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 Ling 131: Language & Style		  
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 Topic 9 (session A) - Speech Presentation > Thought presentation > Task A
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Session Overview
What happens when speech is presented
Varieties of speech presentation in the novel
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Thought presentation
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Thought presentation

Task A - Our comments for Cartoon 2

stef in the background with thought bubble and Dawn in foreground with speech bubble "Stef thinks she's got a bug"This cartoon is a bit more complex.

First of all, we have what Dawn says to you presented in Direct Speech. But then, inside that DS, we have Dawn presenting what Stef thought (so the thought presentation is embedded discoursally inside the speech presentation). The thought presentation itself is in the Indirect Thought (IT) mode. The reported clause 'she's got a bug' is grammatically subordinated to 'Stef thinks', the 3rd-person pronoun referring to Stef is appropriate to Dawn's (the narrator's) viewpoint, and the other features of the clause are also all appropriate for Dawn's speaking/presenting context.

The effect of IT seems to be rather like that we saw for IS. Although it tells us what Stef thought, it does it in a way that distances us from the original form of that thought - we are presented with what Stef thought through Dawn's words. If anything, this distancing effect is even greater with IT than IS, because we know that, in the real world, Dawn cannot have direct access to Stef's thoughts. So she must be inferring what Stef thinks on the basis of her external behaviour, and then presenting that inference in the IT presentational form.

 

 

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