Inszenierungen direkter Rede in mündlichen Interaktionen

In this paper, we analyse four different linguistic devices that partic-ipants use to contextualize direct speech in German everyday conver-sations. Three of them are so-called quotative constructions (nach dem Motto, von wegen, ich so/sie so) whereas one device is a prosodic one. We show that each device is specialized for specific types of direct speech. Our main claim is that humans use direct reported dialogue in everyday conversation not only to give information on what someone (or them-selves) has said or thought, but also to accomplish interactional activities such as evaluating the participants of the reported speech and making their own speech more appealing by inventing dialogues and scenes which never took place. Based on an analysis of German spoken-language corpora, we argue that most instances of direct speech do not serve to report true dialogues (or dialogues speakers believe to be true), but rather can be viewed as a way of lying for a good purpose, specifically to make conversation more lively and appealing.