This project confronts reported speech as a ubiquitous form of language use that is bound up with complex and nuanced philosophical, linguistic and political concerns. By exploring the unique and anticipatory work of Soviet semiotician and linguist Valentin Nikolaevich Vološinov as a theoretical foundation - specifically his neglected 1929 work "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language" - this dissertation traces the ways in which we reproduce the speech of others within our own as a distinctive form of speech act and as a literary device that can be employed with startling and surprising results. Focusing then on the works of Austrian post-WWII authors Thomas Bernhard and Heimrad Bäcker, this project looks at two experimental literary authors attempting to confront their complex socio-political moment via literary interventions that, though quite distinct from one another, are defined by their idiosyncratic employment of direct and indirect speech reproduction. In what ways does this focus on forms of direct or indirect speech reproduction in post-WWII Austria reflect and intervene on the difficult and polarizing socio-political situation at the time? Why has this form of speech act been largely neglected within literary theory? What insights can an approach from this perspective grant us with respect to literary-aesthetic, linguistic and socio-political concerns?