Unambiguous Free Indirect Discourse?

Although they have been characterized in terms of the mixture of a protagonist’s and the narrator’s voices, the formal specifications of the free indirect forms of speech and thought presentation are not always applicable to actual cases, and the decision to make a free indirect speech (FIS) or free indirect thought (FIT) reading mainly depends on the contexts in which that decision occurs. This study compares prototypical FIS/FIT cases with those which are ambiguous between narration and either one of these forms (N-FIS/N-FIT cases) and tries to specify the textual/contextual elements which differentiate straightforward FIS/FIT and N-FIS/N-FIT ambiguities. The analysis, which is based on the data of the Lancaster Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation (SW&TP) corpus, shows that the management of viewpoint is the key to distinguishing straightforward FIS/FIT from ambiguous cases. It also suggests that N-FIS and N-FIT ambiguities with narration can have different effects on the reader’s understanding of the textual worlds compared with prototypical FIS/FIT cases.