Abstract
The present study highlights the critical functions of the schematic structure and vocabulary of the motivational and political speech of Martin Luther King in 1963. They are analyzed following the genre-based approach proposed by Swales (1990) who adopts moves and steps as analytical units. Investigating the moves follows the problem-solution thought pattern. This pattern is elaborated by Terkkonen-Condit (1986) consisting of four moves, namely, situation, problem, solution and evaluation. The lexical items and expressions that have been used repeatedly in the discourse under study have been also analyzed critically. After making a discourse analysis descriptively for the discourse under study criticality is considered ,this time. The critical approach adopted for the analysis is Fairclough's (1989), the dialectical one having description, interpretation and explanation stages. The critical analysis of the lexical items and expressions have been considered and added. The results show how the schematic structure and vocabulary of the discourse under study function critically to try to make a social change, being the principal goal of the critical discourse analysis.