Wer spricht? Über die Formen der Redewiedergabe im Deutschen

Abstract

The contribution addresses the formal differences existing between the so-called direct and the so-called indirect reported speech in German. In both ways of reporting speech, different problems occur as to how identify the original speaker. Within indirect speech, a distinction is made between marked and unmarked indirect speech and it is demonstrated that indirect speech not marked as such implies special problems connected with the identification of the speaker, which leads to the assumption that this way of reporting speech in the spoken register is not – as is held by grammar books – the most frequent way of reporting speech. As a result, the answer to the question „Who is speaking?“ becomes easier the more formal distinctions are made to mark reported speech.