Direct and indirect speech in Spanish language news reports

Abstract

This work uses data from two Spanish language newspapers: Granma from Cuba and El Nuevo Herald from Miami to analyze pragmatic and social factors that underlie the use of reported speech in news texts. This study examines pragmatic and social constraints on journalists’ choice of reporting speech structures. Journalists use direct speech to provide a literal quotation of another’s voice, whereas indirect speech is presents the journalists’ own rendition of the quoted words. The qualitative and quantitative analyses reveal that Granma and El Nuevo Herald exhibit different patterns of use of direct and indirect speech, which are motivated by the two newspapers’ ideological perspectives and the level of political and social power of the news actors.