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UNIT 30 DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH 1.

INTRODUCTION. 1.1. Aims of the unit. 1.2. Notes on bibliography.

2.

A LINGUISTIC INTRODUCTION TO THE NOTION OF SPEECH ACT. 2.1. Linguistic levels involved. 2.2. On speech acts: what, how and why. 2.3. Grammatical categories involved.

3.

A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE NOTIONS OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH. 3.1. On defining Speech Act. 3.2. The Speech Act Theory. 3.2.1. Austin (1962). 3.2.2. Searle (1969). 3.3. Main types of speech act: the illocutionary force. 3.4. : Direct vs. Indirect. 3.4.1. 3.4.2.

The relevance of Pragmatics. Main structural differences.

4. ON DIRECT SPEECH: MAIN STRUCTURAL FEATURES. 4.1. Main types of direct speech. 4.2. Form. 4.2.1. Reporting verbs. 4.2.2. Verbal tenses. 4.2.3. Pronouns. 4.2.4. ‘Here and now’ words. 4.2.5. Semantic changes. 4.3. Function. 4.3.1. Specific structures: quote speech. 4.3.2. Word order: reporting verbs. 4.4. Main uses. 5.

DIRECT SPEECH. 5.1. Main types of direct speech. 5.2. Form. 5.2.1. Reporting verbs. 5.2.2. Verbal tenses: time reference. 5.2.3. Pronouns. 5.2.4. ‘Here and now’ words. 5.2.5. Semantic changes. 5.3. Function. 5.3.1. Specific structures: reported speech.

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5.3.2. Word order: reported structures. 5.4. Main uses. 6.

EDUCA TIONAL IMPLICATIONS.

7.

CONCLUSION.

8.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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1. INTRODUCTION. 1.1. Aims of the unit. Unit 30 is primarily aimed to examine the English the expression of direct and indirect speech (also called direct and indirect discourse) in terms of their main structural features regarding form, function and main uses in order to provide a relevant and detailed account of this issue. Therefore, the study will be divided into seven chapters. Thus, Chapter 2 provides a linguistic introduction to the notions of speech acts in English in terms of form, main functions and uses. In fact, this introductory chapter aims at answering questions such as, first, which linguistic levels are involved, what they describe, how and why; and third, which grammar categories are involved in their description at a functional level. In Chapter 3, we shall offer a theoretical framework for the notions of direct and indirect speech since there are several key notions which must be clarified when reviewing this issue. So, we shall start by (1) defining the term ‘speech act’, (2) offering an analysis of the Speech Act Theory in which we shall include the main types of speech acts following relevant figures in this field, that is, (a) Austin (1962) and (b) Searle (1969); then, we shall introduce (3) the main types of speech act and therefore, the notion of illocutionary force; next, we shall analyse (4) the relevance of pragmatics within the coinage of the terms direct vs. indirect speech; and finally, we shall approach both types of speech in terms of its (5) main structural differences regarding form (grammatical categories), function (syntax and semantics) and main uses (pragmatics). Chapters 4 and 5 will offer an individual analysis of each item regarding (1) form, (2) function and (3) main uses of each style addressing their (a) major syntactic constructions and (b) main structural features, that is, morphology, phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Chapter 6 provides an educational framework for the structural features of sentence structure within our current school curriculum, and Chapter 7 draws on a summary of all the points involved in this study. Finally, in Chapter 8 bibliography will be listed in alphabetical order.

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1.2. Notes on bibliography. In order to offer an insightful analysis and survey on the expression of direct and indirect speech in English, we shall deal with the most relevant works in the field, both old and current, and in particular, influential grammar books which have assisted for years students of English as a foreign language in their study of grammar. For instance, Flor Aarts and Jan Aarts (University of Nijmegen, Holland) in English Syntactic Structures (1988); and also, Sánchez Benedito, Gramática Inglesa (1975); Greenbaum & Quirk, A Student’s Grammar of the English Language (1990). Main approaches to notional grammar and pragmatics are taken from Searle, Speech Acts (1969), Austin, How to Do Things With Words (1962); Bach and Harnish (1979), Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts; and van Ek, J.A.; and J.L.M. Trim, Vantage (2001) among the most relevant authors. The rest of bibliography is at the end of this discussion.

2.

A LINGUISTIC INTRODUCTION TO THE NOTION OF SPEECH ACT.

