You're like `why not?' The quotative expressions of Glasgow ...

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MACAULAY
the actual words someone including the speaker) allegedly said or thought at
the time. Traditionally known as oratio recta in contrast to oratio obliqua or
`reported speech'), this form of reporting `an utterance belonging to someone
else' Voloshinov 1986: 116, emphasis in original) has been examined as `direct
speech' Coulmas 1986), `quoted direct speech' Macaulay 1987), and `constructed
dialogue' Tannen 1989). Li claims that `direct speech is universal;
indirect speech is not' 1986: 39) and that `direct quote is the most common
expression at the peak of oral narratives in many languages' 1986: 40).
Tannen points out that `many researchers for example, Labov 1972; Ochs
1979; Chafe 1980; Schi€rin 1981; Tannen 1982) have observed that narration
is more vivid when speech is presented as ®rst-person dialogue ``direct
quotation'') rather than third-person report ``indirect quotation'')' Tannen
1986: 311). Given the signi®cance of quoted direct speech in oral narratives, it
is important to identify when it occurs. Anyone who has transcribed a number
of oral narratives knows that there are ambiguous utterances whose attribution
to a speaker is problematic. In most cases, however, the direct speech is
signalled not only by intonation but usually also by some `overt introducer'
Ferrara and Bell 1995: 265), `dialogue introducer' Johnstone 1987), or
`quotative' Tagliamonte and Hudson 1999).
The most common introducer is one of the verba dicendi, such as say though in
some cases there is no introducer:
1) WR 145 and the auld yin says to him `Whaur are you going?'
146 he says `I'm going to my work'
ˆ) 147 `Oh you got a job?'
ˆ) 148 `Aye'
ˆ) 149 `Whit are you daeing?'
150 says `I'm labouring to a bricklayer in the town'
ˆ) 151 `Oh very good
152 away and get your bus' he says
Macaulay 1987: 28)
Lines 145, 146, and 150 signal the direct speech by the verb says, but lines 147,
148, 149, and 151, each of which indicates a change of speaker, have no such
introducer. The absence of an overt introducer has been termed a `zero
quotative' Mathis and Yule 1994). Tannen suggests that there is a continuum:
At one pole is no introducer at all, used in informal conversational narrative because of
the great expressive power of the human voice. At the other pole is the use of graphic
verbs as introducers ± a form typical of literary narrative.
Tannen 1986: 323)
Graphic verbs Labov 1972) include complain, mutter, whisper, groan, etc.
Tannen 1986: 322). 2 Such overt characterizing of the speaker's tone and
attitude is rare in oral narratives. Narrators more commonly use intonation
and mimicry Macaulay 1987: 7±13) for these purposes. Nevertheless, some
speakers make use of a range of quotatives in presenting direct speech as in 2):
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001