Kirsten Vis, José Sanders and Wilbert SpoorenVis et al.
Introduction
Newsstoriesnarratenewsworthyfacts,events,andopinions.Mostofthecon- tentofthesestoriescomesfromsourcesotherthanthenewsnarrator.Report-ersobtaintheirnewsfromnewssources,representingtheirutterancesinmore
orlessverbatimways,paraphrasingandsummarizingastheythinknecessary.
Therepresentationofsourcematerialcanbedescribedintermsofdiscourse
presentation.
Inthisstudy,weadaptanexistingmodelofdiscoursepresentationtoexam-ineindetail,whatjournalisticnarrators(henceforth:reporters)actuallydo
whentheyrepresentwordsutteredpreviouslybynewssources,andhowlin-guisticchoicesexpressthefunctionsuchpresentationsmayfulfil.Inorderto
accountforempiricalphenomenainnewscorpora,westudiedbothrecent
andoldernewsnarratives,strivingforabroadspectrumofdiscoursepresenta-tionphenomena.Inaclosereadingofbothpresent-dayandhistoricalnews
texts,thesecategoriesareinvestigatedsystematicallyintheirfunctionalcon-texts,andelaboratedwithseveralsubcategoriesnecessarytoaccountforthe
empiricaldata.
Thefirstsectionbrieflyaddresseshowquoteddiscourseisdiscussedand
categorizedinliterature.Inthesecondsection,thematerialandmethodof
analysisareoutlined.Thethirdsectionsystematicallyinvestigateswhattypes
ofquotationoccurinacorpusofolderandrecentDutchnewstexts.Inthe
fourthsection,theresultsaresummarizedanddiscussedfortheirimplica-tions.
Categories of Quoted Language
Inareportedspeech/writing/thoughtsituation,thereareatleasttwopersonae
involved:thenarratorandthepersonwhosewordsorthoughtsarerepresented.1
1 Injournalisticnarratives,thisquotedpersoncanalsobethejournalistasnewssource
(Rennen,2000).
© Kirstenvisetal.,2015 | doi10.1163/9789004270848_010
ThisisanopenaccesschapterdistributedunderthetermsoftheCreativeCommonsAttribution-Noncommercial3.0Unported(CC-BY-NC3.0)License.
Thedegreetowhichthevoiceofthenarratorandthequotedpersonisheard
in a text, can vary. Many descriptions are given of reported speech (and
thought).AsastartingpointweuseSeminoandShort’s(2004)modelofdis-coursepresentation,whichconsistsofthreescales:forspeech,thought,and
writingpresentation.Thesescalesinvolveseveraloptions,orcategories,for
presentingotherpeople’sutterancesorthoughts,asrepresentedinTable8.1.
Inthecolumnsfromlefttorightthecategoriesofdiscoursepresentationare
named: Indirect Speech/Writing/Thought (IS/IW/IT); Free Indirect Speech/
Writing/Thought(FIS/FIW/FIT);DirectSpeech/Writing/Thought(DS/DW/DT);
andFreeDirectSpeech/Writing/Thought(FDS/FDW/FDT).Definitionsandex-amplesofallcategoriescanbefoundinSeminoandShort(2004:10–16and
42–52).2
Withinthedifferenttypesofspeechorwritingpresentation,therearedif-ferencesinthedegreeof(assumed)faithfulnesstoanoriginalutterance,and
hencetheresponsibilityoftheotherperson(SeminoandShort,2004).Canon- ically,afaithfulnessclaimisassociatedwithdirectspeechorwriting;itisas-sumedbyreadersthatthedirectlyquotedstringreportsexactlythewordsand
structuresusedbythespeakerintheoriginaldiscourse,asinShe said “Yes, I am right here.”Thedirectmodeissupposedtodemonstratewhatwassaid,thus
expressingmaximalfaithfulnessindiscoursepresentation(ClarkandGerrig,
1990).Assuch,itreaffirmsboththepresenceofthewitnessingnarratorinthe
quotedsituationandthetrustworthinessofthequotation.Bycontrast,thein-directpresentationmodedisplaysastraightconnectionwithwhat wassaid
(thepropositionalcontent),butitdoesnotconvey how itwassaid(thewords
2 SeminoandShort(2004)alsodescribeNarrator’sRepresentationofVoice/Writingand
InternalNarration(NV/NW/NI);Narrator’sRepresentationofSpeech/Writing/ThoughtAct
(NRSA/NRWA/NRTA);thesecategorieswerenotincludedinouranalysis,sinceweaimedto
describethoseformsofdiscoursepresentationinwhichtheoriginalnewssourcehasatleast
someinvolvementintherepresentation(eitherthecontent,orthewording,orboth).
