Quotation marks in Spanish headlines: Evidentiality and emotional perspectivisation

Abstract

Occasionally, quotation marks in the headlines of Spanish digital newspapers seem not to adhere to established norms fully. In this paper, a pilot study is reported that focuses on three main questions: i) Is there a creative use of quotation marks in Spanish headlines?; ii) Is there a relationship between this use and current reading and writing practices?; iii) How can these uses be integrated into a general theory of communication? Based on a small corpus of newspaper headlines, I will show that double quotation marks specialise in direct quotations (evidentiality), while single quotation marks are evolving into indicators that activate the derivation of non-propositional, affective effects (emotional perspectivisation), thus aligning with new online reading and writing practices. A procedural approach satisfactorily accounts for the interpretative properties of these uses and sheds new light on their growing role as vehicles of emotion.