Speech and Thought Presentation in French: Concepts and Strategies

This book analyses and describes Speech and Thought Presentation (S&TP) in French from a broad theoretical perspective, building bridges between linguistic, stylistic and narratological frameworks that have until now been developed separately. It combines the French théorie de l’énonciation and different Anglo-Saxon approaches of reported discourse into a harmonious whole, in order to create a new and exciting paradigm for our conception of S&TP strategies. Basing its findings on actual corpora and going beyond the canonical categories of reported discourse, it shows that the study of S&TP strategies is essential to our understanding of phenomena as diverse as the evolution and categorization of literary genres, the production and staging of ‘orality’ in literature, the various conceptualizations of the notion of ‘Truth’ in fiction and non-fiction, the expression of points of view in narrative, the structuring of rhetorical strategies and the construction of the ‘Self’ versus the representation of the ‘Other’ in discourse.