Table8.1 Speech, thought, and writing presentation scales (afterSeminoandShort,
2004:49).
Indirect Free indirect Direct Free direct
Speechpresentation: IS FIS DS FDS
Thoughtpresentation: IT FIT DT FDT
Writingpresentation: IW FIW DW FDW
andstructuresusedtouttertherelevantpropositionalcontent),asinShe said that / confirmed she was present / was there.Withrespecttofreeindirectspeech
and writing, Semino and Short (2004) state that these categories involve a
“mix”ofthefeaturesassociatedwithindirectspeech/writingontheonehand
anddirectspeech/writingontheother,asinYes, she was right there.Asacon-sequence,freeindirectspeechandwritingareambiguouswithrespecttothe
faithfulnessclaimconcerningthewordingoftheutterance.Oftenitisdifficult
todecidewhetheritisthenarrator/reporteroracharacter/newssourcewhois
responsible for a particular word; their voices are intertwined (cf. Sanders,
2010). Additionally, we distinguish partial quotations, by Semino and Short
(2004:159)describedassubcategoryofdirectpresentationintermsof“embed-dedquotationphenomena”(notinTable8.1):relativelyshortstretchesoftext
surroundedbyinvertedcommasthatoccurwithinanon-directformofspeech/
writing/thoughtpresentation,andthatequalthedirectandfreedirectcatego-rieswithrespecttofaithfulness,astheyseemtobeaverbatimreproductionof
apartoftheoriginalutterance.
Material and Method
Inthisparagraph,thematerialandthemethodofanalysisinthisstudywillbe
described.Asmaterial,acorpusofDutchnewspapertextswasassembledin
twosub-corpora.Thefirstsub-corpusconsistsofoldnewspapertextsfrom
1950(32.579words;50texts),thesecondofrecentnewspapertextsfrom2002
(51.587words;99texts).Bothsub-corporaweretakenfromfivenationalDutch
newspapers(Algemeen Dagblad,NRC Handelsblad, Telegraaf,TrouwandVolk-skrant)andeightsections(frontpage,domesticnews,foreignnews,financial
news,culture,opinion,sports,science).Thetextsfrom1950werecopiedfrom
microfilm,the2002textswereextractedfromtheinternationalnewspaperda-tabaseLexisNexis.
Allnewstextsinthecorpuswerecloselyread,markingouteachinstanceof
discoursepresentation.Themarkedcasesofdiscoursepresentationwerethen
analysedandcategorizedaccordingtothedegreeinwhichanewssourcewas
involvedintherepresentationofthecontentand/orwording,usingthecate-goriesaspresentedinTable8.1.Finally,considerationwasgivenastowhether
ornotadditionalcategorieswereneededtodescribetheempiricaldata.
Inthenextsection,theresultsofouranalysisarepresented.Foreachcate- gory,typicalcasesarediscussedanddescribedbothforlinguisticcharacteris-tics and functional context. Attention is paid to any observed differences
betweenthe1950and2002cases.Finally,casesthatdidnotfitintooneofthe
pre-described categories are described and categorized linguistically, and
characterizedfunctionally.
Results
Thissectionpresentsthefindingsforthespeechpresentation,writingpresen-tation,andthoughtpresentationcategories,consecutively.
Speech Presentation
DirectSpeech
Inthenewspapercorpusquotationsaremostfrequentlypresentedasdirect
speech,asinexample(1).Inthisexampleareporterpresentsanutteranceof
thedeputyharbourmasteroftheharbourofZierikzeeaboutacaseofdrug
smugglingallegedtohaveoccurredintheharbour.Hiswordsaremarkedby
singleinvertedcommasandaverbofcommunication,“zegt”(“says”),andthe
quotedmaterialconsistsofthreecompletesentences.Thequotedsourceis
identifiedexplicitly,bothbynameandbyfunction.Theexplicitidentification
ofthesourcemarkshimasbeinganauthority.Incombinationwiththeother
markersthisistoassurethereaderoftheaccuracyandprecisionofthequota-tion,therebygivinganassuranceofthereporter’sreliability(Weizman,1984).
