UNIT 1: DIRECT AND INDIRECT (REPORTED) SPEECH.

1. INTRODUCTION

There are two ways of relating what a person has said: directly and/or indirectly. In direct speech we repeat the original speaker’s exact words: he said: “I lost my umbrella” (or he said, “I lost my umbrella”). Remarks are thus repeated are placed between inverted commas, and a comma is placed immediately before the remark. Direct speech is found in conversations in books, in plays and in quotations. Hence, in indirect speech we give the exact meaning of a remark or a speech, without necessarily using the speaker’s exact words: he said (that) he had lost his umbrella.

2. REPORTING STATEMENTS

Usually when we introduce a sentence in reported speech we use a subject and a reporting verb. What is a reporting verb? A verb that we use to introduce a sentence and to indicate that discourse is being quoted or paraphrased. It is also called a communication verb. Some examples are say, tell, reply, believe, respond... The two most common reporting verbs in statements are say and tell, but bear in mind that they behave differently: we SAY something TO somebody (I said it TO you) but we TELL somebody something (I tell you a story)

So, how do we turn a sentence into indirect or reported speech? We are going to work with the following sentence: Susan said: “I hate horror movies”

To begin with, it can be said that all sentences will start with the same structure SUBJECT + REPORTING VERB + (THAT); therefore, in this case we would have Susan said that...

Then we must carry out three changes:

1. Personal pronouns and possessive adjectives vary and they have to concord with the person who says the sentence. it is not possible to say Susan said that I... because the person who is telling the sentence is you, and with this I you are referring to yourself. So the correct pronoun would be SHE --->Susan said that she...

2. Verbal tense. To change a sentence into reported speech we must carry out a backshift of the verb, that is to say, the verb will always change one tense to the past. Here you can find a chart describing the changes: So, in our sentence we find present simple, consequently, it changes to past simple: Susan said that she hated horror movies.

3. Expressions of time and place also change since in reported speech since the time in which the sentence is spoken in direct speech and indirect is not usually the same. Here we find the changes:

3. REPORTING QUESTIONS

In English we find two types of questions: Yes/No questions and Wh- questions. Yes/No questions are those whose answer is basically yes or no: Do you like playing chess? Have you finished your homework?; whereas, wh-questions are those which begin with a wh-word and require a different type of answer: what are you doing? Where do you study?

To change those questions to reported speech we have to consider them separately, however, there is something that both have in common: when we change them to reported speech they lose the interrogative structure because we are not asking a question, we are reporting the question that somebody asked us.

Reporting verbs change as well to those used for asking for information. E.g.: ask, inquire, want to know, wonder...

3.1. Yes/No questions

We have to perform the same changes that we do when we change an affirmative sentence to reported speech (changes in pronouns, backshift of the verb, and change of time expressions).

As in Spanish, we join the reporting verb with the reported sentence with the particle IF, or WHETHER if it is formal English. See:

Ella me preguntó “¿te gusta ir al cine?” ---> ella me preguntó SI me gustaba ir al cine

In English: she asked me: “do you like going to the cinema?” ---> she asked me if I liked going to the cinema. You can observe that we use an affirmative construction. It is not correct to say she asked if did I like going to the cinema.

3.2. Wh- questions

We will follow the same rules once again: pronouns, backshift and time expressions. The particularity of this type of questions is that to join the reporting vern woth the reported sentence we will not use IF, but the wh-word. Which we find in the question itself. E.g.: El preguntó “¿Dónde vas? ---> el preguntó DONDE iba ; he asked “where are you going?” ---> he asked me where I was going.

Cuidado con la tendencia española él me preguntó QUE dónde iba, en inglés
no existe. *He asked me that where I was going.

4. REPORTING ORDERS

Reporting an order is very easy. We will change everything like if it were a statement, pronouns, backshift, and time expressions. There are only two things that will change: 1) the reporting verb changes to one to express order (order, command, tell...); 2) we eliminate THAT from the sentence and add TO, which expresses an order. If the order is negative we will use NOT TO.

Mom told me “Eat your dinner!” ---> Mom told me TO eat my dinner.

The teacher said “Don’t make a mess!”---> the teacher ordered us NOT TO make a mess

5. SUGGESTIONS/ RECOMMENDATIONS

Suggestions are usually turned into indirect speech using one of the following verbs: suggest, insist, recommend, demand, request, propose. We find two type of sentences making suggestions: those which include the subject to whom the suggestion is made, and those that are general suggestions. Some examples would be: 1) “Why don’t we go to this new restaurant?”, he suggested 2) “Let’s go to the new restaurant!” he suggested.

1).- If we encounter a suggestion with a subject the process is the following. We write the introductory clause he suggested followed by that, and then, we write the subject and the verb of the suggestion perse. “Why don’t we go to this new restaurant?”, he suggested ---> he suggested that we go to this new restaurant.

2).- If the subject is not included (it’s a suggestion with let’s) the change is different. The key is to write the verb in GERUND, without subjects, directly after the reporting verb. “Let’s go to the new restaurant!” he suggested. ---> he suggested GOING to the new restaurant.

 

 

 

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