© 2009 Keiko Ikeda Quotation patterns in Japanese

This study examines the use of quotations in Japanese by political figures when they speak in a public arena, such as open debates, street speeches, or on political affairs television programs. The study first discusses the pragma-linguistic complexity involved in quotation patterns in Japanese. Adopting Kamada (2000)’s theoretical approach to quotation patterns in Japanese, I argue that the direct-indirect dichotomy characterizing English cannot account for the Japanese data. The degrees of (a) perspective taken by the speaker themselves in quoting, as illustrated by deictic expressions, and (b) “interactiveness ” the speaker wants to integrate into the quotation via modality usage seem to create a continuous reported-ness pattern