ABSTRACT
Reported speech in literary and everyday texts offers an important opportunity to investigate the words of 'the other'. Reported speech not only presents the words of another, but also their intonation or style, the appreciation of which is shared by readers. Reported speech is considered as a site of appropriation of the words of 'the other'. It is introduced to represent, picture, categorise and finalise the client but, at the same time, offers gaps for criticising and undermining such portrayals. When presented with reported speech, the reader has the opportunity to hear the clients' words, point of view and style of speech. The chapter looks at a number of extracts mainly from interviews between a social worker and research interviewer and consider the consequences of allowing the client to be heard. To seek out 'the other' in reported speech is an occasion on which an alternative depiction is made available for re-reading.
