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Metalinguistic acts in fiction

This chapter identifies and explains several primary functions of the fictional use of metalinguistic devices and considers some difficult cases. Among the more interesting functions are those that directly and indirectly report speech and thoughts from inside and outside the fictional world, and those that structure storytelling as characters perform secondary narrative roles, change narrative pace, and shift perspective. In particular, the chapter argues that when real persons are quoted in a storyworld they are ‘storified’ as near-real fictions. In cases of the misquotation of real persons, near-real fictions and near-real quotations must adequately exploit resemblances between the real and the fictional. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the similarities between fictional and nonfictional uses of metalinguistic acts. Both kinds of acts must be psychologically compelling, structure and inform interpretations of the world, import common ground, and permit secondary narration; but only in fictional contexts can the original and reporting contexts merge. This analysis is brought to bear on our understanding of imagination and make-believe.