REPORTED
SPEECH
(Direct
and Indirect speech)
By Sugiastuti
Direct speech is a
representation of the actual words someone said. A direct speech report usually
has a reporting verb in the past simple. The most common reporting verb is said
- Direct speech: “I like ice cream”.
- Reported speech: She said she liked ice cream.
Tense
|
Direct
Speech
|
Reported
Speech
|
Present simple
|
“I like ice cream”
|
She said (that) she liked ice
cream.
|
Present continuous
|
“I am living in London”
|
She said she was living in London.
|
Past simple
|
“I bought a car”
|
She said she had bought a car OR
She said she bought a car.
|
Past continuous
|
“I was walking along the street”
|
She said she had been walking
along the street.
|
Present perfect
|
“I haven't seen Julie”
|
She said she hadn't seen Julie.
|
Past perfect*
|
“I had taken English lessons
before”
|
She said she had taken English
lessons before.
|
will
|
“I'll see you later”
|
She said she would see me later.
|
would*
|
“I would help, but..”
|
She said she would help but...
|
can
|
“I can speak perfect English”
|
She said she could speak perfect
English.
|
could*
|
“I could swim when I was four”
|
She said she could swim when she
was four.
|
shall
|
“I shall come later”
|
She said she would come later.
|
should*
|
“I should call my mother”
|
She said she should call her
mother
|
might*
|
"I might be late"
|
She said she might be late
|
must
|
"I must study at the
weekend"
|
She said she must study at the
weekend OR She said she had to study at the weekend
|
*
doesn't change.
Occasionally, we don't need to change the present tense into
the past if the information in direct speech is still true (but this is only
for things which are general facts, and even then usually we like to change the
tense):
- Direct speech: “The sky is blue”.
- Reported speech: She said that the sky is/was blue.
1.
Reported
Questions
So now you have no problem with making reported speech from
positive and negative sentences. But how about questions? Such as: Direct
speech: "Where do you live?". How can we make the reported speech
here?
In fact, it's not so different from reported statements. The
tense changes are the same, and we keep the question word. The very important
thing though is that, once we tell the question to someone else, it isn't a
question any more. So we need to change the grammar to a normal positive
sentence. Confusing? Sorry, maybe this example will help:
·
Direct speech: "Where do you
live?"
·
Reported speech: She asked me where
I lived.
Do you see how I made it? The direct question is in the present
simple tense. We make a present simple question with 'do' or 'does' so I need
to take that away. Then I need to change the verb to the past simple. Another
example:
·
Direct speech: "where is
Julie?"
·
Reported speech: She asked me where
Julie was.
The direct question is the present simple of 'be'. We make
the question form of the present simple of be by inverting (changing the
position of)the subject and verb. So, we need to change them back before
putting the verb into the past simple.
Here
are some more examples:
Direct
Question
|
Reported
Question
|
“Where is the Post Office,
please?”
|
She
asked me where
the Post Office was.
|
“What are you doing?”
|
She
asked me what
I was doing.
|
“Who was that fantastic man?”
|
She
asked me who
that fantastic man had been.
|
So much for 'wh' questions. But, what if you need to report a 'yes / no' question? We don't have any question words to help us. Instead, we use 'if':
·
Direct speech: "Do you like
chocolate?"
·
Reported speech: She asked me if
I liked chocolate.
No problem? Here are a few more examples:
Direct Question
|
Reported Question
|
“Do you love me?”
|
He asked me if I loved him.
|
“Have you ever been to Mexico?”
|
She asked me if I had ever been to
Mexico.
|
“Are you living here?”
|
She asked me if I was living here.
|
2.
Reported
Requests
There's
more! What if someone asks you to do something (in a polite way)? For example:
·
Direct speech: "Close the
window, please"
·
Or: "Could you close the window
please?"
·
Or: "Would you mind closing the
window please?"
All of these requests mean the same thing, so we don't need
to report every word when we tell another person about it. We simply use 'ask
me + to + infinitive':
Here
are a few more examples:
Direct Request
|
Reported Request
|
“Please help me”.
|
She asked me to help her.
|
“Please don't smoke”.
|
She asked me not to smoke.
|
“Could you bring my book tonight?”
|
She asked me to bring her book
that night.
|
“Could you pass the milk, please?”
|
She asked me to pass the milk.
|
“Would you mind coming early tomorrow?”
|
She asked me to come early the
next day.
|
To
report a negative request, use 'not':
·
Direct speech: "Please don't be
late."
·
Reported speech: She asked us not
to be late.
3.
Reported
Orders
How about if someone doesn't ask so politely? We can call this
an 'order' in English, when someone tells you very directly to do something.
For example: Direct speech: "Sit down!". In fact, we make this into
reported speech in the same way as a request. We just use 'tell' instead of
'ask':
See
example below:
Direct Order
|
Reported Order
|
“Go to bed!”
|
He told the child to go to bed.
|
“Don't worry!”
|
He told her not to worry.
|
“Be on time!”
|
He told me to be on time.
|
“Don't smoke!”
|
He told us not to smoke.
|
4.
