Reported speech -

parallels and contrasts in Norwegian, German and English

Abstract

The topic of this article is a common challenge facing many authors, that of integrating other people’s utterances into their own texts. It is important for readers to know whether what is presented stems from the author, or whether the author is reporting someone else’s speech.

Reported speech is here presented from a contrastive perspective, based on Norwegian, English and German online press articles. There are clear differences in these texts between the three languages, yet also interesting parallels. Diverging structural possibilities result in different forms of reported speech in the three languages, but at the same time there are parallels regarding how longer text sequences are structured. Our main focus is how the author – through structural choices – balances his/her own perspective and that of the person whose utterances are reported, and how the three languages present different possibilities for making the reported speech visible.

Keywords: contrastive text linguistics, markers of reported speech, subjunctive in German, quotes, indirect speech

Reported speech is here presented from a contrastive perspective, based on Norwegian, English and German online press texts. There are clear differences between the three languages, but also interesting parallels. Diverging structural possibilities trigger different forms of reported speech in the three languages, but at the same time there are parallels wrt. how longer text sequences are structures. Main focus is how the author – through structural choices –  balances his/her own perspective and that of the person whose utterances are reported, and how the three languages present different possibilties for making the reported speech visible.