QUOTATION (2,011 words)
AUTHOR: Philippe De Brabanter
In its typical form a quotation is an iconic sign for a linguistic representation. Its main
varieties are (1) metalinguistic citation, (2) direct quotation/speech, (3) mixed quotation and
(4) scare quoting:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
‘Brussels’ rhymes with ‘muscles’.
Then she said, ‘Will you write a letter?’ and I said, ‘Sure’. (Hash 1999)
Quine says that quotation ‘... has a certain anomalous feature’. (Davidson 1979: 28)
A boy tells Grossman of ‘his’ house in Jaffa. He has never seen it, but his grandfather
did. (Grant 2000)
Quotations are often classified in reference to W.V.O. Quine’s distinction between ‘use’ and
‘mention’ (Quine 1940). In (1), the words Brussels and muscles are not used but mentioned
(more precisely, the quotations ‘Brussels’ and ‘muscles’ are used to mention the names
Brussels and muscles as types). In (2), we have a similar situation, with the difference that the
strings ‘Will you write a letter?’ and ‘Sure’ are presented as standing for uttered tokens. In
(3), which appears to combine direct with indirect speech – the quotation is under the scope of
says that – has a certain anomalous feature fulfils its ordinary, quotation-independent,
function in the quoting sentence but is mentioned at the same time. A similar description
applies to his in (4) with the difference that the quotation does not occur within the scope of a
verb of saying. Note that, if quotation is defined as involving mention of a linguistic
representation, then so-called ‘indirect quotation/speech’ is not a variety of quotation in the
strict sense because it does not appear to function as an iconic sign in C.S. Peirce’s sense.
Syntactic and semantic inertness
It has been repeatedly observed that just about anything can be quoted. This is certainly true
with metalinguistic citation and direct quotation:
(5) ‘No me gusta la carne!’ is my favourite Spanish sentence.
(6) And then she said ‘I won’t blah blah this and blah blah that’.
In both (5) and (6), it is clear that the quoted strings do not make an ordinary syntactic and
semantic contribution to the quoting sentence. This is true of all quotations that involve only
mention, not use, regardless of whether they have a bona fide English syntax and semantics,
or include foreign words as in (5), non-words as in (6) or even representations of noises (see
(10) and (11) below). Accordingly, many scholars propose that quoted strings are
syntactically and semantically ‘inert’ with respect to the phrase or clause in which they are
embedded (Davidson 1979: 37; García-Carpintero 1994: 261; Recanati 2001: 651). Such
inertness, however, cannot extend to quotations that involve use together with mention, as in
(3) and (4), precisely because the quoted strings are used in those examples. Still, there
remain difficulties with the account in terms of simultaneous use and mention: even in mixed
and scare quoting, strings different from English words can be tokened:
(7) If you were a French academic, you might say that the parrot was un symbole du Logos.
(Barnes 1985: 18)
Though the French string un symbole du Logos is made to fulfil the same syntactic and
semantic role that its translated equivalent a symbol of the Logos would, it cannot be said to
be used in (7) in any simple sense: an explanation of what it means for a non-English string to
be used in an English sentence is required.
The mechanism(s) of quotation
Though nearly everyone agrees that quotation possesses an iconic (pictorial) dimension, there
is no general consensus that this is the essential mechanism on which quotation works. Thus,
writers from Tarski (1983: 156) to Gómez-Torrente (2005) claim that, in cases like (1) and
(2), enclosing a string between quotation marks creates a term made up of the inverted
commas and a so-called interior. A quotation, then, is a composite name that refers to its
interior. However, contrary to appearances, the name has no internal structure: it is
monomorphemic. Other writers hold that inverted commas function essentially as indexical
signs. Thus, the popular ‘demonstrative theory’ championed notably by Sørensen (1961) and
Davidson (1979), has it that a pair of inverted commas is a sort of demonstrative pronoun
that points at its interior. These theories have the advantage of offering a direct explanation
for the inertness of quotations: on the monomorphemic theory, the interior is a meaningless
part of a morpheme, not any more meaningful than let in letter (cf. Quine 1940: 26); on the
demonstrative account, the interior is the demonstratum, and like any demonstratum it is part
not of the sentence but of the extra-sentential context. However, these theories meet with
serious difficulties when faced with quotations involving use as well as mention. There is no
way a name or a demonstrative pronoun can be substituted for the quotes in (3) and (4) (cf.
Recanati 2001: 654).
Another popular account of the way quotation works is the so-called ‘identity theory’, which
holds that the quotation and what it mentions are one and the same thing. Thus, in (1), the
nouns Brussels and muscles are used – albeit anomalously – to mention themselves (see, e.g.
