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Putting the Threads Together

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The Pragmatics of Indirect Reports

Part of the book series: Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology ((PEPRPHPS,volume 8))

Abstract

This book has been written after many detours, represented by my previous monographs and doctoral thesis (Capone 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002). All these steps (as I am now aware, although I was not aware of this when I wrote the previous works) led in the direction of this monograph on indirect reports. On my way, I also found some companions whose work led in this direction (although they too were probably unaware of this): James Higginbotham, Yan Huang, Ernie Lepore and Kasia Jaszczolt. Their considerations on linguistics and philosophy of language were essential input to the current work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is animated by an intention, as Dascal (2003) would put it.

  2. 2.

    Wettstein (2016), following Quine, uses the term ‘deviation’.

  3. 3.

    The principal advantage of abridgments is that they do not display the words used, but work as short summaries. This tactics can prevent the indirect reporter from sounding too offensive, as reporting the words verbatim may reproduce the offence. The summary, instead, is an indirect report not only in so far as it reports something without quoting an utterance (by briefly characterizing it in a narrative way) but also in so far as it removes the offensive words: it is indirect also in the sense that it works like a mitigator of the offence.

  4. 4.

    An alternative view might be that these reports need to be contextualized and, in context, it may be clear whether the speaker is a directly related source of information or not. Admittedly, this is an issue where one can hold more than one view.

  5. 5.

    Of course, summaries can be used with the purpose of hiding part of the truth. The result of encapsulating some information and of eliminating other pieces of information may be that of ‘partiality’ intended as an unfair treatment of a person through a characterization. Suppose I am asked to write a reference on behalf of Mary, and I confine myself to merely describing her good qualities or (only) her negative qualities. In either case, the result would be disappointing and it might be claimed that my treatment of information concerning Mary was not correct, as there was not the proper balance of good and bad traits.

  6. 6.

    In the sense that the use of ‘John promised …’ in the indirect report does not correspond to the use of a performative expression (like ‘I promise that…) in the original utterance.

  7. 7.

    In a subsequent chapter I say more on footing. For the time being, suffice it to say that ‘X said that p’ with x as animator, can only receive the interpretation ‘X said: p’ (recontextualing things, this interpretation is available).

  8. 8.

    Grice would have used the convoluted but more appropriate ‘He made as if to say that p’ for such cases. I think one can utter ‘X said that p’ only in a loose way, in such cases.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Messina, Barcellona PG ME, Italy

    Alessandro Capone

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  1. Alessandro Capone
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Capone, A. (2016). Putting the Threads Together. In: The Pragmatics of Indirect Reports . Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41078-4_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41078-4_1

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