Evidentials in entextualization

The present paper examines the discursive functions of evidentials within the framework of Austinian speech act theory, and analyzes how they are used in a newspaper article. The discursive functions of evidentials are specified as their contribution to the illocutionary force. By indicating the information source of a situation/event/thing in the world, the speaker (or the writer) testifies, reports, conjectures, or performs other expositive illocutionary acts (Austin [1962] 1975). An inherent feature of the illocutionary and perlocutionary effect is that the hearer (or the reader) is invited to share the interpretation of the situation/event/thing, and to adopt a certain attitude toward it. When the act is successful, the situation/event/thing is imported to the discourse as the content of the act, which becomes a ground for performing a further act. This function of evidentials is described as entextualization functions (Fetzer 2011): the discursive value of the given information is specified, where the specification is marked linguistically. Modals have similar entextualization functions.