Indirect reports as language games

In this chapter I deal with indirect reports in terms of language games. I try to make connections between the theory of language games and the theory of indirect reports, in the light of the issue of clues and cues. Indirect reports are based on an interplay of voices. The voice of the reporter must allow hearers to ‘reconstruct’ the voice of the reported speaker. Ideally, it must be possible to separate the reporter’s voice from that of the reported speaker. When we analyze the language game of indirect reporting, we ideally want to establish which parts belong to the primary voice (the reported speaker’s voice) and which parts belong to the reporter’s voice. In this paper I apply considerations on language games by Dascal et al. (1996) and I explore the dialectics between abstract pragmatics principles and considerations about situated uses that are sensitive to cues and clues.