Crossing Modalities: A Cognitive Semantics Perspective on Quoting

2015

Elaborating on Talmy (2007a, forthcoming) and Lampert (2013, 2014), this follow- up study probes into quoting as an attention-and modality-sensitive phenomenon at the interface of speech and writing, taking inaugural addresses from Kennedy to Obama as cases in point. Lexicalized to redirect some attention from a quotation’s referential content to concomitants closely associated with it, quotatives medium-specifically prime speech-internal properties of their targets, animating the ‘other voice’ through prosodic and gestural prompts in face-to-face interactions, while figural prompts demarcate verbatim citations in print. Quotations from pre-scripted videotaped presidential inaugurals reveal…