Misunderstanding The Engagement Function Of Scare Quotes

Martin & Rose (2007: 52):

Finally we need to consider cases where punctuation is used to signal that someone else’s words are being used. Helena does this several times in her story:

Even if he was an Englishman, he was popular with all the 'Boer' Afrikaners. And all my girlfriends envied me. Then one day he said he was going on a 'trip'.

Abruptly mutter the feared word 'trip' and drive off.

The role of 'those at the top', the 'cliques' and 'our men' who simply had to carry out their bloody orders... like 'vultures'. And today they all wash their hands in innocence and resist the realities of the Truth Commission. Yes, I stand by my murderer who let me and the old White South Africa sleep peacefully. Warmly, while 'those at the top' were again targeting the next 'permanent removal from society' for the vultures.

... there must have been someone out there who is still alive and who can give a face to 'the orders from above' for all the operations.

This device is sometimes referred to as ‘scare quotes’, and warns readers that these are not Helena’s words but someone else’s, for example the wording of her second love or white South African leaders. In spoken discourse speakers might use special intonation or voice quality to signal projection of this kind, and sometimes people use gesture to mimic quotation marks, acting out the special punctuation. The effect of this is to disown the evaluation embodied in the highlighted terms, attributing it to an alternative, unspecified, but usually recoverable source.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, scare quotes are quotation marks placed round a word or phrase to draw attention to an unusual or arguably inaccurate use.

[2] To be clear, scare quotes can serve many functions, and although they may sometimes indicate that an author is using someone else's term, this is by no means always the case:

Scare quotes (also called shudder quotes, sneer quotes, and quibble marks) are quotation marks a writer places around a word or phrase to signal that they are using it in a non-standard, ironic, or otherwise special sense. 

• Scare quotes may express that the author is using someone else's term, similar to preceding a phrase with the expression "so-called"; 
• they may imply skepticism or disagreement, belief that the words are misused, or 
• that the writer intends a meaning opposite to the words enclosed in quotes. 

Writers use scare quotes for a variety of reasons. 

• They can imply doubt or ambiguity in words or ideas within the marks, or even outright contempt. 
• They can indicate that a writer is purposely misusing a word or phrase or 
• that the writer is unpersuaded by the text in quotes, and 
• they can help the writer deny responsibility for the quote. 

In general, they express distance between writer and quote. …  

An author may use scare quotes not to convey alarm, but to signal a semantic quibble. Scare quotes may suggest or create a problematisation with the words set in quotes.

[3] There is no evidence in the text that any of these quotes are attributable to either Helena's second love or to white South African leaders; but see [5] below.

[4] In this instance, the scare quotes mark a simile deployed by Helena herself, and so, do not mark it as attributable to either Helena's second love or to white South African leaders; but see [5] below.

[5] This is the exact opposite of what is true.  The effect of Helena's use of scare quotes is not to 'disown the evaluations embodied in the highlighted terms' but to enact evaluations of them herself.  In highlighting with scare quotes, she expresses her own attitude.