Searle 1969: 74-76; Washington 1992: 582). The attractive simplicity of this account may
conceal some serious difficulties. For example, Brussels and muscles in (1) are tokens, but
they refer to types or lexemes. No ‘simple identity’ is at play here.
A further major line of thinking is represented by the ‘demonstration theories’ of Clark and
Gerrig (1990) and Recanati (2001). These theorists view quotations essentially as depictive or
iconic acts whose purpose is to illustrate certain features exemplified by the uttered token, e.g.
a linguistic form, a meaning, the speaker’s pronunciation, age, emotional state, etc. (Clark and
Gerrig 1990: 769; Clark 1996: 175). Recanati (2001: 649) suggests that these acts are
sometimes ‘linguistically recruited’ to fill a slot in a phrase or clause. He then talks of ‘closed
quotation’ (as in (1), (2), (5), (6), (8)), and uses the term ‘open quotation’ for those cases in
which a linguistic demonstration is not recruited (examples (3), (4), (7)). Typically, closed
quotations are metalinguistic referring expressions, but open quotations are not. In this
respect, Recanati’s version of the demonstration theory is at odds with all other major
theories, which hold that all quotations are referential expressions.
Marks
There is a debate as to whether quotation is marked in a linguistically conventional way. The
debate suffers from the almost exclusive focus on written language in discussions of
quotation. Thus, the only serious contenders for the title of conventional linguistic markers of
quotation have been single or double inverted commas, with some allowances made for
italics. To ‘conventionalists’, quotation is essentially a semantic phenomenon. The meaning
of quotation marks affects logical form, hence this meaning is truth-conditionally relevant
(cf. Cappelen and Lepore 2005). This is so even when those marks are not overtly realized in
the quoting sentence, either because the writer failed to use inverted commas, or because the
quotation occurs in speech. Thus, conventionalists have to assume that spoken quotations
exhibit some counterpart of quotation marks. However, very little research has been done into
this issue, and the question remains open whether there are conventional linguistic markers of
spoken quotation. Defenders of semantic accounts, usually the monomorphemic or the
demonstrative theory, also have to deal with the fact that quotation marks were nonexistent in
written European languages until the Middle Ages and that their use did not generalize until
the Modern period. On the other side of the theoretical divide, one finds scholars who endorse
pragmatic accounts of quotation, usually some form of the identity or demonstration theories.
For these scholars, whatever signals there are, these are optional ‘pragmatic indicators’ (Clark
and Gerrig; Recanati) or disambiguating marks (Saka 1998). These theorists do not have to
face the issues just raised, but they have to explain the (sometimes) truth-conditional impact
of quotations with more than an appeal to the conventional meaning of quotation marks.
Metalinguistic predicates
Metalinguistic predicates often signal the presence of a quotation, though not systematically.
They can combine with two types of mention: ‘autonymous’, in which a token of an
expression is produced in order to refer to another token of that expression or to a type which
it instantiates, as in (8); and ‘heteronymous’, i.e. mention by means of an NP that is not
iconically related to the expression mentioned, as in (9) (see Recanati 2000: 137):
(8) ‘Collateral damage’ is a despicable expression.
(9) That is a despicable expression.
The predicate be a despicable expression requires a metalinguistic argument, but that
argument need not be a quotation. It can be a mentioning expression that works noniconically. Likewise for these heteronymous variants of the quotations in (1) and (2):
(1') The name of the Belgian capital rhymes with a name for fibrous tissue.
(2') Then she said something I pretended not to hear.
Notice that heteronymous mentions are usually purely metalinguistic referential expressions,
and that explains why they cannot substitute for the quotations in (3) or (4), where some form
of use accompanies mention.
Extension to non-linguistic representations
Some scholars stress the similarities between quoting and some forms of iconic gesturing
(Clark and Gerrig 1990; Recanati 2001; De Brabanter forthcoming). It appears difficult to
find a cut-off point between prototypical cases of quotation – where the interior of the
quotation consists of linguistic material only – and less typical cases – where the interior of
(what may still be) a quotation comprises non-linguistic sounds or even non-sonic gesturing:
(10) Then the camel went [SPEAKER IMITATES A CAMEL BELCH].
(11) Piano student plays passage in manner µ
Teacher: It’s not [PLAYS PASSAGE IN MANNER µ] – it’s [PLAYS PASSAGE
(Horn 1989: 564; quoted in Recanati 2001: 648-49)
(12) Then Joe went [SPEAKER IMITATES SOMEONE KEEPING A LOW PROFILE].
IN MANNER
µ'].
