Reported speech is a universal form across human languages. However, previous studies have tended to be limited because they mostly emphasize on the form and authenticity of reported speech, while its discourse and pragmatic functions have largely been ignored. Meanwhile, the studies mainly focus on English, with a comparative perspective with other languages largely missing.
Acknowledging these limitations, this book analyzes the textual and pragmatic functions of reported speech in Chinese and English. The authors build a corpus comprising of twelve Chinese and English newspapers, including...