Before examining in detail the notions of direct and indirect speech in English, it is relevant to provide first a linguistic introduction to the grammatical elements that are involved in the notion of speech act in order to fully understand the terms ‘direct’, ‘indirect’ and ‘speech’ separately and in combination. In fact, this introductory chapter aims at answering questions, such as (1) which linguistic levels are involved in this notion; (2) what it describes, how and why; and (3) which grammar categories are involved in its description at a functional level.

2.1. Linguistic levels involved. In order to offer a linguistic description of the notions under study, we must confine them to particular levels of analysis so as to focus our attention on this particular aspect of language. Yet, although there is no consensus of opinion on the number of levels to be distinguished, the usual description of a language comprises four major components: phonology, grammar, lexicon, and semantics, out of which we get five major levels: phonological, morphological and syntactic,

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lexical, and semantic (Huddleston, 1988). However, due to the relevance of the speaker’s attitude with respect to the use of direct vs. indirect speech, we shall include here the field of pragmatics. First, the phonology describes the sound level, that is, the pronunciation (i.e. stress, rhythm, tone and intonation) within the sentence structure. Secondly, since the two most basic units of grammar are the word and the sentence, the component of grammar involves the morphological level (i.e. tense changes) and the syntactic level (i.e. grammatical typology of sentences –statements, questions, commands and exclamations). Third, the lexicon, or lexical level, lists vocabulary items which are closely related to the expression of direct vs. indirect speech (i.e. here and now words: time adverbs, adverbial expressions, prepositions, nouns, adjectives, verbs).

Another dimension is the study of meaning, that is, semantics, or the semantic level, to which all four of the major components are related regarding. We must not forget that a linguistic description which ignores meaning is obviously incomplete, and in particular for our purposes, where semantics plays a very important role in order to express what the speaker wants to say (i.e. He shouted vs. He whispered, ‘Leave me alone’). Similarly, from a functional approach, we must bear in mind the prominence of pragmatics in speech acts when dealing with ‘how to say things in English’, that is, taking into account the speaker’s attitude and the context where the sentence is uttered, where meaning and the speaker’s attitude are essential elements in communicative exchanges (oral, written, paralinguistic).

2.2. On direct and indirect speech: what, how and why.

On defining speech, we must link their linguistic description, that is, what they represent (speech acts) to (1) how they are represented, both grammatically (different grammatical categories: verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc) and syntactically (the types of sentences in which they are embedded); and (3) to their function and why they are used in the speech act, that is, to explain the speaker’s attitude. Traditionally, these notions have been defined as speech acts (assertion, questions, orders and requests) which take place within certain types of sentences (declaratives, interrogative, imperative) with a particular function (convey information –true or false-; elicit information; commands which cause others to behave in certain ways).

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Since they are defined on the basis of sentence analysis, they are closely related to the domain of text grammar (text linguistics) and discourse analysis because of their syntactic structures and the different illocutionary acts they may represent. In general, they work with a wide range of grammatical constructions, from the simplest ones like the word to the largest unit of grammatical description like the sentence. Both extremes will be taken into account when embedded in larger stretches of language such as paragraphs and texts (discourse analysis). The notion of “speech act” is to be found within the study of acts of communication and, in particular, within Searle’s theory of Speech Acts (1969) where he distinguishes five types: assertives (to tell people how things are by stating); directives (to try to get people to do things by means of commanding and requesting); expressives (to express our feelings and attitudes by thinking, forgiving, or blaming); declaratives (to bring about changes through our utterances by means of bringing about correspondence between the propositional content and realit y, through baptizing, naming, appointing or sacking); and finally, commissives (to commit ourselves to some future actions by promising and offering).

2.3. Grammar categories involved. So far, in order to confine these the notion of speech acts to particular grammatical categories, we open and closed classes since the structure of the sentence involve both. The open classes are verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs, and are said to be unrestricted since they allow the addition of new members to their membership, whereas the closed classes are the rest: prepositions, conjunctions, articles (definite and indefinite), numerals, pronouns, quantifiers and interjections, which belong to a restricted class since they do not allow the creation of new members. Yet, as we shall see, our two main concepts shall deal with both classes since the duality direct vs. indirect speech will be represented by a wide range of changes in the different grammatical categories (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc).

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3.

A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE NOTIONS OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH.

