Reported Speech: A Clinical Pragmatic Perspective

Abstract

For any speaker, the ability to report the speech of oneself and of others involves a complex interplay of cognitive, linguistic and pragmatic factors. Depending on the form of reporting used, a speaker must be able to produce utterances which contain embedded clauses (e.g. Fran said that she wanted to leave early), employ intonational and other devices which represent prosodic features of another person’s speech (e.g. Bill said, “Yes, I would LOVE to come”), and use lexical devices beyond simply verbs of saying (e.g. Sally went, “Not a chance!”). Apart from these linguistic resources, a range of complex cognitive and pragmatic skills underpins the reporting of speech. A speaker must be able to recall what another person said and how it was said. This requires verbal memory not just of the explicit content and prosodic features of a linguistic utterance, but also of any implied meanings raised by that utterance. The speaker who utters ‘Jack shouted at me, “I really appreciate your unhelpful response to this problem!”’ can only be said to have captured the sarcastic intent with which Jack delivered his utterance if that intent is conveyed in the speaker’s report of Jack’s speech. These implied or pragmatic meanings are only recoverable through intricate processes of reasoning which involve, amongst other things, theory of mind skills.