UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 9 (1997)
Immediate contexts and reported
speech
SEIJI UCHIDA
'Context' and 'reported speech' are both ordinary language expressions, and important terms in
a
theory of verbal communication. In this paper I will argue that a relevance-theoretic treatment
of
'context' and the concept of 'immediate context' are useful tools for the analysis of deictic
phenomena and reported speech. I will also show that though reported speech in conversation
looks quite different from that in fiction, they can be explained by a single pragmatic
principle,
differing only in the way it is applied.
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