This research aims at pointing out the autonymic illusions that emerge in represented speech when a reporter quotes an utterance produced by the Other. This study mainly revolves around this topical question: does the process of quoting a foreign speaker’s words involve a translation, a rephrasing and consequently an alteration of the original words? To answer the question, the analysis of the research corpus, which gathers pieces of fiction in English and French and some newspaper articles, emphasizes the tension between fidelity and fictitiousness echoing the tension between literality and literarity.