Sprachliche Variation und Vielfalt / Linguistic Variation and Diversity

1.Introduction

Topic of the present article is reported speech from a contrastive perspective English-German. We look into how relatively long sequences of speech are reported in a selection of online press texts. The study is corpus based, and the texts in our material are reports from the press conference held by President Trump and Chancellor Merkel after the meeting in the White House on the 17. March 2017.

In German, subjunctive forms are widely used to mark reported speech, and so there is a wider range of structural possibilities in German than in English. In this study, we trace what effects the diverging structural means in the two languages have on the journalists’ choice of structures when reporting what was said at the press conference, i.e., how sequences of reported speech are structured in English and German.

When reporting from a press conference, it is important that the reader should know what text parts are reports of what was actually said at the press conference, and what text parts are comments from the reporting journalist. For this reason, a crucial question is how English – lacking subjunctive forms – solves the challenge of conveying unambiguously the perspective of the reported persons in long sequences of speech, or if there are actually more perspectively unclear passages in English than in German.

Syntactic integration

As suggested by the above examples, it seems appropriate to describe reported speech as a scalar phenomenon, a continuum from direct to indirect speech, where the different structures represent different degrees of syntactic integration between an inquit-element and an utterance (fragment), as modelled in Leistner (2016). So, as also laid out in Leistner (2016), cases such as (7) and (8) above with infinite verb forms are more integrated than structures with finite verbs. Even more strongly integrated are structures such as (12) and (13) below. Here the reported utterance is reduced to single nominal constituents, from which a corresponding direct speech can be inferred with varying degrees of certainty.

1. (12) Mr. Trump also stated his strong support for NATO. (abc.net.au)
2. (13) Bei ihrem Treffen sprachen sie über Handels- und Militärbeziehungen. (welt.de)
3. [At their meeting they talked about trade and military connections]

Leistner’s approach delivers a unified model, where the different structures form a continuum or a scale. The most independent structures are the cases where the report is made in syntactically independent sentences, and above all when the independent sentences are direct speech. (14b) is a case in point. In contrast to (2) the direct speech is not adjoined to an inquit, and so the figure perspective is totally dominant:

1. (14a) Near the start of the news conference, Trump pressed Merkel for Germany to meet NATO’s military spending target, and Merkel reiterated her country’s commitment to the 2 percent military spending goal.
2. (14b) “I reiterated to Chancellor Merkel my strong support for NATO as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost of defense. Many nations owe vast sums of money from past years, and it is very unfair to the United States. These nations must pay what they owe.” (reuters.com)
3. (15b) illustrates indirect speech in an independent sentence, so-called free indirect speech, where the subjunctive form alone signals report:
4. (15a) Der Nato sagte der US-Präsident … einmal mehr seine Unterstützung zu.
5. (15b) Ein starkes Amerika sei im Interesse der Welt. (ZEIT ONLINE)
6. [To the Nato confirmed the US-President … once more his support.
7. A strong USA be [subjunctive] in the interest of the world]

Somewhat more integrated are structures with attached inquits: sentences with direct speech, preceding or following inquits, subclauses preceding or following inquits, and infinitive clauses or for English also gerunds. The sentences in (16) give examples of inquits both preceding and following direct speech:

1. (16a) Merkel ergänzt: „Es ist immer besser miteinander statt übereinander zu reden“.
2. Ein kleiner Seitenhieb auf Trumps Twitter-Lästereien? Vielleicht, vielleicht auch nicht.
3. (16b) „Wir werden Hand in Hand zusammenarbeiten“, sagt Merkel. (FAZ.de)
4. [Merkel adds: “It is always better to speak with each other than about each other”.
5. A small sidekick at Trump’s twitter problems? Perhaps, perhaps not?
6. “We shall cooperate hand in hand]

In (9) and (10) above we find inquits preceding clauses with indirect speech, and in (7) and (8) inquits followed by indirect speech in the shape of an infinitive clause and a gerund.

Even more integrated are the so-called incorporations in the terminology of Leistner (2016, 169). In these cases, the inquit-element and the reported utterances or fragments of reported utterances are merged into one clause. The reported utterance is reduced to a nominal element, and the construction of a corresponding full-fledged quote will normally be open to several different wordings of the implicit parts. In this way, incorporation – to a larger degree – reduces the perspective of the figure and correspondingly enhances the presence of the author, and so also an interpretation on the part of the author. (12) and (13) above illustrate typical incorporations, as does (17):

1. (17) Trump versicherte Merkel seiner Solidarität, pocht aber auf eine faire Lastenverteilung. (www.wienerzeitung.at)
2. [Trump reassured his solidarity for Merkel, insists though on a fair distribution of burdens]

So-called absorption (Leistner 2016, 164) represents the ultimate step on the integration scale. In absorption structures there are no explicit elements which can form part of a corresponding quote. The utterance is contained in the inquit, and the only inference that can be made, is that something was actually said, and also in some cases what function this utterance was meant to fulfill. Examples of absorption are he protested, she insisted, sie entschuldigte sich (she excused herself) etc. One example from our material is (18a), where opening statements is an example of absorption, immediately followed by an incorporation in (18b):

1. (18a) The fact that it might be a tense conversation was clear from the two leaders’ opening statements.
2. (18b) Trump, during his, once again complained about the cost of NATO.
3. (theatlantic.com)

4. Material and questions

Our choice of material from the press conference by President Trump and Chancellor Merkel is based on the assumption that the public in both language communities take an equal interest in the event. Also, we believe that reports given immediately after the press conference will be primarily focused on rendering what was actually said, and so not bringing in very many comments on the part of the journalist. In consequence, the texts were retrieved on the day following the press conference.

The English sub-corpus consists of altogether 13 texts, taken from the following online sources: bbc.com, edition.cnn.com (two texts), thetimes.co.uk, nbcnews.com, reuters.com, telegraph.co.uk, theatlantic.com, theguardian.com, abc.net.au, independent.co.uk, time.com, nydailynews.com.

The German sub-corpus consists of altogether 9 texts from the following online sources: welt.de, spiegel.de, ZEIT online, FAZ.net, FAZ.de (two texts), sueddeutsche.de, welt.de (N24), wienerzeitung.at.

Taking the theoretical framework of Leistner (2016) as our point of departure, we will try to answer the following questions:

• – What structures occur frequently in the two sub-corpora?
• – Where are these structures situated on the integration scale?
• – Are there patterns in the variation between figure and author perspective?
• – How do the patterns in the two languages differ?

In the presentation of the varying sequence patterns, our starting point will be an incorporation (in some cases also an absorption), i.e. a maximally integrated structure with only a nominal constituent representing the reported utterance. As laid out in Leistner (2016, 69–70), with reference to Kurz (1976, 228), Pütz (1989) and Vliegen (2010), these condensed nominal structures serve the function of summarising a topic, merging a series of sentences into one topic statement, which can be developed or elaborated in the ensuing context. This function as topic introduction – Themeneinleitung in the terminology of Leistner (2016) – invites incorporations as basis for organising our material. Incorporations open a thematic string, which can be – and normally is – followed up in the subsequent text (parts). The follow up of the incorporation in (18) above, repeated here, is a case in point:

1. (19a) The fact that it might be a tense conversation was clear from the two leaders’ opening statements.
2. (19b) Trump, during his, once again complained about the cost of NATO.
3. (19c) “I reiterated to Chancellor Merkel my strong support for NATO as well as the need for our NATO allies to pay their fair share for the cost defense,” he said. “Many nations owe vast sums of money from past years and it is very unfair to the United States. These nations must pay what they owe.” (theatlantic.com)

5. Findings