oa ‘Allemaal subjectief’, sneerde ze

The process of informalisation in newspapers is seen as an increase of subjectivity (Vis, 2011). The use of direct speech in newspapers is treated as a main characteristic of subjectivity. Whereas the quoted speech itself belongs to the domain of character or source subjectivity, the introducing linguistic element is part of the reporter subjectivity. The analysis has been concentrated on the final and medial position of the quotative relative to the quotation. The evidence from this corpus study of five Dutch newspapers from 1950-1 and 2001 shows that in the second half of the twentieth century the number and the variety of verbs introducing direct speech has increased rather significantly. This increase points to two elements of informalisation on behalf of the journalist: personalisation, the interpreting role of the journalist, and conversationalisation, the more lively interaction between reader and journalist.