Conspicuously past: Distressed discourse and diagrammatic embedding in a Tibetan represented speech style

Using as a point of departure Vološinov’s discussion of a dialectic between reported speech styles and large-scale cultural-ideological formations, this article examines how a represented speech construction can diagram and be reciprocally ‘embedded’ by its sociohistorical context of occurrence. I focus on a form of represented speech in diasporic performances of Tibetan Buddhist debate, in which monks tropically subsume the voice of the animator into the voice of tradition. In making tradition manifest, monks ‘distress’ or ‘antique’ debate discourse, rendering it conspicuously past under conditions in which its authenticity seems suspect. The significance of this style is shown to rest on its social embedding, illustrating one way in which represented speech can reflect and refract the experience of certain categories of Tibetan diasporic subjects.