Page 50 - DENG201_ENGLISH_II

English - II Digvijay Pandya, Lovely Professional University

Notes Unit 3: Functional English Grammar: Direct and
Indirect Speech (Reported Speech)

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
3.1 Direct Narration and Indirect Narration
3.2 Reporting Verb and Reported Speech
3.3 Transformation of Direct Speech into Indirect Speech
3.4 Miscellaneous Types
3.5 Review Questions
3.6 Further Readings

Objectives
After reading this unit, students will be able to:
• Explain Direct and Indirect Narrations.
• Understand Reporting Verb and Reported Speech.

Introduction

In our speech, we often speak to the other person of some thing that was said to us by somebody. In other
words, we often report a speech whether ours or someone else’s. We do this in two ways. We either report
the speech exactly as we had heard or said it without making any change. This is called Direct Speech.
Example:
The girl said to her mother, “My plate is empty.”
Or we may change the sentence that we had heard or said without changing its meaning and then
report it. This is called Indirect Speech.
Example:
The girl said to her mother that her plate was empty.
In the first example, the first part of the sentence which is before the comma, is referred to as reporting
speech and the part which is within inverted commas is called the reported speech.
Note: While transforming from direct into indirect, we have made several changes in the sentence above:
1. We have removed the comma in the indirect sentence and put that in its place.
2. We have removed the inverted commas of the reported speech.
3. We have changed the my of the reported speech into her.
We have not used any capital letter in between the sentence unlike in the direct form where
the reported speech always begins with a capital letter.
Now, in order to bring about these changes while converting from direct into indirect or vice-
versa, there are several important but simple rules that need be observed.
3.1 Direct Narration and Indirect Narration

There are two different ways in which we can report the words of a speaker:
1. Direct Speech or Direct Narration.
2. Indirect Speech or Indirect Narration.

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