(1) “Op zich was er niets opvallends aan die mannen,” zegt hulphaven-meesterPh.deLeeuw.“Deafgelopendriewekenwarenelkedageenpaar
mannenbezigopdatschip,maarniemandheeftietsgeksgezien.350Kilo
drugskunjein10Albert-Heijntassenzonaarbinnendragen.”(Algemeen Dagblad,May32002,domesticnews)
“In itself there was nothing conspicuous about those men,” says deputy har-bour master Ph. de Leeuw. “For the last three weeks, every day, some men have been working on that ship, but no one has seen anything odd. You could carry 350 kilos of drugs inside in 10 large shopping bags without anyone noticing.”3
Thewayofmarkingdirectspeechinexample(1)isverycommon.Alternative
waysofpresentingdirectspeechoftenencounteredinthecorpusincludeal-ternativeplacementofthecommunicativeverb(beforethequotationrather
thanfollowingit,asinexample(2),theuseofacolon(alsoinexample(2)),
3 WithrespecttothetranslationofDutchexamples,thischapterprovidesglossesthatretain
thestructureoftheoriginalasmuchaspossible.
andtheuseofaprepositionalphrasewith“aldus”or“volgens”(“accordingto”)
insteadofaverb,seeexample(3).
(2) NaeenslechteaanloopnaarhetNewyorkseevenement(drieoverwin-ningenindrietoernooien)waarschuwdehijvriendenvijand:“OpdeUS
Openmoetniemandmijafschrijven.”(Trouw,September72002,sports) After a bad run-up to the event in New York (only three matches won in his last in three tournaments) he warned friend and enemy alike: “At the US Open no one should write me off.”
(3) “[…]Terhandhavingvanhetrechtendewettendermenselijkheidkan
hier alleen de zwaarste straf de juiste geacht worden”, aldus mr. Van
VoorsttotVoorst.(NRC Handelsblad,July61950,domesticnews)
“[…] For the enforcement of the law and the laws of humanity only the sever-est penalty can be considered right”, according to Mr Van Voorst tot Voorst, Master of Laws.
Inadditiontotheoptionsmentionedsofar,somedirectquotationsinthe2002
subcorpusareintroducedonlybythenameofthequotedsourceandacolon,
leavingouttheembeddingphrase(communicativeverborphrasewith“aldus”
or“volgens”).Mostoften,suchcasesarenotthefirstcitationofthisspeakerin
thearticle,andthesourcehasbeenintroducedpreviously,butinfrequentlyit
wasnot,orjustvaguelyintroduced,asinexample(4).
(4) Justitiespreektovereen“uitzonderlijk”vonnis.PersofficierI.vanHilten:
“Nooiteerderiszo’nhogestrafopgelegd.Bijdemeesteverkeersongeluk-kenmetdodelijkeafloopwordt‘dooddoorschuld’tenlastegelegd.Hier
bleekhethaalbaaromdrievoudigedoodslageneenpogingdaartoeten
lasteteleggen.”(NRC Handelsblad,July22002,domesticnews)
The judiciary speaks of an “extraordinary” sentence. Press officer I. van Hilten: “Never before has such a high punishment been imposed. In most fatal traffic accidents cases the suspect is charged with ‘culpable homicide.’
In this case an indictment of triple culpable homicide and an attempted cul-pable homicide proved feasible.”
Example(4)originatesfromanarticleonalawsuitinthecaseofafatalhit-and-runaccident.ThefirstmentionofpressofficerVanHilten’snameisinthe
secondsentence,intheintroductionofthestretchofdirectspeech.Theonly
referencepriortothisintroductionthatcouldpossiblyrefertothepressofficer
is the word “justitie” in the previous sentence, referring to the judiciary in
general:“allthejudgesinacountrywho,asagroup,formpartofthesystemof
government” (Longman dictionary). Note that within the stretch of direct
speechitself,asmallfragmentofthreewords(“dood door schuld”)ismarked
with additional inverted commas. This phenomenon of inverted commas
withininvertedcommasoccursmoreoftenandisdiscussedinthesectionon
partialquotes,cf.example(21).
