Reported Speech in Chinese Political Discourse

Abstract

Based on video-taped data from five televised 1998 Taipei mayoral debates, this article examines the use of reported speech in Chinese political discourse, with a particular focus on direct quotation. The findings are that direct quotation or constructed dialogue not only creates the rhetorical effect of vividness and immediacy but also establishes interpersonal involvement. More importantly, the three debaters in this study use direct quotation as an indirect strategy for self-promotion (i.e. to present a positive image of the speakers themselves) and for denigration (i.e. to present a negative image of their opponents). Citing someone else's words objectifies debaters' praise of themselves and vilification of their opponents, thereby heightening the reliability of their claims: these claims are presented as shared knowledge and reference is made to an external source. However, direct quotation is also a strategy of evasion: the speakers disclaim responsibility and distance themselves from the source of knowledge. Finally, the different use of citations made by the three debaters also marks their different communicative styles. While the two politicians who speak more formally generally tend to cite figures from newspapers or magazines, the one who speaks most casually frequently employs direct quotations.

Stylistic Analysis of Deictic Expressions in President Benigno Aquino III’s October 30th Speech

“…A number of studies have turned their focus on the rich research potential there is in deixis (Urban 1986, Maitland & Wilson 1987, Lwaitama 1988, Wilson 1990, Kuo 2001& 2002, Inigo-Mora 2004.…”

“…He claims that a politician's shift of reference from ‗I' to ‗we' and vice versa manifests the necessity to spread the load of responsibility, and the fear of being misinterpreted, by the audience or co-debater. Kuo (2001) and Kuo (2002) reflect two sides of a coin in Taiwan's political arena, particularly in the televised debates of the 1998 Taipei mayoral elections. Kuo (2001) analysed the candidate's use of direct quotation for both self-promotion and the validation of opponents, whereas Kuo (2002) focused on the deployment of the second person plural pronoun ‗ni' (you) by the three mayoral candidates for establishing solidarity with the audience or attacking opponents.…”

“…Kuo (2001) and Kuo (2002) reflect two sides of a coin in Taiwan's political arena, particularly in the televised debates of the 1998 Taipei mayoral elections. Kuo (2001) analysed the candidate's use of direct quotation for both self-promotion and the validation of opponents, whereas Kuo (2002) focused on the deployment of the second person plural pronoun ‗ni' (you) by the three mayoral candidates for establishing solidarity with the audience or attacking opponents. Both studies illustrate how deictic expressions are put to referential, impersonal and other sundry uses to set up linguistic interaction in political discourse.…”

Interpreting reported speech in witnesses’ evidence

“…The inadvertent manipulation of grammatical and linguistic forms of speech reporting may lend more authenticity and veracity to the interpreted evidence than is warranted by the original testimony of the Korean-speaking witnesses. This paper was based on the data of Korean-English court interpreting in Australian courtrooms only, but indirect reported speech is also preferred over direct reported speech in languages such as Japanese (Coulmas 1986) and Chinese (Kuo 2001). Therefore, this research may also be relevant to other language combinations in other courtroom settings.…”

“…Thus, IRS is much more common, inasmuch as verbatim quotation is rare in everyday conversation (Lee, C. D. 1999). (A scan of the literature reveals Mandarin speakers' preference for IRS (Kuo 2001) and Japanese speakers' as well (Coulmas 1986)). …”