What a Quote Means
Suppose you pick up the morning paper and happen to read an article about a topic of local interest. Let’s further suppose that you read far enough to reach a quote by a source. You’ll know it’s a quote because it will most likely be structured this way: “Making corn liquor ought to be a man’s right,” said Dentin Fenders.
The basic structure includes the words spoken by the source, a “neutral” attributive verb (said, says, asked, asks), and the source’s name (or situational identifier if anonymous, e.g. a highly-placed White House official).
I spend a lot of time drilling students in my Introduction to Journalism class on the common structures of journalistic discourse. This simple attributive structure is part of the rhetoric of journalism and plays an important role in the canons of invention and style. One of the most important means of persuasion in journalism is the source (also see my thoughts on the role of sources in journalistic epistemology). The source is understood to know something of value or civic utility to the public. To find and quote the right sources, and to quote them in the proper rhetoric of journalism, then, is to make a particular type of argument.
[Editor's Note: Journalists usually do not think of themselves as making arguments. But, to remind Rhetorica readers, from my theoretical perspective, all human communication has rhetorical intention, i.e. we want our auditors to do something in regard to our communication.]
Perhaps the most important value driving this rhetorical maneuver is “accuracy.” Accuracy plus a knowledgeable source equals journalistic legitimacy. And journalistic legitimacy is necessary to any understanding of the primary purpose of journalism: to give citizens the information they need to be free and self-governing.
But there’s a big flaw in this system: Journalists have a difficult time quoting sources accurately. For the latest on this, read what Mark Liberman has so say on Language Log (more discussion here).
What does accuracy in regard to a quote really mean?
Quote marks are intended to indicate that everything between them came out of the sources mouth in exactly the way rendered on the printed page.
Part of the reason for the problem is right there in my assertion: “rendered on the printed page.” You see, writing is a graphic representation of language. It is not itself language. Language includes many features the standard notations of writing cannot reproduce except as commentary, e.g. “Making corn liquor ought to be a man’s right,” snorted Dentin Fenders. Ooooops. See what happens? That attributive verb is no longer “neutral.” And you can imagine a bunch of other verbs that could be used there that require the reporter to make a qualitative judgement about Fender’s statement.
Another problem with rendering language in print is that humans speak, for the most part, in phrasal bursts and not complete sentences. The idea of the complete sentence (signaled with punctuation marks) is a convention of print.
The point is simply this: Any quote is a representation and not the original thing itself.
Setting aside error in transcription for another day, let’s quickly examine the professional standards for rendering quotes. News organizations are surely free to decide standards. The Associated Press Stylebook, however, is as close to a universal standard as you can get in journalism. The AP rule is don’t change quotes, which assumes you got them right in the first place, because what’s between the marks should be “exactly” what the source said. The problem is obvious: What was “said” is language (including tone and gesture and a lot of other stuff). So right from the start the AP standard is suspect.
I disagree with AP in regard to changing a speaker’s “grammar.” Let’s suppose this is a “more accurate” representation of what Fenders said (assuming no noise in the system): “Makin’ corn liquor oughter be a men’s right.” How would this be more accurate? It requires the reporter to render not only basic language in print but also dialect and accent. Are we to trust reporters to get the sound right as well as the substance? I don’t think so. Far too many graduate college without ever taking a course in rhetoric or linguistics. Further, we live in a society that tends to look down on people who do not speak standard English (whatever that is) or make minor errors in writing (e.g. dismiss something because a word was misssspellled).
Assuming a good faith effort on the journalist’s part (a good assumption, I believe, despite so much grousing about bias) and proper adherence to professional norms, what does a quote mean?
It means whatever the journalist intended by its use.
People should read this.