Shifted face emoji in indirect discourse: A mixed-quotational approach

Abstract

Face emoji standardly receive an author-oriented interpretation (Grosz et al., 2021). Moreover, Grosz et al. (2023) claimed that they normally cannot receive a shifted interpretation in indirect discourse (ID). In this paper, we present the results of a rating study showing that emoji can receive a shifted interpretation, i.e., from the matrix subject’s perspective, in ID utterances. Following a suggestion by Ebert and Hinterwimmer (2022), we advocate for an analysis of ID treating it as mixed quotation. Crucially, as we are dealing with multimodal data, we view quotation as an instance of demonstration (Clark and Gerrig, 1990).