Free Indirect Speech/Discorso Indiretto Libero

[Jim Wilce]

Ben Lee has what I think is a very insightful discussion of Free Indirect
Speech as a literary, linguistic, semiotic, and ideological formation.  It
is in chapter 8 of his book:

Lee, Benjamin. 1997. Talking Heads: Language, Metalanguage, and the
Semiotics of Subjectivity. Durham: Duke University Press.

The chapter argues that FIS and other forms of "RST" (represented speech
and thought) exploit language-specific resources and construct historically
contingent forms of subjectivity.  Lee uses this to build on his
explication of B.L. Whorf's thought in earlier chapters, here indicating
that Whorfian shaping of thought is accomplished by literary genres and
genre-specific tools of narrativity.


--Jim

Jim Wilce
      Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Coordinator of Asian Studies
        Northern Arizona University
        Box 15200
        Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5200

fax 520/523-9135
office ph. 520/523-2729
email jim.wilce at nau.edu
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22/ (includes information on my 1998 book,
Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural
Bangladesh, ISBN 0-19-510687-3)
http://www.nau.edu/asian