If one accepts that (10) contains a quotation of non-linguistic sounds – a tempting conclusion,
given the presence of quotative went – then there seems to be no principled reason to deny
that (11) contains quotations. But if it is possible to quote musical passages, i.e. sounds not
produced by vocal organs, then there is little reason to deny that (12) contains a (sort of)
quotation too. Clearly, it is the iconic nature of the communicative behaviour that unites these
various cases. One possible line of objection against such an extension of the notion of
quotation may consist in requiring quotations to be metarepresentations. Whereas all
examples of quotations until (8) were metarepresentational, (10) and (11) may not be
(depending on whether the camel ‘meant’ something by belching and on whether music is
representational), and (12) clearly is not, since the gestures there refer to non-signalling
behaviours.
Quotation and metarepresentation
Those scholars like Wilson (2000) who approach quotation from the metarepresentational
angle tend to regard quotations as just one type of metarepresentation. Quotations are
higher-order linguistic representations of lower-order linguistic representations. But the
mechanism on which quotation is said to work – representation by resemblance – is also that
on which the other types of metarepresentations work (2000: 425). In metarepresentations of
thought, resemblance is usually ‘interpretive’: the higher-order representation shares a
number of logical and contextual implications with the represented thought (2000: 426). In
quotation, resemblance can be mainly formal (metalinguistic citation or direct quotation) or
interpretive (indirect quotation) or both (mixed and scare quoting) (see Noh 2000).
As opposed to the line adopted in the preceding sections, relevance theorists emphasise the
commonalities between representations that formally resemble their object (roughly,
quotations that meet the iconicity criterion) and those that resemble it interpretively (roughly,
indirect quotations and representations of thought). They also underline the commonalities
between quotations and a series of linguistic devices (e.g. hearsay adverbs like allegedly or
parentheticals like as X says) which, though not strictly quotational, signal that certain
utterances or thoughts are to be attributed to other cognitive agents. Like quotation, these
devices are interesting in that they appeal to a metacommunicative ability that is ‘a sub-part of
a more general metapsychological ability, or “theory of mind”’ (Wilson 2000: 440).
See also: Conventionality; demonstratives; echoic
metarepresentation; Peirce, C.S.; philosophy of language
use;
evidentials;
indexicals;
Suggestions for further reading:
Cappelen, H. and Lepore, E. (2007) Language Turned on Itself: The Semantics and
Pragmatics of Metalinguistic Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Brabanter, P. (ed.) (2005) Hybrid Quotations, Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 17,
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Rey-Debove, J. (1997) Le Métalangage: Étude Linguistique du Discours sur le Langage,
Paris: Armand Colin.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barnes, J. (1985) Flaubert’s Parrot, London: Picador.
Cappelen, H. and Lepore, E. (2005) ‘Varieties of quotation revisited’, Belgian Journal of
Linguistics, 17: 51-75.
Clark, H.H. (1996) Using Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clark, H.H. and Gerrig, R.J. (1990) ‘Quotations as demonstrations’, Language, 66: 764-805.
Davidson, D. (1979) ‘Quotation’, Theory and Decision, 11: 27-40.
De Brabanter, P. (forthcoming) ‘Uttering sentences made up of words and gestures’, in E.
Romero & B. Soria (eds) Explicit Communication: Robyn Carston’s Pragmatics,
Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan.
García-Carpintero, M. (1994) ‘Ostensive signs: against the identity theory of quotation’, The
Journal of Philosophy, 91: 253-64.
Gómez-Torrente, M. (2005) ‘Remarks on impure quotation’, Belgian Journal of Linguistics,
17: 129-51.
Grant, L. (2000) ‘What lies beneath’, Guardian, October 24.
Hash, G. (1999) Oral History, Umatilla, Oregon. Online. Available HTTP:
<http://www.ccrh.org/comm/umatilla/oralhis/grghash.htm> (accessed 4 July 2008).
Horn, L. (1989) A Natural History of Negation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Noh, E.-J. (2000) Metarepresentation: A Relevance-Theory Approach, Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Quine, W.V.O. (1940) Mathematical Logic, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Recanati, F. (2000) Oratio Obliqua, Oratio Recta: An Essay on Metarepresentation,
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Recanati, F. (2001) ‘Open quotation’, Mind, 110: 637-87.
Saka, P. (1998) ‘Quotation and the use-mention distinction’, Mind, 107: 113-35.
Searle, J.R. (1969) Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge and
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sørensen, H.S. (1961) ‘An analysis of linguistic signs occurring in Suppositio Materialis or
the meaning of quotation marks and their phonetic equivalents’, Lingua, 10: 174-89.
Tarski, A. (1983) Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics. Papers from 1923 to 1938, trans. J.H.
Woodger, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Washington, C. (1992) ‘Identity theory of quotation’, The Journal of Philosophy, 89: 582605.
Wilson, D. (2000) ‘Metarepresentation in linguistic communication’, in D. Sperber (ed.)
Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, Oxford: Oxford University Press.