FreeDirectSpeech
Theanalysisshowssomecasesoffreedirectspeech;astretchofquotation,
markedbyinvertedcommas,butnotintroducedassuchbyaname,colon,
communicativeverb,orembeddingphrase,asinexample(5).
(5) Soekarnodeeldemee,datdeactietegendeZuid-Molukkenthansinvolle
gangis.“Wijzienonsgedwongentegendeopstandelingendewetvande
vernietigingtoetepassen.”(Trouw,August181950,foreignnews)
Sukarno announced that the action against the South Moluccas is now well under way. “We are forced to enforce the law of destruction against the rebels.”
Thefreedirectquotationinthesecondsentenceinexample(5)isattributedto
Sukarno,becauseintheprecedingsentenceanindirectquotationintroduced
bythecommunicativeverb“deelde mee”(“announced”)isattributedtohim,
andthereisnoothersourceavailableitcouldbeattributedto.Accordingto
SeminoandShort(2004),inpressdiscourse,asopposedtoe.g.fiction,freedi- rectspeechalwaysfollowsanotherformofspeechpresentationwhichisclear-lyattributedtoasource.However,ourcorpuscontainsexampleswherethisis
notthecase,suchasexample(6).Inthetwosentencespriortothequotation,
goalkeeperGrimofthesoccerclubAjax,isintroduced.Withoutanintroduc-tion,inthethirdsentencebeginswithadirectquotation.Thefactthatitstarts
immediatelyaftertheintroductionofaperson,andthefactthatinthesecond
sentencethespeakeridentifieshimselfasagoalkeeper,makesitclearthatthe
stretchofquotationpresentswordsutteredbyGrim,eventhoughthereisno
reportingclauseforGrimforthisstretchofquotation,noranypreviousmen- tionofaspeechactinvolvingGrim.However,theemotionalexpression“be-laden”(“charged”)inthefirstsentencefacilitatestheattributionofthedirect
quotetoGrimbytheimplicitreferencetohisconsciousness.4
4 Acaseofimplicit viewpointintermsofSandersandRedeker(1993).
(6) VoorGrimisdebekerfinaleextrabeladen.IndeKuipkeepthijzijnlaatste
wedstrijdinhetbetaaldevoetbal.“Datrealiseerikmesteedsmeer.Ik
weetalmaandendatmijntijdalskeepereropzit,maardathebikinde
competitiesteedsverwegkunnenstoppen.Afgelopenweekluktedat
echternietmeer.[…].”(Algemeen Dagblad,May112002,sports)
For Grim the final is especially emotionally charged. The match in the Kuip [stadium] is his last match as a professional goalkeeper. “I realise that more and more. I have known for months that my time as a goalkeeper is finished, but during the competition I have been able to put that out of my mind. Last week that didn’t work anymore. [...].”
Thedifferentwaysofpresentingdirectspeechdiscussedabove,haveoneas- pectincommon:thequotationsarealwaysmarkedbysingleordoubleinvert-edcommas.Onlytwoarticleswerefoundintheentirecorpusinwhichsome
fragmentsofdirectspeecharepresentedwithoutinvertedcommas.Inthose
twocases,directquotationswererecognizablefromtheuseofthepresent
tensewithinapasttensecontext,andafirstperson“I”referringtothequoted
sourceratherthanthereporter,asinexample(7).
(7) WatdeinternepolitiekbetreftzeideSoekarnoteerkennen,daternog
rampokisendatergewapendebendenrondzwerven.Doch ik ben er zeker van, dat dit slechts tijdelijke verschijnselen zijn.(Trouw,August
181950,foreignnews)
About the internal politics Sukarno said to acknowledge that there still are robberies and that armed gangs are roaming around. However I am sure that these are only temporary phenomena.
Notethatallotherverbsusedinthistexttoreportonthesituationareinpast
tense,like“zeide”(“said”).5
IndirectSpeech
Inthecorpusmanycaseswerefoundwherewordsofsourceswerepresented
asindirectspeech.Inexample(8)bothboldstretchesarecasesofindirect
speech.
