Making Indirect Speech in German journalistic comments: Conjunctive vs Indicative

Abstract

The article is aimed at identifying trends in the linguistic design of indirect speech in German, which differs from the requirements of standard grammar. Recent works have noted significant deviations from the rules of constructing indirect speech using the conjunctive, there is a discrepancy in approaches to their use in the literary language, its national variants and dialects, oral and written speech, as well as in various speech genres. Modern grammarians recognize the existence of alternative forms of indirect speech, which include constructions with prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses with ‘wie’, the combination of so + source of information in postposition to indirect speech, as well as modal verbs ‘wollen’ and ‘sollen’ in epistemic meaning. However, the authors do not provide explicit and understandable rules for their use. All deviations from the standard rule of using conjunctive in indirect speech can be grouped into three complex areas: the interchangeability of conjunctive forms I and II, the expression of distancing from the refereed sources information and ignoring the conjunctive as a violation of the norm of constructing indirect speech. The authors of the comments practically do not allow the interchangeability of the forms of conjunctive I and II, since this may lead to the fact that their statements will be interpreted not as carrying factual, ascertaining information, but as a potential opportunity to commit an action. Commentators in the vast majority of cases take a critical position regarding the actions of the actors of the events under consideration, therefore, the conjunctive is exactly the means that helps to mark the distancing of the author of the comment from the refereed sources. In the texts of journalistic comments, there are isolated examples of the design of indirect speech with indicative forms. This is possible only in cases when a journalist uses lexemes with the semantics of confidence in the words of the author, thanks to which he indirectly gives either a positive or negative assessment of information from the source being reviewed, and thus ceases to be an impartial observer, but expresses his attitude to the actions of actors in the situation he is commenting on.