In this chapter, we shall offer a theoretical framework for the notions of direct and indirect speech since there are several key notions which must be clarified when reviewing this issue. So, we shall start by (1) defining the term ‘speech act’, (2) offering an analysis of the Speech Act Theory in which we shall include the main types of speech acts following relevant figures in this field, that is, (a) Austin (1962) and (b) Searle (1969); then, we shall introduce (3) the main types of speech act and therefore, the notion of illocutionary force; next, we shall analyse (4) the relevance of pragmatics within the coinage of the terms direct vs. indirect speech; and finally, we shall approach both types of speech in terms of its (5) main structural differences regarding form (grammatical categories), function (syntax and semantics) and main uses (pragmatics).

3.1. On defining Speech Act. When we vocalise in order to send messages through the air to other members of our species we are producing speech events. Hence the message sent, the content of the communication, is a form of human action. So we shall define a speech act not as the act of speaking, but an act we perform by speaking. For instance, if we say “I promise to give you back twenty euros”, I have made a promise and not an apology or a wish, and that promise is created by the words that I use. This is the essence of the speech act; uttering the words generates the action. So, in general, speech acts are acts of communication since to communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type of speech act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed. For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and an apology expresses a regret. As an act of communication, a speech act succeeds if the audience identifies, in accordance with the speaker's intention, the attitude being expressed. So, speech acts, whatever the medium of their performance, fall under the broad category of intentional action, with which they share certain general features. An especially pertinent feature is that when one acts intentionally, generally one has a set of nested intentions. For instance, one might push a button with the intention not just of pushing the button but of ringing a bell. Here the single bodily movement involved in pushing the button comprises a multiplicity of actions, each

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corresponding to a different one of the nested intentions. Similarly, speech acts are not just acts of producing certain sounds.

3.2. The Speech Act Theory.

The speech act theory was inspired by the work of the British philosopher J.L. Austin whose postumously published lectures How to do things with words (1962) influenced a number of students of language including the philosopher John Searle (1969), who established a speech act theory as a major framework for the study of human communication. In contrast to the assumptions of structuralism where langue is seen as a system, over parole concerning the speech act, speech act theory holds that the investigation of structure always presupposes something about meanings, language use, and extralinguistic functions. But why should we review this theory? Because, as Austin stated, we can do many things with words and his typology of speech acts (later reviewed by Searle) will leads us directly to the classification of utterances in direct speech which have their respective structural changes in indirect speech. This is the reason why this classification is so relevant in our study.

3.2.1. Austin (1962). In How to Do Things with Words, Austin (1962) starts by enunciating a distinction between constative and performative utterances. According to him, an utterance, which originally is a spoken word or string of spoken words with no particular forethought or intention to communicate a meaning, becomes constative if it describes some state of affairs whose correspondence with the facts is either true or false. Performatives, on the other hand, do not describe or report or constate anything as true or false. It is worth mentioning here that the attitude of the person performing the linguistic act, his thoughts, feelings, or intentions is of great relevance at this distinction. Furthermore, Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) conceptualized speech acts as comprising three components. First, the locutionary act (the act of saying something) as the actual form of an utterance. Second, the illocutionary act (what one does in saying it: direct or indirect speech) as the

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communicative force of the utterance. Third, the perlocutionary act (what one does by saying it) depicted as the communicative effect of the utterance upon the feelings, thoughts, or actions of the audience, of the speaker, or of other persons. In other words, a locutionary act has meaning; it produces an understandable utterance. An illocutionary act has force; it is informed with a certain tone, attitude, feeling, motive, or intention, and a perlocutionary act has consequence; it has an effect upon the addressee.

3.2.2. Searle (1969). Searle summarizes Austin’s speech acts (1962) into five main categories: representatives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. In examining what people say to one another, we shall use Searle’s classification to state the main types of direct speech in order to analyse its main structural features: (1) firstly, representatives (also assertives) refer to some state of affairs by means of assertions, claims and descriptions, that is, to tell people how things are by stating; (2) secondly, directives, which are speech acts whose intention is to get the addressee to carry out some action by means of commands, requests, dares or entreaties; (3) thirdly, commissives, which are speech acts that commit the speaker to some future course of action by means of promises, threats and vows; (4) fourthly, expressives, which are speech acts that indicate the speaker's psychological state or mental attitude by means of greeting, congratulating, thanking or apologising in order to express the speaker's feelings and attitudes by thinking, forgiving, or blaming; (5) and finally, declaratives, which are speech acts that themselves bring about a state of affairs by means of marrying, naming, blessing or arresting. For instance, they bring about changes through our utterances by means of bringing about correspondence between the propositional content and reality, through baptizing, naming, appointing or sacking.