5 Typicalforthedirectpresentationmodeisthatthedeicticcentrefortimeandplace(here,
now),forreferencetopersonsandtoverbtenseisplacedinthequotedsource(Sandersand
Redeker,1996):I=source,now=presentforthesource.
(8) MinistervanBuitenlandseZaken,Abdullah,zeidat uit inlichtingenrap-porten blijkt dat Osama bin Laden en mullah Omar nog steeds in leven zijn, maar dat dat nog geen excuus is voor het ombrengen van burgers.
Hijzeidat de jacht op Al-Qaeda en de Talibaan moet doorgaan, maar dat de procedures voor het lanceren van aanvallen moeten worden
“herzien” om onschuldige slachtoffers te vermijden.(NRC Handelsblad,
July32002,foreignnews)
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdullah, said that intelligence reports show that Osama bin Laden and mullah Omar are still alive, but that that is no excuse to kill civilians. He said that the hunt for Al Qaeda and the Taliban should continue, but that the procedures for the launch of an attack should be “revised” to avoid innocent victims.
Theindirectquotationsinthisexamplearemarkedbytheverbsofcommuni-cation(“zei”(“said”)inbothcases),thesubordinatingconjunctionandthefact
thattheyaredependentclauses.Infact,bothindirectquotationsinthisex-ample consist of two dependent clauses, coordinated by coordinating con-junction“maar”(“but”).Theoriginalspeakerofthewords,inthiscaseMinister
ofForeignAffairs,Abdullah,isresponsibleforthecontentofthequotation,
butnot(necessarily)forthewording,whichmaybeparaphrasedandsumma- rizedbythereporterdependingonthearticle’sstyleandlength.Thus,there-portercanbeheldresponsibleforatleastthewordsthatareusedtopresent
thesourcematerial.Interestingly,inthelastdependentclauseintheexample,
oneword(“herzien”,“revised”)ismarkedbyinvertedcommasasquoteddi-rectly.Thisphenomenonisdiscussedextensivelyinthesub-sectiononpartial
quotes.Notethatthisstrokeofindirectspeechrepresentsanewssourcewho
doesnotuseDutch.Itisclearthatnon-Dutchspeakingnewssourcesarefre-quentlyrepresentedindirectly,thusparaphrasedbythejournalistwhowould
havehadtotranslatetheirutterancesanyway.Interestingly,bothinthe1950
and2002examples,non-Dutchspeakingnewssourcesarealsorepresenteddi-rectly,ascanbeseeninexamples(2),(5),and(7)above(sources:tennisplayer
PeteSamprasandpresidentSukarno).
Semi-directSpeech
Inthenewstextsinoursubcorpus,atypeofspeechpresentationisencoun-teredfairlyregularlythatisnotrecognizedasanindividualtypebySemino
andShort(2004):semi-directspeech.Thisseemstobeamixedtypeinthatit
canneitherbeclassifiedasdirectnorasindirectspeech.Thiscomplexityis
evidentintheothernamesgiventothiscategory:theterm“semi-directspeech”
introducedbyHaeserynetal.(1997)intheirbookonDutchgrammar,and
“paratacticindirectspeech”employedbyWaugh(1995:150).Thestretchesof
semi-directspeecharesimilartodirectspeechinform:thewordorderisthat
ofanindependentclauseasitwouldbeindirectspeech,forinadependent
clausethefiniteverbisplacedattheend,andthequotationisnotintroduced
byasubordinatingconjunction.Inexample(9),theboldstretchisattributed
tothecounselforthedefencebymeansoftheembeddingphrase“aldus”(“ac-cordingto”).
(9) Deze dagvaarding is betrekkelijk de acte van beschuldiging tegen ver-dachte, aldus de verdediger;zij is ook de dagvaarding tegen iedere N.S.B.-er.(Telegraaf,March101950,domesticnews)
This summons relates to the indictment against the defendant, according to the counsel for the defence; it is also the summons against every N.S.B.-member.
Semi-directspeechdiffersfromdirectspeech,andresemblesindirectspeech,
Semi-directspeechdiffersfromdirectspeech,andresemblesindirectspeech,