective, she’s playing with past and present which makes the audience bring an emotional response because it is a personal matter Severn has used in her speech. “Fish full of cancers” all the fish in the sea are contaminated due to all the pollution and actions by adults, she is again emphasizing her point to target the audience, making them feel like they are held responsible for all this outcomes which again brings upon an emotional response. “You don’t know how to fix the holes in our ozone layer”, Suzuki again targets her audience and creating guilt towards them, this quote depicts the inability in the adults to fix the issue, and yet she is just a 13 year old girl and she has the ability to realize all these issues in the environment.

Severn’s speech uses a lot words that tell the audience to change and that if they don’t change things are going to get worse. When Severn tells the audience to change this makes them feel guilty and brings upon an emotional response to the audience to change their ways. The purpose of Pink’s song “Dear Mr. president” is to touch on emotional social issues such as the No Child Left Behind Act, the gay rights issues, the war in Iraq and the lack of empathy towards working middle class citizens. This song is directed at George Bush himself but also catches the attention of a wide audience such as American citizens and individuals who have listened to the song as the issues addressed in the song happen all over the world. The song Dear Mr President by Pink was written on Martin Luther King Day in 2005 and released in 2006. This song is described as an open letter to the President of the United States at the time, George W Bush. Pink’s distinctive voice addresses criticism to him and the policies of his administration. She describes it as one of the most important things she has written The song starts with the line “Dear Mr President, Come and take a walk with me, let’s pretend we’re just two people and you’re not better than me” by saying this Pink is trying to close the social gap between the president and everyday people while voicing her opinions to him and inviting him to listen.

The lyrics to the song “Dear Mr President” are bold statements represented by using continuous rhetorical questions as well as metaphors and the use of first person. Pink uses questions such as “What kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay” referring to his opinions on same sex marriage and his push for the Marriage Protection Amendment that defines a marriage between a man and woman. “You’ve come a long way from whiskey and cocaine” referring to whisky and cocaine brings attention to Bushes allegations of alcoholism and cocaine use in his youth, his past the media seems to ignore. The finishing line of the song “Dear Mr President you’d never take a walk with me” states that in reality the president believes that he has a higher status and will not listen to her voiced opinions and statements. As well as rhetorical questions pink uses repetition for example, “Were you a lonely boy, are you a lonely boy?” the use of repetition and rhetorical questions are used to highlight the issues addressed in the song. Also repetition in the words ‘hard work’ to emphasise her point of the working middle class. All the lines in this song send out an emotional response to the listening audience which makes them upset at the fact that George Bush wasn’t doing anything to fix these problems. These three texts have had an impact on the audience back when they were composed and are still having a big impact on the audiences who listen/watch them today. These texts have shown how a distinctive voice creates an emotional response to texts through its ability to connect with an audience and position them to understand their purpose through the use of a range of written techniques.