Cover not available

Article published In: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 14:2 (1991) ► pp.87–114

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Speech reporting as a discourse strategy

Some issues of acquisition and use

 | University of Technology, Sydney
Published online: 1 January 1991
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.14.2.04bay
Abstract
This paper examines approaches to the analysis of speech reporting, finding that these approaches fall into two broad categories: traditional approaches which emphasize the syntactic dimension of speech reporting and are informed by an autonomous model of language and discourse pragmatic approaches which emphasize the interaction of syntactic, pragmatic and stylistic factors in discourse. A model for speech reporting strategies in discourse is proposed, involving direct and indirect speech reporting strategies and a ‘lexicalization strategy’. Using this model, a number of approaches to the function of direct speech reporting strategies in the early stages of SLA are reviewed, which analyze the function of direct speech reporting as a ‘compensatory discourse strategy’, not as stylistic variation. It is argued that this analysis is informed by the traditional approach to speech reporting and does not take into account the ‘lexicalization strategy’. When the lexicalization strategy is considered, direct speech is found to function both referentially and stylistically in learner discourse. The argument is illustrated via an analysis of speech reporting in narrative in learner varieties of English and German.
References (32)
References
Banfield, A. (1982) Unspeakable sentences: Narration and representation in the language of fiction. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauman, R. (1977) Verbal art as performance. Rowley, Mass, Newbury House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baynham, M.J. (1988) Narrative and narrativity in the English of a first generation migrant community. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Reading.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Colin, G.S. (1939) Chrestomathie Marocaine. Paris, Publications de l’Institut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coulmas, F. (1985) Direct and indirect speech: general problems and problems of Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 91: 41–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eco, U. (1979) The role of the reader: Explorations in the semiotics of texts. London, Hutchinson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Faerch, K. & G. Kasper (1983) Strategies in interlanguage communication. London, Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Genette, G. (1980) Narrative discourse. Oxford, Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Givon, T. (1979) From discourse to syntax: grammar as a processing strategy. In T. Givon (ed.) Syntax and semantics, vol. 121, Discourse and syntax. New York, Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Godfrey, D.L. (1980) A discourse analysis of tense in adult ESL monologues. In D. Larsen-Freeman (ed.) Discourse analysis and second language research. Rowley, Mass, Newbury House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1981) Forms of talk. Oxford, Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumperz, J.J. (1982) Discourse strategies. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M.A.K. (1985) An Introduction to functional grammar. London, Edward Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1972) Editorial introduction to Language in Society. Language in Society 1,1: 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klein, W. (1986) Second language acquisition. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Klein, W. and N. Dittmar (1979) Developing grammars: the acquisition of German syntax by foreign workers. Berlin, Springer Verlag. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. & J. Waletzky (1967) Narrative analysis: oral versions of personal experience. In J. Helm (ed.) Essays on the verbal and visual arts. Seattle, University of Washington Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levelt, W. (1981) The speaker’s linearization problem. Philological Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: 295, 305–315. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lyons, J. (1968) Theoretical linguistics. London, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McHale, B. (1978) Free indirect discourse: a survey of recent accounts. Poetics and Theory of Literature 31: 249–287.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mittner, M. (1984) About temporal reference in a Spanish speaking migrant worker’s personal narratives. In Second language acquisition by adult immigrants, European Science Foundation. London, National Centre for Industrial Language Training.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Page, N. (1973) Speech in the English novel. London, Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Partee, B. (1973) The syntax and semantics of quotations. In P. Kiparsky and S. Anderson (eds) A Festschrift for Morris Halle. New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rimmon-Kenan, S. (1983) Narrative fiction: Contemporary poetics. London, Methuen. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosen, H. (1979) The dramatic mode. In P. Salmon (ed.) Coming to know. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schumann, J. (1979) The pidginization process: a model for second language acquisition. Rowley, Mass., Newbury House,Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
von Stutterheim, C. (1984) Temporality in learner varieties. Linguistische Berichte 821: 31–45.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
von Stutterheim, C. and W. Klein (1984) A concept-oriented approach to second language studies. In R.W. Andersen (ed.) First and second language acquisition processes. Rowley, Mass., Newbury House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Volosinov, V.N. (1978) Reported speech. In L. Matjeka and K. Pomorska (eds) Readings in Russian poetics. Ann Arbor, Mich., Michigan Slavic Contributions.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wiggen, G. (1981) Spontaneous dramatization in semi-formal conversation. Oslo, TAUS Skrift No. 9.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wolfson, N. (1982a) CHP: The conversational historical present in American English narrative. Dordrecht, Foris. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1982b) On tense alternation and the need for analysis of native speaker usage in second language acquisition. Language Learning 321, 53–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Baynham, Mike
1996. Direct speech: What's it doing in non-narrative discourse?. Journal of Pragmatics 25:1 ► pp. 61 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue