9 Reported thought embedded in reported speech in Thai news reports
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Prapatsorn Tiratanti
Abstract
Reported thought and reported speech are two categories of reported discourse, which is a presentation of anterior discourse in another context. Although both of them are regularly present in news reports, reported speech has been more frequently investigated than reported thought. This is especially true in case of studies of Thai language news reports. The current reported discourse literature consists mostly of reported speech. This study aims to fill the gap by focusing on the use of reported thought in Thai news reports. Data was drawn from 321 news articles, where 218 occurrences of reported thought were identified, and its linguistic features were analysed. Results reveal that the structure of reported thought in Thai news reports is similar to that of indirect reported thought in other languages, but without consistent linguistic markers. Further analysis included matching and analysing samples of reported thought in news articles with their original speech from the respective public interview clips to investigate the relationship between the two. This method was chosen because previous works on the English language suggest that reported thought in the press is inferred from original speech as journalists do not have access to interviewees’ thoughts processes. The results of the study reveal that reported thoughts in press are not always inferred. Occasionally, the interviewees had explicitly uttered their thoughts to the press and the subsequent reporting of those utterances were simply in the form of reported speech. This phenomenon can be described as a reported thought embedded in reported speech. The research results also indicate that when a reported thought is embedded in reported speech, it becomes indistinguishable whether that thought is from the original speaker (as a thought presented in the form of speech) or the journalist (as an inferred thought reported by the narrator).
Abstract
Reported thought and reported speech are two categories of reported discourse, which is a presentation of anterior discourse in another context. Although both of them are regularly present in news reports, reported speech has been more frequently investigated than reported thought. This is especially true in case of studies of Thai language news reports. The current reported discourse literature consists mostly of reported speech. This study aims to fill the gap by focusing on the use of reported thought in Thai news reports. Data was drawn from 321 news articles, where 218 occurrences of reported thought were identified, and its linguistic features were analysed. Results reveal that the structure of reported thought in Thai news reports is similar to that of indirect reported thought in other languages, but without consistent linguistic markers. Further analysis included matching and analysing samples of reported thought in news articles with their original speech from the respective public interview clips to investigate the relationship between the two. This method was chosen because previous works on the English language suggest that reported thought in the press is inferred from original speech as journalists do not have access to interviewees’ thoughts processes. The results of the study reveal that reported thoughts in press are not always inferred. Occasionally, the interviewees had explicitly uttered their thoughts to the press and the subsequent reporting of those utterances were simply in the form of reported speech. This phenomenon can be described as a reported thought embedded in reported speech. The research results also indicate that when a reported thought is embedded in reported speech, it becomes indistinguishable whether that thought is from the original speaker (as a thought presented in the form of speech) or the journalist (as an inferred thought reported by the narrator).
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- 1 Introduction 1
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Part I: Contrasting reported speech and reported thought
- 2 The morphosyntax of reported speech and reported thought: A preliminary survey 15
- 3 To want, to think, to say: The development of WANT in German from volitional to reportative modal 41
- 4 Reporting speech and thought in Upper Napo Kichwa 73
- 5 On the emergence of quotative bueno in Spanish: A dialectal view 107
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Part II: Pathways from saying to thinking
- 6 Thinking out loud? Je me suis dit ‘I said to myself’ and j’étais là ‘I was there’ in French talk-in-interaction 141
- 7 Self-quotations of speech and thought, and how to distinguish them 171
- 8 When saying becomes thinking: A case of the Georgian autonomous quotative metki 207
- 9 Reported thought embedded in reported speech in Thai news reports 239
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Part III: Reported thought as a category in its own right
- 10 Complementizer deletion in structures of reporting on thinking in Argentinian Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese 263
- 11 Towards a typology of reported thought 291
- Index 317
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- 1 Introduction 1
-
Part I: Contrasting reported speech and reported thought
- 2 The morphosyntax of reported speech and reported thought: A preliminary survey 15
- 3 To want, to think, to say: The development of WANT in German from volitional to reportative modal 41
- 4 Reporting speech and thought in Upper Napo Kichwa 73
- 5 On the emergence of quotative bueno in Spanish: A dialectal view 107
-
Part II: Pathways from saying to thinking
- 6 Thinking out loud? Je me suis dit ‘I said to myself’ and j’étais là ‘I was there’ in French talk-in-interaction 141
- 7 Self-quotations of speech and thought, and how to distinguish them 171
- 8 When saying becomes thinking: A case of the Georgian autonomous quotative metki 207
- 9 Reported thought embedded in reported speech in Thai news reports 239
-
Part III: Reported thought as a category in its own right
- 10 Complementizer deletion in structures of reporting on thinking in Argentinian Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese 263
- 11 Towards a typology of reported thought 291
- Index 317
