This article introduces the concept of indirect speech and shows what it can contribute to understanding "legitimacy … pass the salt?"). Transporting concepts from pragmatics and sociolinguistics, this article argues that legitimacy talk … generalized legitimacy claims. Understanding this double role of legitimacy talk sheds light on otherwise puzzling empirical …

legitimacy. We argue that this development can be accounted for by a mechanism we call "authority-legitimation mechanism". We …