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3.3. Main types of speech act: the illocutionary force.

Traditional grammar recognises three main types of speech act, distinguishable in many languages on the basis of their form: first, statements or declaratives; second, questions or interrogatives ; and finally, commands or imperatives. For instance, respectively, ‘Her husband took out the rubbish’, ‘Did he take out the rubbish?’, ‘Take out the rubbish, John!’ Though the unmarked illocutionary force for declarative sentences is assertion, we have already seen that they can be used with other illocutionary forces as well. Similarly, not all interrogative sentences represent acts of questioning when uttered with falling intonation (i.e. I’m going to quit working-Do you want to be poor all your life?) as imperatives need not express command (i.e. Enjoy yourself in Bali/Use at your own risk).

As seen, the British philosopher Austin (1962) and the American Searle (1969) conceptualized speech acts as comprising three components: the locutionary, the illocutionary and the perlocutionary element. Yet, in our study we shall namely focus on the illocutionary act since it is this type the one related to direct and indirect speech and the one from which we get the main classification of utterances. In a speech act, the illocutionary act informs the listeners about something (an announcement, a wedding, farewell, promises) for the audience to understand the message. When (1962) In How to Do Things with Words, stated that “an utterance, which originally is a spoken word or string of spoken words with no particular forethought or intention to communicate a meaning” may be reported either in direct or indirect speech by means of performative verbs. These verbs shall indicate the attitude of the person performing the linguistic act (his thoughts, feelings, or intentions) through three main types of sentences: declarative (statements), interrogative (questions) and commands (orders). Therefore, if we concentrate on the illocutionary acts and possible performative verbs for our purposes, we find four major categories of communicative illocut ionary acts: constatives, directives, commissives and acknowledgments, respectively, where each type of illocutionary act is individuated by the type of attitude expressed (i.e. constatives: affirm, answer, claim, confirm, deny, inform, report, state; directives: ask, beg, order, request, warn; commissives: agree, offer, promise; and acknowledgments: apologize, congratulate, thank, accept).

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3.4. The relevance of Pragmatics: direct vs. indirect speech.

The field of pragmatics proves relevant on the distinction direct vs. indirect speech since it is based on the observation of how people use language to accomplish certain kinds of acts, broadly known as ‘speech acts’. In fact, the philosopher J.L. Austin defined it as the study of “how to do things with words ” since speech acts are distinct from physical or mental acts like drinking a cup of coffee, thinking about holidays, etc. Speech acts include asking for a cup of coffee, promising to book a holiday, threatening to cancel the booking, ordering a room, and so on. However, as stated before, most of these should be called “communicative acts”, since speech and even language are not strictly required to speaking and writing but also to pointing to a pitcher and miming the act of drinking. Yet, most introductions to pragmatics divide speech acts into two categories: direct and indirect, which are embedded in the notion of “illocutionary force” and show different structural features.

3.5. Main structural differences. The main structural differences between direct and indirect speech makes reference to syntactic, semantic and pragmatic parametres. For many years, syntax and semantics were studied with little regard for the ways people used grammar and meaning in communication and the use of language was relegated to the field of pragmatics. Nowadays, the role of syntax, semantics and namely use (pragmatics) when dealing with direct vs. indirect speech proves essential when studying a text regarding how connections and relations are actually set up among communicative contexts.

For instance, note a sentence like ‘ “Her parents visited her yesterday”, they said’. Syntactically, the direct speech sentence is quoted by inverted commas whereas the indirect speech sentence has no markers and is introduced by ‘that’. Semantically, we use direct speech to report what someone has said by quoting the words called ‘verbatim’ whereas indirect speech is used to report what someone has said in one’s own words (i.e. They said that her parents had paid a short visit to her the day before). Finally, in terms of use we shall say that indirect speech is much more usual than direct speech, but why? The reason is given by the speaker’s attitude and intention which shall use

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different grammatical and syntactic features when talking in first person singular and when reporting a fact. Regarding the main syntactic structural differences between direct and indirect speech it should be borne in mind that in terms of their complexity, sentences can be divided into three types: simple, complex and compound. For our purposes this analysis will deal with the main types of sentence structures based on their grammatical form (syntactic constructions) and their function in communication (the illocutionary force) that is, from their syntactic structures and their association with one particular function in speech acts (direct vs. indirect).