Time
Expressions with Reported Speech
Sometimes when we change direct speech into reported speech
we have to change time expressions too. We don't always have to do this,
however. It depends on when we heard the direct speech and when we say the
reported speech., for example:
It's Monday. Julie says "I'm leaving today".
If I tell someone on Monday, I say "Julie said she was leaving today".
If I tell someone on Tuesday, I say "Julie said she was leaving yesterday".
If I tell someone on Wednesday, I say "Julie said she was leaving on Monday".
If I tell someone a month later, I say "Julie said she was leaving that day".
So, there's no easy conversion. You really have to think about when the direct speech was said.
Here's a table of some possible conversions:
It's Monday. Julie says "I'm leaving today".
If I tell someone on Monday, I say "Julie said she was leaving today".
If I tell someone on Tuesday, I say "Julie said she was leaving yesterday".
If I tell someone on Wednesday, I say "Julie said she was leaving on Monday".
If I tell someone a month later, I say "Julie said she was leaving that day".
So, there's no easy conversion. You really have to think about when the direct speech was said.
Here's a table of some possible conversions:
now
|
then / at that time
|
today
|
yesterday / that day / Tuesday /
the 27th of June
|
yesterday
|
the day before yesterday / the day
before / Wednesday / the 5th of December
|
last night
|
the night before, Thursday night
|
last week
|
the week before / the previous
week
|
tomorrow
|
today / the next day / the
following day / Friday
|
Read
the following examples and find out how the utterance of the speaker is
reported.
Teacher
|
“Can you read
French?”
|
Student
|
No Madam, I find
French very difficult
|
Ans: The teacher
asked the student if he could read French. The student replied in the
negative stating that he found it very difficult.
|
Father
|
“Is tomorrow a holiday?”
|
Son
|
Yes, it is Sunday and so it is a holiday.
|
Ans: Father asked son if the next day was a holiday. Son
replied in the positive and added that being Sunday it was a holiday.
|
Monica
|
“Return me my laptop
if you have worked.”
|
Sania
|
Here it is, Thank
you!
|
Ans: Monica asked
Sania to return her laptop if she had worked. Sania returned it, thanking
her.
|
Antony
|
Where are you going?
|
Peter
|
To the market, ...
|
Antony
|
May I join you?
|
Peter
|
It will be a pleasure
|
Ans: Antony asked Peter
where he was going. Peter replied that he was going to the market. Antony
asked if he could join him. Peter said that it would be pleasure.
|
Punctuation marks are signs. We use them in sentences to
make the meaning clear or structural portions of writing. They are a
standardized simbols such as comma, period, question mark, exclamation point,
semicolon, apostrophe, quotation marks, colon, dash, italic, parentheses,
brackets and hypen.
Knowing a few simple rules and following a set of guidelines
can make a writing experience, in any situation, easier to manage. The rules
for all these forms of grammar have evolved over hundreds of years of use.
5.
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are
signs. We use them in sentences to make the meaning clear
or structural portions of writing. They are a
standardized simbols such as comma, period, question mark, exclamation point,
semicolon, apostrophe, quotation marks, colon, dash, italic, parentheses,
brackets and hypen.
.
|
PERIOD
/ FULL STOP
|
,
|
COMMA
|
:
|
COLON
|
;
|
SEMICOLON
|
’
|
APOSTROPHE
|
‘ ’
|
SINGLE QUOTATION MARKS (OPEN AND
CLOSE)
|
“ ”
|
DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKS (OPEN AND
CLOSE)
|
?
|
QUESTION MARK
|
¿ ?
|
SPANISH QUESTION MARKS (OPEN AND
CLOSE)
|
!
|
EXCLAMATION MARK
|
¡ !
|
SPANISH EXCLAMATION MARK (OPEN AND
CLOSE)
|
...
|
ELLIPSIS
|
-
|
HYPEN
|
⁄
|
SLASH
|
\
|
BACKSLASH
|
( )
|
PARENTHESES (OPEN AND CLOSE)
|
[ ]
|
BRACKETS (OPEN AND CLOSE)
|
{ }
|
BRACES (OPEN AND CLOSE)
|
Indirect speech
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indirect speech, also called reported
speech or indirect discourse, is a means of expressing the content
of statements, questions or other utterances,
without quoting them explicitly as is done in direct
speech. For example, He said "I'm coming" is direct
speech, whereas He said (that) he was coming is indirect speech.
Indirect speech should not be confused with indirect speech acts.In grammar, indirect speech often makes use of certain syntactic structures such as content clauses ("that" clauses, such as (that) he was coming), and sometimes infinitive phrases. References to questions in indirect speech frequently take the form of interrogative content clauses, also called indirect questions (such as whether he was coming).
