Thesis
French
ID: <
10670/1.krxre4>
Abstract
This study based on two corpora of oral communication (interviews and stand up comedy shows) investigates the functions and forms of reported speech in spoken German. We first present the classical and modern conceptualizations of reported speech as found in grammars of the German language, linguistic typology and in the more recent theories of J. Authier-Revuz, L. Rosier, and linguists of the interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis orientation (D. Vincent, S. Günthner, D. Tannen), all of which can be seen as inspired in some way by the views of Bakhtin/Vološinov. Following their footsteps, we argue that reported speech can be seen as a discourse strategy that explicitly stages polyphony and the layering of voices within discourse and therefore must be investigated with respect to its rhetorical effects. Adopting the perspective of the functional theories of syntax, we see oral discourse as a process whose product can be divided in moves (M) and discourse acts, expressed by propositions as predication units within the move. The study of reported speech must therefore be analyzed on two different levels: at the discourse level we seek to evaluate the rhetorical and pragmatic effects achieved by the use of (mostly direct) reported speech in the two corpora. Then we describe the role played by reported speech in the predication at the inter- and intrapropositional level within the move. As the discourse analysis shows, reported speech in informal oral communication can be a highly figurative device. This aspect of the use of reported speech accounts in part for specific syntactic constructions that have not always been taken into account in the grammars of standard German.