Quotes, Reports And Facts Are Categories Of Language

Halliday (1994: 272):

Mental vs Verbal x Quote vs Report

Halliday (1994: 269):

Four Types Of Projection Nexus

Halliday (1994: 255-6):

The Basic Pattern Of Projection

Halliday (1994: 253-4):

Hypotactic vs Paratactic Projection

Halliday (1994: 253):

Mental Projections Are Typically Hypotactic

Halliday (1994: 253):

Wording As Two Removes From Experience

Halliday (1994: 252-3):

Mentally Reporting Meaning

Halliday (1994: 252):

The Two Levels Of Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 521):

In projection, one process is used to construe another one, such that the latter becomes a representation of what someone says or thinks. The types of process that have this power of projection are the verbal and the mental processes: he says (that...), he told (her to ...), she thinks (that...), she wanted (him to ...). 

Thus the projection operates at either of the two strata of the content plane: either that of the wording, where the projection is by a verbal process, or at that of the meaning, where it is by a mental process. 

Because the grammar can project in this way, semiotic events, both those which are externalised as sayings and those which are internalised as thoughts, are brought within the overall domain of the phenomena of experience.

Interior vs Exterior Symbolic Processing

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 129):

"Symbolic processing" is a generalisation across sensing and saying that foregrounds the fact that they can both project. But sensing and saying differ in the level of projection: sensing projects interior content, ideas; saying projects exterior content, locutions. The level of the projected content determines the typical status of the projected content: locutions may be either quoted or reported, with quoting being favoured in many types of discourse; in contrast ideas are typically reported and only rarely quoted. That is, ideas are construed as being further removed than locutions from experience that is shared.

Projection thus construes a distinction between interior symbolic processing (sensing) and exterior symbolic processing (saying). The distinction between 'interior' and 'exterior' is reinforced by the internal organisation of figures of sensing and saying.