4.

ON DIRECT SPEECH: MAIN STRUCTURAL FEATURES.

On reviewing direct speech, that is, when we repeat the original speaker’s exact words (i.e. He said, ‘I have lost my car keys’), we shall start by analysing its main structural features so as to relate them to indirect speech. So, we shall review (1) main types of direct speech, (2) form on reviewing (a) reporting verbs, (b) verbal tenses, (c) pronouns, (d) ‘here and now’ words, and finally, (e) semantic changes in certain items; (3) function in terms of syntax and semantics on reviewing (a) main syntactic structures: quote speech and (b) word order of reporting verbs; and (4) main uses of direct speech in order to differenciate them from their respective indirect speech acts.

4.1. Main types of direct speech.

There are three basic types of direct speech acts, and they correspond to three special syntactic types that seem to occur in most of the world’s languages. Concernin g the sentence grammatical form, the classification comprises four types: declarative sentences, interrogative sentences, imperative sentences and exclamatory sentences whereas the classification concerning their function in communication shows that declarative sentences are chiefly used to make statements, interrogative sentences to ask questions, imperative sentences to give commands and exclamatory sentences to make exclamations, depending on the way speakers express their attitude through phonological, syntactic and semantic cues.

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Within this classification, we shall establish a close connection with the changes that occur in indirect speech (sometimes called reported speech) when reporting a piece of information. So, we shall base our analysis of direct and indirect speech within three main different communicative functions: (1) stating, by using declarative sentences (positive and negative); (2) requesting, by asking questions fo two types (a) Wh-questions and (b) yes-no questions; (3) ordering, by giving commands in the imperative form (positive and negative); and finally, (4) exclaming, by uttering exclamations in order to express emphasis. But let analyse the main structural features of these communicative functions in direct speech since they will give us the basis to build up indirect speech.

4.2. Form. Within this section, we shall approach the form of direct speech (morphology and phonology) regarding the grammatical categories involved in the main changes which take place when reporting in indirect speech, that is, reporting verbs, verbal tenses, pronouns, ‘here and now’ words and certain items that involve internal semantic changes (come vs. go, bring vs. take).

4.2.1.

Reporting verbs.

Thus when dealing with reporting verbs, we have to bring back again the contributions of Austin (1962), who called them ‘performative verbs’. Austin stated that an utterance was a spoken word or string of spoken words with no particular forethought or intention to communicate a meaning but that could be reported either in direct or indirect speech by means of performative verbs. These verbs show the attitude of the person performing the linguistic act (his thoughts, feelings, or intentions) through three main types of sentences: declarative (statements), interrogative (questions), commands (orders) and exclamative (exclamations). Therefore, if we concentrate on the illocutionary acts and possible performative verbs for our purposes, we find three main types respectively: constatives (say, affirm, answer, claim, confirm, deny, inform, report, state) in which we shall include exclamative verbs (exclaim, shout), directives (ask, wonder (if), enquire/inquire, want to know), and finally, commissives (beg, order, command, request, warn). We must not forget other verbs wich are followed by prepositions and which namely

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express acknowledgments (apologize, congratulate, thank, accept) as in ‘Thank you for coming tonight, Jane’, said Tom (vs. ‘Tom thanked Jane for visiting him that night’).

4.2.2.

Verbal tenses: time reference.

Verbal tenses in direct speech will undergo some changes which are termed ‘backshift’, and the resulting relationship of verb forms in the reporting and reported clauses is known as the sequence of tenses. We may illustrate all types of tense: present (simple vs. continuous) and past (simple vs. continuous), and also any type of time reference: future (simple, continuous, perfect), conditional, modal verbs and so on. Note that in direct speech, the reporting verb may not coincide with the one quoted, for instance, in a sentence like “What time have you arrived?”, I asked- the former sentence is introduced by present perfect and the latter by simple past.

4.2.3.

Pronouns.

This grammatical category is namely drawn from personal, object and possessive pronouns respectively (i.e. I asked Paul, “Do you like her?”-“No, I don’t. It’s all yours, David”); and also from demonstrative and possessive adjectives respectively (i.e. “This is my watch”, I warned him). Note that all of them shall undergo certain changes in indirect speech since speaker and hearer and their respective possessive, personal and object references are not the same any more.

