ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses indirect discourse in two different aspects. The first reflects the ability of discourses to tackle contents indirectly instead of head-on. The second aspect looks into forms of discourse as indirect speech and opposite to direct speech. New developments in humanities such as functional linguistics, pragmatics and semiotics have shifted the view on discourse from a purely cognitive system of meanings to a structure and process of speech acts. Discourse analysts have problematised the link between what is said and what is meant in 'these specific, immanent, and necessarily implicit acts'. This is central for the understanding of both public relations (PR) as 'effectuating communication' and silence as indirect 'speech act'. Within a discourse: Silence is the extreme manifestation of indirectness. Valentin N. Vološhinov distinguishes between two directions, which the analytical tendency of indirect discourse can take: referent-analysing and texture-analysing.
