Is there a name for this?

[AlexBell]

In the first few lines of the first chapter of The Professor by Charlotte Brontë there is the following passage:

When I had declined my uncles' offers they asked me "What I intended to do?" I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale demanded sternly, "Whether I had thoughts of following my father's steps and engaging in trade?"

The words between the quotation marks are obviously not the actual words the speaker said; they are the meaning of what the speaker said. But the words are within quotations marks. I think that Charlotte Brontë used this 'technique' much more often than Elizabeth Gaskell or Harriet Martineau did. If I wanted to test this hypothesis by counting, what would I be counting? Is there a name for putting a speaker's meaning in quotations marks rather than the actual words the speaker would have said?

And why would a writer do it anyway? The words would convey exactly the same meaning if the quotation and question marks were left out.

[rkomar]

Deleted wrong ramblings of mine... Sorry, I don't know the answer.

[cromag]

I would describe it as a Paraphrase, but I've never seen it in quotation marks before.

From: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/1/

A paraphrase is...

your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.
a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Since she is summarizing from several uncles it's easier to paraphrase them (summing up all of their sentiments in a single quote) than to exactly quote each uncle.

[HarryT]

I'd call it "getting your punctuation wrong".

[Ripplinger]

I've also seen it before, but often with the phrase in italics, or single quotes a few times, but never in double quotes.

[theducks]

Sotto voce

Wikipediea even shows that passage

[meeera]

Originally Posted by theducks

Sotto voce

Wikipediea even shows that passage

Not that I can see, and sotto voce is lowering one's voice. I'm confused - can you link what you're referring to?

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I've also seen it before, but often with the phrase in italics, or single quotes a few times, but never in double quotes.

Could just be because it was first printed in 1857, rules change
It was fairly standard to put the titles of books, films, etc in quotation marks a few decades ago where now you would put them in italics, so probably the same kind of thing.

[HarryT]

A good point, Mike. Alex, does the rest of the book use single or double quotes for direct speech?

[curtw]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

In the first few lines of the first chapter of The Professor by Charlotte Brontë there is the following passage:

When I had declined my uncles' offers they asked me "What I intended to do?" I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale demanded sternly, "Whether I had thoughts of following my father's steps and engaging in trade?"

The words between the quotation marks are obviously not the actual words the speaker said; they are the meaning of what the speaker said. But the words are within quotations marks. I think that Charlotte Brontë used this 'technique' much more often than Elizabeth Gaskell or Harriet Martineau did. If I wanted to test this hypothesis by counting, what would I be counting? Is there a name for putting a speaker's meaning in quotations marks rather than the actual words the speaker would have said?

And why would a writer do it anyway? The words would convey exactly the same meaning if the quotation and question marks were left out.

for me, this technique invokes a mental image of the storytelling of Micheal Peña (Luis) in Ant-Man. If you've seen the movie, you know what I mean. The character is clearly paraphrasing, but the voiceover is accompanied by an image of the original characters speaking the pharaphrased words. So I'd view the Bronte passage as subtly humorous, which I hope was her intent.

[GrannyGrump]

I don't know if there is a name for it, but I see paraphrases put in quotes like this quite frequently in 19th century books. I personally think of it as similar to our current usage of the curled fingers while speaking to indicate a humorous (if not sarcastic) "quote-quote".

Incidentally, I have worked with quite a few 19th and early 20th century books from UK publishers that do indeed use double quotation marks. I think HarryT pointed out somewhere, somewhen, that the standard British usage of Single Quotes did not really take over until after World War I.

[Cinisajoy]

It is called the time in which it was written.


Note: I collect old cookbooks. I picked up an ebook copy of Dr Price's Modern Cookbook. One of the reviews stated that the title said modern but there are no oven temperatures. The book was written around the turn of the century. Around 1900. So modern referred to that time frame not today.

[Little.Egret]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

It is called the time in which it was written.


Note: I collect old cookbooks. I picked up an ebook copy of Dr Price's Modern Cookbook. One of the reviews stated that the title said modern but there are no oven temperatures. The book was written around the turn of the century. Around 1900. So modern referred to that time frame not today.

"Modern Physics" often still means 'after 1900'.

Quantum Mechanics and Relativity.

[barryem]

I think Cinisajoy has it right. Not only do rules change but we've just gone through a century or two where rules became more rigid. Linguists like to say that grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. When I was a kid learning grammar my teachers would have kicked me out of school for suggesting that. Of course I hadn't heard about that then either.

Today we like to think of the right way to write things but in earlier times the right way wasn't so important. I think in the past couple of decades we've begun to move away from that rigid way of looking at things.

I can't really document any of this. I'm no linguist. But I have a lot of spare time and it's one of the things I like to read about here and there; mostly layman's stuff. The idea that grammar is descriptive gets repeated a lot.

I read Mackinlay Kantor's "Spirit Lake" when I was younger and I remember that he used no quote marks at all in that large novel full of dialog. At first I found that confusing but I soon got used to it and it was a fine read. I think that was written in the 1950's and I'm surprised his publishers let him do it, but there it was.

I read recently that there's a lot of discussion about doing away with the apostrophe in English. So much so that a lot of people think it's already on it's way out. The reason isn't because it's not needed anymore but because it's misused in so many ways. I think what they're suggesting isn't that we quit using apostrophes as much as that we abandon the rules covering it.

Barry

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by barryem

I think Cinisajoy has it right. Not only do rules change but we've just gone through a century or two where rules became more rigid. Linguists like to say that grammar is descriptive, not prescriptive. When I was a kid learning grammar my teachers would have kicked me out of school for suggesting that. Of course I hadn't heard about that then either.

Today we like to think of the right way to write things but in earlier times the right way wasn't so important. I think in the past couple of decades we've begun to move away from that rigid way of looking at things.

I can't really document any of this. I'm no linguist. But I have a lot of spare time and it's one of the things I like to read about here and there; mostly layman's stuff. The idea that grammar is descriptive gets repeated a lot.

I read Mackinlay Kantor's "Spirit Lake" when I was younger and I remember that he used no quote marks at all in that large novel full of dialog. At first I found that confusing but I soon got used to it and it was a fine read. I think that was written in the 1950's and I'm surprised his publishers let him do it, but there it was.

I read recently that there's a lot of discussion about doing away with the apostrophe in English. So much so that a lot of people think it's already on it's way out. The reason isn't because it's not needed anymore but because it's misused in so many ways. I think what they're suggesting isn't that we quit using apostrophes as much as that we abandon the rules covering it.

Barry

Well now most typewriters in the 1800's didn't have italics. You had a choice of one font.
Now if I remember right on titles, it went from quotations to underline to italics as the word processor evolved.
As to apostrophe usage they do serve a purpose.
My father's dying has a different meaning than my fathers dying.
Note yes I am well aware the second one needs an are in the middle to be correct.