In indirect speech certain grammatical categories are changed relative to the words of the original sentence.[1] For example, person may change as a result of a change of speaker or listener (as I changes to he in the example above). In some languages, including English, the tense of verbs is often changed – this is often called sequence of tenses. Some languages have a change of mood: Latin switches from indicative to the infinitive (for statements) or the subjunctive (for questions).[2]
When written, indirect speech is not normally enclosed in quotation marks or any similar typographical devices for indicating that a direct quotation is being made. However such devices are sometimes used to indicate that the indirect speech is a faithful quotation of someone's words (with additional devices such as square brackets and ellipses to indicate deviations or omissions from those words), as in He informed us that "after dinner [he] would like to make an announcement".
Changes in form
In indirect speech, words generally have referents appropriate to the context in which the act of reporting takes place, rather than that in which the speech act being reported took place (or is conceived as taking place). The two acts often differ in reference point (origo) – the point in time and place and the person speaking – and also in the person being addressed and the linguistic context. Thus when a sentence involves words or forms whose referents depend on these circumstances, they are liable to change when the sentence is put into indirect speech. In particular this commonly affects:- personal pronouns, such as I, you, he, we, and the corresponding verb forms (in pro-drop languages the meaning of the pronoun may be conveyed solely by verb inflection).
- demonstratives, such as this and that.
- phrases of relative time or place such as now, yesterday and here.
It should be noted that indirect speech need not refer to a speech act that has actually taken place; it may concern future or hypothetical discourse; for example, If you ask him why he's wearing that hat, he'll tell you to mind your own business. Also, even when referring to a known completed speech act, the reporter may deviate freely from the words that were actually used, provided the meaning is retained. This contrasts with direct speech, where there is an expectation that the original words will be reproduced exactly.
Examples
English
Some examples of changes in form in indirect speech in English are given below. See also Sequence of tenses, and Uses of English verb forms: Indirect speech.- It is raining hard.
She says that it is raining hard. (no change)
She said that it was raining hard. (change of tense when the main
verb is past tense)
- I have painted the ceiling blue.
He said that he had painted the
ceiling blue. (change of person and tense)
- I will come to your party tomorrow.
I said that I would come to his
party the next day/the following day.
(change of tense, person
and time expression)
- How do people manage to live in this city?
I asked him how people managed to live in that
city. (change of tense and question syntax,
and of demonstrative)
- Please leave the room.
I asked them to leave the room.
(use of infinitive phrase)
The tense changes illustrated above (also called backshifting),
which occur because the main verb ("said", "asked") is in
the past tense, are not obligatory when the situation described is still valid:[3][4][5]- Ed is a bore.
She said that Ed was/is a bore.[4]
(optional change of tense)
- I am coming over to watch television.
Benjamin said that he is/was coming
over to watch television.[5]
(change of person, optional change of tense)
In these sentences the original tense can be used provided that
it remains equally valid at the time of the reporting of the statement (Ed is
still considered a bore; Benjamin is still expected to come over)- Quoted or direct speech:
He laid down his bundle and thought
of his misfortune. "And just what pleasure have I found, since I came into
this world?" he asked.
- Reported or normal indirect speech:
He laid down his bundle and thought
of his misfortune. He asked himself what pleasure he had found since he came
into the world.
He laid down his bundle and thought
of his misfortune. And just what pleasure had he found, since he came into this
world?
Comparison between direct, indirect and free indirect speech
- Quoted or direct speech:
He laid down his bundle and thought
of his misfortune. "And just what pleasure have I found, since I came into
this world?" he asked.
- Reported or normal indirect speech:
He laid down his bundle and thought
of his misfortune. He asked himself what pleasure he had found since he came
into the world.
Free indirect speech is a style of
third-person narration which
uses some of the characteristics of third-person along with the essence of first-person direct speech.
(It is also referred to as free indirect discourse, free indirect
style, or discours indirect libre in French.)
Randall Stevenson suggests, however, that the term free indirect discourse
"is perhaps best reserved for instances where words have actually been
spoken aloud" and that cases "where a character's voice is probably
the silent inward one of thought" should be described as free indirect style.[1]Comparison of styles
What distinguishes free indirect speech from normal indirect speech is the lack of an introductory expression such as "He said" or "he thought". It is as if the subordinate clause carrying the content of the indirect speech is taken out of the main clause which contains it, becoming the main clause itself. Using free indirect speech may convey the character's words more directly than in normal indirect, as devices such as interjections and exclamation marks can be used that cannot be normally used within a subordinate clause.Free indirect discourse can also be described, as a "technique of presenting a character's voice partly mediated by the voice of the author", or, in the words of the French narrative theorist Gerard Genette, "the narrator takes on the speech of the character, or, if one prefers, the character speaks through the voice of the narrator, and the two instances then are merged."[2]
He laid down his bundle and thought
of his misfortune. And just what pleasure had he found, since he came into this
world?
A crucial semantic distinction between direct and indirect
speech is that when one uses direct speech the reported clause is exactly what
has been said, whereas indirect speech is a representation of speech in one's
own words.[2]