Quote – unquote? the role of prosody in the contextualization of reported speech sequences

Abstract

This paper investigates how speakers of English can use the prosodic design of utterances to identity parts of these utterances as instances of reported speech. We will show that prosodic changes can function like quotation marks in written texts by clearly delimiting left and right hand boundaries of the reported sequence. In the majority of cases, however, prosodic changes do not coincide with the boundaries of reported speech but occur nearby, functioning like a 'frame' for the interpretation of a sequence as reported or even only as a 'flag' attracting attention and inviting the listener to actively (re-)construct the corresponding boundaries. Our data analysis also provides evidence for the use of prosodic designs to typify a figure in different roles, which - due to their unique 'prosodic design' can be presented without any verbalized projection of upcoming reported speech, once they have been introduced. This is due to the 'referent-tracking' nature of some prosodic designs of reported utterances.

Issues in Action Formation: Requests and the Problem with x

“…Couper-Kuhlen 2001), but it also serves to treat the wonder preface as distinct from the interrogative. This prosodic separation is also reminiscent of how speakers separate reported speech from other parts of their ongoing talk (e.g., Bolden 2004;Klewitz & Couper-Kuhlen 1999); the customer in Extract (17) can thus also be heard to be 'reporting' what she has been wondering about before entering the shop.…”

When <i>you</i> isn’t you: The attraction of self-ascription in children’s interpretation of pronouns in reported speech

“…In spoken English, without recourse to written quotation marks, an utterance of Elephant said you get the car is ambiguous between a direct and an indirect reading. To disambiguate, we imbued our stimuli with the known, presumably universal, prosodic cues for direct speech: (i) a pause between the reporting clause and the quote (Jansen, Gregory & Brenier 2001); and (ii) a clear change of voice, mimicking the original speaker's characteristic voice in the report clause (Wade & Clark 1993;Klewitz & Couper-Kuhlen 1999). In addition, we chose for our experiment a language with a very clear syntactic marking of the direct-indirect distinction: Dutch.…”

Complements of verbs of utterance and thought in Brazilian Portuguese narratives

“…It is assumed that DQ is always separated from the verb of utterance by a pause, whereas IQ is not. Klewitz and Couper -Kuhlen (1999), however, point out that prosodic marking is not restricted to direct quotation, but occurs in indirect quotation as well. They show that prosodic marking of indirect quotation in conversational data is not rare, particularly in high-involvement talk.…”

“…In indirect quotation, however, the report is subordinate to the verb of saying and becomes a dependent clause introduced by the complementizer 'that'. Klewitz and Couper-Kuhlen (1999) claim that in English both direct and indirect quotes can be considered complements of the verb of saying, and thus form a subordinate clause which is the direct object of the verb of utterance. In indirect quotation, syntactic subordination to a verbum dicendi is signaled by the use of 'that' as a complementizer.…”

“…This difference in deictic orientation determines the choice of pronoun reference (where 'I' and 'you' refer respectively to the original speaker and addressee, in DQ, and to the current speaker and addressee, respectively, in IQ), place deixis (the use of this, here and come, for instance, in DQ, and that, there and go in IQ) and verb tense (where the tense of the verb in the indirect quote is the same of the 'say' verb, while this must not be the case for the direct quote). In other words, in DQ the speaker adopts the deictic orientation of those whom he/she quotes, while in IQ the speaker uses him/herself as the spatiotemporal point of reference (see Klewitz and Couper--Kuhlen, 1999).…”