4.2.4.

‘Here and now’ words.

This type of words corresponds respectively to place adverbs (here, there) or adverbial expressions of place (at this point, in the same place, under that tree) and time adverbs (yesterday, tomorrow) or

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adverbial expressions of time (some minutes ago, next week, in two hours). Note that individually, they usually belong to the grammatical category of nouns (tomorrow, yesterday), adjectives (next, last), or prepositional phrases (two minutes ago, in two hours).

4.2.5.

Semantic changes.

In direct speech we shall also find certain items (come vs. go, bring vs. take) that undergo relevant semantic changes from an internal perspective, namely situational and directional. Thus in a sentence like “Will you come to my party tonight?”, I asked Peter’, there will be internal semantic changes when reported later. Note that the invitation is one-way directional (Will you come...?) and will be reported in the other direction by the person invited to that party (He asked me if I would go to his party).

4.3. Function. Within function, we shall approach the main syntactic structures of given utterances in direct speech, that is, quote structures and the word order of reporting verbs, together with their semantics in order to establish further differences with indirect speech. 4.3.1.

Specific structures: quote speech.

The two most outstanding features of direct speech are, first, that the actual words a person says are quoted, that is, are reported between inverted commas and secondly, that the introductory reporting clause is preceded by a comma (i.e. “What are you doing?”, he asked me). Alternatively, it is possible to remove either or both of these features in what we know as ‘free direct speech’. This type is considered to be a free form whereby the characters apparently speak to us without the narrator as an intermediary (i.e. He said I’ll come back soon). It is namely used in narrative style in order to speed up the action so as to get the feeling of fast continuity (used by writers such as Dickens, Hemingway, James Joyce). Note that here it is not used the illocutionary force but locutionary types since there are no quotation marks and the speech is direct.

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4.3.2.

Word order: reporting verbs.

In order to examine word order in the placing of reporting verbs, we must establish first the difference between the two main clauses involved in direct speech. Thus in a sentence like “I won’t do it again”, he promised – we distinguish the reporting clause, which contains the reporting verb (he promised) and the quote itself (“I won’t do it again”), which represents the exact words someone has said. Note that the reporting clause may be placed in different positions with respect to the quote: at the end, in the middle, at the beginning). (1) The usual syntactic structure to quote is at the end on reporting what someone said as statements, questions, orders, suggestions and exclamations. As we have seen, after the quote there is no inversion of subject and verb when the subject is a pronoun. Yet, we may find inversion subject-verb (i.e. “I am ready”, replied John) in novels and short stories with verbs such as ‘ask, exclaim, suggest, reply, cry, reflect, suppose, whisper’ among others.

(2) We may also find the reporting verb in the middle of the quote in particular cases, for instance, (a) after a noun group (“Your son” I shouted, “has broken my window car”); (b) after a vocative (“Paula”, he said, “don’t play with my sunglasses”); (c) after an adverbial clause (“Maybe” she thought, “he finds me too boring”); and (d) after a clause if the quote contains more than one clause (“I was watching TV” she said “when that man phoned me”. This type is namely used in literary writing where reporting expressions often interrupt the normal flow of the sentences quoted. (3) Another usual position is at the beginning, that is, in front of the quote (i.e. She replied, “I will do it right now”), except for verbs such as ‘wonder, agree, disagree, command, promise’, which are hardly ever used in this case

4.4. Main uses. As stated above, we namely use direct speech to quote literally what someone said regarding thoughts, feelings, intentions, orders, suggestions or whatever. In addition, we use direct speech in literary style and, in particular, in narrative style to give speed to the action. Yet, in everyday life we do not use it very often since it is quite difficult to remember word by word so as to quote it literally although there are people who are able to do it.

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5.

ON INDIRECT SPEECH: MAIN FEATURES.

In this chapter, we shall review the other way of reporting what people have said, that is, indirect speech, which is namely achieved by using our own version of the words rather than the words actually used. We shall focus on the main changes, and therefore differences, taking place in the process direct-indirect speech. So, we shall review (1) main types of indirect speech, and the main changes in (2) form, on reviewing (a) reporting verbs, (b) verbal tenses, (c) pronouns, (d) ‘here and now’ words, and finally, (e) semantic changes in certain items; (3) function, in terms of syntax and semantics in (a) the main syntactic structures: reported speech and (b) word order of reporting verbs; and (4) main uses of indirect speech.

