Direct style as a narrative strategy in Pamplona's youth speech

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an investigation on direct speech in Spanish spoken and its value as a narrative strategy in oral discourse by young people from Pamplona. More specifically, the paper aims to describe the different aspects involved in the configuration of direct quotations in oral interviews of youth speech in PRESEEA-Pamplona, as well as the recurring use of direct quotations as a narrative device in discourse. Findings indicate that direct quotations are mainly composed of speech acts introduced by communication verbs. They also involve the use of different strategies of personal, spatial, and temporal deictic change that allows the introduction of realities different from those of the original discourse. Furthermore, they tend to represent self-citations. Finally, in orality, direct quotations favor the creation of reconstructed dialogues where speakers tend to animate voices, giving rise to complex stories. Overall, findings reveal that direct speech is a very productive phenomenon in conversation allowing speakers to (re)create discourses in which they introduce their own subjectivity.