Obama said it: Quoting as an evidential strategy in online discussion forums

Quoting constitutes a well documented evidential strategy across languages. This article examines an English collection of comments in online political discussion forums, which covers a wide spectrum of patterns with 1) overt stance-taking plus a direct quotation at one end and 2) implicit stance-taking without quotation at the other. The notions of deixis and accountability are used in order to explicate the evidential function of quotations in the practices of stance-taking observed: While pattern 1) achieves participants’ maximum accountability and entitlement to making their claims, pattern 2) is associated with minimum accountability and entitlement. The findings are discussed in light of knowledge management and epistemic authority.