Quoting to persuade

This paper examines how quotations are linguistically constructed by expert contributors in US, UK, and Australian opinion texts, vis-à-vis their form, function, and processes. Cope’s (2016)Cope, J. (2016). Blame, responsibility and positioning in the Global Financial Crisis: A critical analysis of US, UK and Australian newspaper opinion texts (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of Sydney, Australia. <[URL]> study found that authoritative expert contributors integrated a considerable number of quotations on blame and responsibility for the global financial crisis in single-authored US, UK, and Australian opinion texts. By examining the form, function, and processes of quoting in this paper, she found evidence that quoting is an intertextual form of positioning. Empirically grounded linguistic analyses investigate the language of quoting frames – how the quoted source is specified, the quoting verb used, e.g., strong meanings (demanded, thundered, promised) or neutral (said, told) – and evaluate the language of propositional content in quotations. Such analyses reveal authorial positions taken in quoting. A greater number of quotations incorporated by general newspaper opinion authors, than by specialized financial newspaper opinion authors, furthermore implies that quoting increases a writer’s authority in non-specialized media sources. The specially created integrated linguistic framework draws on Martin & White’s (2005)Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Appraisal system from systemic-functional linguistics, White’s (2012White, P. R. R. (2012). Exploring the axiological workings of ‘reporter voice’ news stories – Attribution and attitudinal positioning. Discourse, Context & Media, 11, 57–67. , 2015White, P. R. R. (2015). 4. Intertextual positioning. Retrieved from <[URL]> (13 May, 2020).) attribution and endorsement, and Bazerman’s (2004)Bazerman, C. (2004). Intertextuality: How texts rely on other texts. In C. Bazerman, & P. Prior (Eds.), What writing does and how it does it: An introduction to analyzing texts and textual practices (pp. 83–96). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. intertextuality techniques. Contextual factors in language use and quoting are evaluated throughout. This paper thus provides evidence of, and implications for, quoting in cross-cultural opinion texts, and contributes to knowledge on the increasingly mediatized practice of language recycling and to media literacy.