Direct and Indirect Speech in English

Direct and Indirect Speech

Direct Speech
In a direct speech, there are two clauses, the reporting clause and the actual clause. The reporting clause contains the words of the reporter while the actual clause contains the words of the actual speaker. In a direct speech, the exact words of the speaker are reported directly or verbatim. The actual words are put in quotation mark.

NOTE: Every word including punctuation marks such as commas is enclosed inside the quotation marks.

Example: "It is raining today," Peter said.
                    actual clause          reporting clause

Indirect Speech
The indirect speech on the other hand, involves reporting what the speaker has said with some modifications. This implies that the reporter does not use the exact words of the speaker, instead we have some alteration and because of this, quotation marks are not used. An indirect speech is also known as a reported speech. There are two clauses in an indirect speech. The two clauses are joined by 'that'. Sometimes 'that' is omitted.

Example: Peter said that it was raining that day.

The speech above is quite different from the earlier one we reported directly. Some parts of the speech have changed.

Parts of a reported speech that changed
– Pronouns
In a reported speech, the pronouns change i.e. all first person pronouns will change to their third person pronoun equivalent as seen below:

• I will change to He or She
• Me will change to Him or Her
• We will change to They
• Us will change to Them
• Our will change to Their
• Mine will change to His or Hers
• Ours will change to Theirs
• Myself will change to Himself or Herself
• Ourselves will change to Themselves

Note that when the reporter is the addressee, the pronoun "you" will change to "I/we" for subjective case or "me/us" for objective case. But if the reporter is not the addressee, "you" will change to "he/she/they" for subjective case or "him/her/them" for objective case. Examples:

1. "I will see you tomorrow ," the doctor told me. (Direct speech where the reporter is the addressee)
2. The doctor told me that he would see me the following day. (Indirect speech where the reporter is the addressee)
3. "You must be on your way now," the director told them that. (Direct speech where the reporter is not the addressee)
4. The director told them that they had to be on their way then. (Indirect speech where the reporter is the addressee)

– Verbs
In Reported Speech, verbs change in the other below:

• Present Tense verbs will change to Past Tense
• Past Tense will change to Past Perfect
• Present Progressive will change to Past Progressive
• Present Modal (shall, can, etc.) will change to Past Modal (should, could, etc.)
• Past Modal will remain as Past Modal

NOTE: Must and Ought to will change to Had to.

However, note that, the verbs will not change if the subject to be reported is a permanent truth. Instance include: Scientific statements, Geographical extrapolations, Statements from a Constitution or Charter, Statements from a Holy Book, etc. Also note that the verb in the reporter's clause determines the verb in the clause that is being reported. This implies that if the verb in the reporter's clause is present, the verb in the clause being reported will be present and if the verb is past then the other will also be past.

Examples:
1. "I am in the house," the man says (Direct Speech)
The man says he is in the house. (Indirect speech)

You will observe that the verb "says" in the direct speech is in the present tense and therefore, the verb "is" does not change to the past tense in the indirect speech.

2. "I am in the house," the man said. (Direct speech)
The man said he was in the house. (Indirect speech)

Unlike the first example, the verb in the reporter's clause is "said" which is a past tense verb therefore, the verb "am" changes to past tense "was".

In the next article we are going to be writing about Reporting Questions (Interrogative Sentence)