5.1. Main types of indirect speech.

Similarly to direct speech types, we classify indirect speech acts into three basic types, which correspond to three special syntactic types: declarative sentences, interrogative sentences, and imperative sentences and exclamatory sentences (these two are included within the same type) whereas the classification concerning their function in communication shows that declarative sentences are chiefly used to make statements, interrogative sentences to ask questions, imperative sentences to give commands and exclamatory sentences to make exclamations, depending on the speakers’ attitude through phonological, syntactic and semantic cues. Within this classification, we shall establish three main different communicative functions: (1) stating, by using declarative sentences (positive and negative); (2) requesting, by asking questions fo two types (a) Wh-questions and (b) yes-no questions; and finally, (3) ordering, by giving commands in the imperative form (positive and negative). But let analyse the main structural features of these communicative functions in reported speech and its main changes.

5.2. Form. The form of indirect speech addresses the main changes which take place backwards when reporting from direct to indirect speech within reporting verbs, verbal tenses, pronouns, ‘here and now’ words and certain items that involve internal semantic changes (come vs. go, bring vs. take).

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5.2.1.

Reporting verbs.

The reporting verbs within indirect speech are drawn from the already mentioned types of sentences: declarative (statements), interrogative (questions) and commands (orders) in order to show the attitude of the person performing the linguistic act (his thoughts, feelings, or intentions). Therefore, we shall namely introduce statements by means of constative verbs, such as ‘say, affirm, answer, claim, confirm, deny, inform, report, state’; questions by means of directive verbs, such as ‘ask, wonder (if), enquire/inquire, want to know’; and commands by means of commissive verbs, such as ‘beg, order, command, request, warn’.

Special attention must be paid on those verbs which are followed by prepositions and which namely express acknowledgments (apologize, congratulate, thank, accept) as in ‘Thank you for coming tonight, Jane’, said Tom (vs. ‘Tom thanked Jane for visiting him that night’).

5.2.2.

Verbal tenses: time reference.

We may establish a typology of changes from direct to indirect speech within all types of verbal tenses, from the expression of tense (present and past) to any type of time reference (future, conditional, modal verbs). When the report structure is used, it usually refers to something said in the past, so the reporting verb and the verb in the reported clause are therefore in a past tense. Yet, there are some exceptions where the reporting verb may appear in present tense (i.e. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, she says), usually when idiomatic expressions or proverbs are involved. Note that backshift is also optional when the time reference of the original utterance is valid at the time of the reporting (i.e. The teacher told them that the earth moves around the sun). Moreover, the reporting verb may be in the present tense for communications in recent past time (i.e. She says she was too busy to join us yesterday) and for reports attributed to famous works or authors which have present validity (i.e. The Bible says that greed is a sin). Finally, verbs of cognition may also be used in the present tense (i.e. I know they don’t care at all). But let us analyse the main changes within verbal tenses (simple, perfect, progressive). In the list below we shall present the direct speech form first and then the corresponding one in indirect speech.

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From Simple Present to Simple Past (i.e. He said, “I am worried” vs. He said he was worried).

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From Present Continuous to Past Continuous (i.e. He said, “I am singing because I feel happy” vs. He said he was singing because he felt happy).

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From Simple Past to Past Perfect (i.e. He said , “I didn’t understand a word” vs. He said he hadn’t understood a word).

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From Present Perfect to Past Perfect (i.e. “I have phoned Jane”, he said vs. He said he had phoned Jane).

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From Past Perfect to Past Perfect (i.e. “I had seen her walking”, he said vs. He said he had seen her walking).

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From Past Continuous to Past Continuous (i.e. He said, “I wasn’t doing anything wrong” vs. He said he wasn’t doing anything wrong).

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From Present Perfect Continuous to Past Perfect Continuous (i.e. He said, ‘I’ve been wait ing for two hours’ vs. He said he had been waiting for two hours).

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From Future (will) to Conditional Simple (would) (i.e. He said, ‘I will be there in two minutes’ vs. He said he would be there in two minutes).

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From Future Continuous to Conditional Continuous (i.e. She said, ‘I will be using your car while you are away’ vs. She said she would be using my car while I was away).

