There is agreement among many linguists that we should study all linguistic categories in real discourse usage. But what has not received äs much theoretical attention, and what will be addressed here, is the fact that general discourse types (genres) sei aframe which determines the functional nature ofthe categories which are used within thatframe. This will be exemplified with reported speech in journalistic discourse (using examples from the French newspaper Le Monde/ In news reporting, reported speech functions differently from the way in which it functions in, for example, fictional narrative and conversation. This is due to the fact that news reporting is focused on conveying Information and concerned with issuesofreferentiality, truth, reliability and accountability-none of which are the main concerns offiction and conversation. The functional nature of all linguistic categories used in journalistic articles, including reported speech, is skewed by this particular kind offocus on the real world outside of the text. In particular, journalistic use of reported speech is based, äs elsewhere, on the relation between a reporting speech event and a reported speech event, but in addition, contrary to other uses of reported speech, it claims that it represents a really existing, original text outside ofthe quoting text.The major division of reported speech in journalism, äs elsewhere, is into direct speech vs. indirect speech. By convention, direct speech is interpreted by the reader äs being an authentic, accurate, verbatim replication ofwhat was originally said, whereas indirect speech is interpreted äs a paraphrase. This division is categorical in the orthography andprototypical in its grammatical-syntactic-discursive correlates (with respect to the behavior ofdeictic terms and the syntactic nature ofthe reported speech clause). The third type of reported speech usually discussed, free indirect style, is a cover term for many different types of reported speech, only some of which occur in journalism.
0165-4888/95/0015-0129Text 15 (1) (1995), pp. 129-173 © Walter de Gniyter Brought to you by | provisional account Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/29/15 6:50 AM 130 Linda R. Waugh Semantic-pragmatically, direct speech is image iconic, isomorphic and replicative with respect to the original utterance, whereas instances ofindirect speech are indeterminate with respect to how much rewording, condensing and inferencing has been done.We can conclude that the general functional nature of the discourse type in which linguistic categories occur influences the functional nature ofthose categories.
