ABSTRACT

Quotations are the evidence upon which journalists build stories about public fi gures, and readers in turn form impressions of these fi gures. Their presumed status as fact is symbolized by separating them from other text constituents via inverted commas, a stylistic convention originally used to herald sententious remarks (Culbertson & Somerick, 1976; Garber, 1999), but now universally recognized in nonfi ction as signaling an exact replication of a source’s words. However, empirical analyses of direct quotations suggest they are often far from faithful reproductions. In conversation, quotations are less likely to duplicate speech word-forword than to selectively depict certain speech aspects while omitting or distorting others (Clark & Gerrig, 1990). For example, one might recount an ironic comment overheard about the weather (e.g., “Nothing but blue skies, just like the weatherman said!” uttered in a downpour) by reconstructing the intonation and illocutionary force of the comment (e.g., “She said ‘Um, isn’t this great weather?’ in this totally sarcastic tone…”), but not the exact wording nor the target of derisive intent. Such reconstructions fail to meet the strict verbatim criterion we expect of passages portrayed as direct quotations, but do succeed as demonstrations of a source’s intentions (Wade & Clark, 1993).