Reports, Indirect Reports, and Illocutionary Point

Abstract

This essay examines the properties of reports and the diagnostic value of illocutions in reports.

Essentially a report is X’s re-presentation to Y of what Z said. Because X is not identical with Z, what Z said is necessarily transmuted by X. X may use a different medium (e.g. written in place of spoken); X will have a different voice; and X will re-present what Z said, more often than not using different lexis and grammar, even when attempting a verbatim quote. X may have misheard or misinterpreted Z’s utterance: she may add an affective gloss. All of these distinguish X’s report ρ from Z’s utterance υ in both form and content, which renders every report “indirect” to some extent; there are different degrees of indirectness, but a truly indirect report utilises pragmatic enrichment, e.g. when Z’s utterance It’s never stopped raining since we arrived is reported as Z complained about the terrible weather there or I won easily is reported as a boast, mistake, or lie.

The accuracy of X’s report ρ depends on whether or not the message in Z’s υ can be reconstructed from it. In other words, the content of ρ is dependent on the content of υ. If υ deviates from the truth in respect of what Z speaks of, then ρ will also deviate from the truth unless X recognizes this deviation and repairs it.

An accurate report ρ re-presents the illocutionary point of the source utterance υ. So a report can function as a diagnostic of the illocutionary point of the source utterance. For instance reports of them show that explicit performative clauses are statements and have truth values. Reports are a means of identifying different functions of imperatives and of disambiguating different utterances of e.g. Out! as a verdictive in a tennis match or a command on some other occasion. And reports help determine whether e.g. ‘whimperatives’ are primarily questions or primarily requests.