Abstract

This paper focuses on the Romanian written media discourse with a view to point out the evidential strategies used for showing that the knowledge conveyed by the assertion comes from a third (specified / unspecified) source, different from the speaker’s own direct experience. Assuming that the written media discourse makes great use of reportative verbs, we aim at highlighting the opposition between the neutral reportative verbs (e.g. say, state) and the verbs that may point to the speaker’s agreement, more likely his/her disagreement, regarding the reported opinions (e.g. claim, pretend). Special emphases are placed on the lexical elements frequently associated to the reportative verb (news vs gossip) as well as on the verbal form occurring after the reportative (indicative mood vs conditional mood). This study is part of the research developed within the SMADEM – IDEI 1209 / 2007 Project financed by the Romanian Ministry of Education, Research and Youth