Functional considerations

The above discussion might (wrongly) create the impression that the only as- pect which plays a role in the choice of a speech reporting strategy is connect- ed to the degree of orality. Of course there is more to it than that. This subsec- tion serves to put our earlier considerations into the appropriate perspective. Collins (1996, 2001) extensively describes the pragmatic functions of the vari- ous speech reporting strategies. When transferring these insights to the data

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on birchbark, one might expect to find the same tendencies. In some cases this comes true, in others less clearly so.

Collins (2001: 50, 286) argues that every usage of a particular speech report- ing strategy is pragmatically or functionally motivated. So it is not just a ques- tion of the extent to which the author wanted to gain control over the inter- pretative process. However, the text type of Collins’s investigations (Biblical discourse in Old Church Slavonic and legal discourse in Old Russian) is much lengthier than our brief birchbark letters. Accordingly, it is difficult, if not im- possible, to transfer all his insights about functional motivations of reporting strategies to our data. But let us briefly review the main contentions of Col- lins’s (2001) theory, anyway.

Direct speech often has a foregrounding function, i.e. the report is made more prominent (Collins 1996: 64), more vivid (2001: 68) and (seemingly) more ob- jective (Ibid.: 71). All these aspects are due to the higher interpretative de- mands that direct speech makes on the reader. Thus, he is more involved in the joint project (Clark 1996), which is essentially dialogic in nature. A similar ‘mutuality’ is absent, or much less obvious, in prototypical written language.

We have already seen some of the considerations concerning the authorial burden. Collins (2001: 201) also notes that “the longer and more convoluted a report is, the greater the preference is for [direct speech]”. This is the only strategy that allows really long reports. As we have seen by the phenomenon of slipping, the selection of a strategy does not have to be a conscious choice. “Where S [the speaker] is trying to stress common ground that he shares with H [the hearer], we would expect him to make only the minimal adjustment in point of view when reporting… Hence we would expect a preference for di- rect quotes with uninterpreted referring expressions, names, and so on, even where this may result in a loss of clarity” (Brown & Levinson 1987: 122, as cited by Clark & Gerrig 1990: 793). It should be borne in mind that this loss of clari- ty must be compensated, in our case by the situation in which the letter func- tions. When direct speech is used, normally “there is no risk of perspectival confusion […], because disambiguating elements appear in the immediate context” (Collins 1996: 43). If there are no such elements, the disambiguation must take place in the common ground, as was noted above (i.e. the report becomes more context-dependent).

Thus, we have to do with communicative (common ground) as well as purely propositional considerations (saliency, given/new etc.). The choice for direct speech may be influenced by functional motivations, but it can only be em- ployed if this is allowed by the situation in which the letter plays it part. Ac- cordingly, the nature of the situation of utterance (including the possible pres- ence of a messenger) is an underlying, more basic factor than the other considerations. In other words, there are functional reasons for choosing di- rect speech (in the area of saliency, etc.), but these reasons have to be ‘afforda-

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ble’. The functional reasons mentioned by Collins (2001) are overruled if pre- cluded by the situation of distance that exists in written communication. After all, there is not much point in making a report more vivid, or in foreground- ing the information in the report, if this results in a confusion of perspectives, and hence in a severe loss of clarity.

To sum up: the use of direct speech does not necessarily and exclusively have to emanate from an oral mindset, but the fact that readers were able to deal with it, in certain cases without the help of further intra-textual disambiguat- ing elements, suggests that an oral mindset was available in correspondence; in other words, it suggests that letters could be part of a communicative strat- egy based on immediacy. In addition, and within the confines of the demands of the communicative configuration, there are other functional factors playing a role, such as those mentioned by Collins (2001).

A great deal can be said about the functional and propositional reasons for the use of a particular speech reporting strategy, but on a more fundamental level, the communicative prerequisites for a felicitous interpretation must be fa- vourable if a strategy is to be used. Orality is to be seen as a more underlying factor compared to the factors mentioned by Collins (2001).

A similar line of thought can be taken up for indirect speech, with the differ- ence that indirect speech can be used more widely: there are fewer restrictions on its distribution. Indirect speech does not have a demand for immediacy: it can be used in the language of distance as well.

Indirect speech conveys “backgrounded information” (Collins 2001: 107), which is less prominent (1996: 42). If we look at the length of the examples on birchbark, they turn out to be much shorter stretches than those in direct speech. However, the brevity of the birchbark letters often precludes bold statements about salient and less salient propositions.

“In reported commands of this kind, the use of indirectness prevents con- fusion between the perspectives of the addressees in the different layers of rep- resentation” (Collins 1996: 40). So this is a functional consideration, but defi- nitely one that has to do with the limitations and drawbacks of the written medium, i.e. the language of distance. This also explains the almost exclusive occurrence of the instructive type among the instances of indirect speech, i.e. it firmly attaches the indirect strategy to the instructive type (although, con- versely, the instructive type often occurs in the direct strategy, too). It can be added to this that an instruction phrased in indirect speech sounds less threat-

ening; it functions as a mitigation (German Abtönung) of the instruction.

Of course, if the content of a report is less relevant, the reader should not need to invest much effort in decoding the report. On the other hand, if it is very relevant and important, the reader should (a) be forced to invest more time, and thus pay more attention to the important proposition; but this works only if disambiguating elements are present (either in the text, in the common

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ground or in the person of a messenger); (b) if no such disambiguating ele- ments are present, the safest way is to choose a compact strategy, such as an NRSA, in order to maximally ensure a felicitous interpretation, even if the lighter interpretative effort results in the reader paying less attention to the report.