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But note, from Conditional to Conditional (i.e. I said, ‘I would like to see him’ vs. I said I would like to see him).

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Moreover, note the time reference change on modal verbs, for instance: from ‘can’ to ‘could’ (i.e. He said, ‘I can do it alone’ vs. He said he could do it alone); from ‘may’ to ‘might’ (i.e. He said, ‘It may be a boy’ vs. He said it might be a boy); from ‘must’ to ‘had to’ (i.e. The doctor said, ‘You must take this pill everyday’ vs. The doctor said I had to take that pill everday); and special uses like from ‘need’ to ‘had to’ (i.e. He said, ‘You need to go soon’ vs. He said I had to go soon).

5.2.3.

Pronouns.

Pronouns and possessive adjectives usually change from first or second to third person except when the speaker is reporting his own words (i.e. I said, ‘I like my new house’ vs. I said that I liked my new house). Also, pronoun changes may affect the verb (i.e. He says, ‘I know her’ vs. He says he knows her). Moreover, the demonstrative adjectives ‘this’ and ‘that’ and their plural forms ‘these’

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and ‘those’ undergo certain changes just to indicate a backward personal or object reference (i.e. He said, ‘I like this T-shirt’ vs. He said he liked that T-shirt). 5.2.4.

‘Here and now’ words.

Drawn from direct speech, this type of words corresponds respectively to place adverbs (here, there) or adverbial expressions of place (at this point, in the same place, under that tree) and time adverbs (yesterday, tomorrow) or adverbial expressions of time (some minutes ago, next week, in two hours). Note that individually, they usually belong to the grammatical category of nouns (tomorrow, yesterday), adjectives (next, last), or prepositional phrases (two minutes ago, in two hours).

In indirect speech, adverbs and adverbial phrases of time change backwards using the adjective ‘the previous’ and forward using ‘the next/the following + a noun’. Hence the main changes are as follows: from ‘today’ to ‘that day’; from ‘yesterday’ to ‘the day before/the previous day’; from ‘the day before yesterday’ to ‘two days before’; from ‘tomorrow’ to ‘the next day/the following day’; from ‘the day after tomorrow’ to ‘in two days’ time’; from ‘next week/year/etc’ to ‘the following week/year/etc’; from ‘last week/year/etc’ to ‘the previous week/year/etc’; from ‘a year ago’ to ‘a year before/the previous year’; from ‘now’ to ‘then, at that moment’; and so on. Note, however, that if the speech is made and reported on the same day these time changes are not necessary (i.e. At breakfast this morning he said, ‘I’ll be working’ vs. At breakfast this morning he said that he would be working). With respect to the place adverbs the main change happens from ‘here’ to ‘there’ when it is clear what place is meant (i.e. On the phone he said, ‘I’ll come back here very soon’vs. He said he would come back there very soon).

5.2.5.

Semantic changes.

There are certain reported clauses that may undergo semantic changes when reported in indirect speech. Thus a sentence like ‘You took the money!’ might be reported ‘He accused me of taking the money’. So, from different contexts we may include the following reporting verbs: admit, apologize for, deny, insist on + gerund (i.e. “No way. I’ll pay”, said John vs. John insisted on paying) or verbs such as: agree, refuse, offer, promise, threaten + infinitive structure (i.e. “I’ll pay”, he said to her vs. He offered to help her).

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We may also find semantic differences between such verbs as ‘say’ and ‘tell’. For instance, indirect statements are normally introduced by ‘say’ + object (i.e. He said he’d just heard the news). Yet, we use ‘tell ...+ how/about’ (i.e. He told us how he had passed the exam) although this verb is frequently used to introduce commands (i.e. He told me to stop playing). Moreover, there are other types of verbs such as ‘murmur, mutter, shout, stammer, whisper’ which indicate the voice or the tone of voice in which the speaker pronounces his statement.

5.3. Function.

Within function, we shall approach the main syntactic structures of given utterances in direct speech, that is, reporting verbs and the word order of reported structures, together with their semantics in order to establish further differences with indirect speech.

5.3.1.

Specific structures: reported speech.

The two most outstanding features of indirect speech are, first, that the words a person says are reported, that is, the speaker conveys a report of what has been said in his own words . Then, alike direct speech, words are not reported between inverted commas and secondly, that there is no comma after the introductory verb (i.e. “What are you doing?”, he asked me vs. He asked me what I was doing). As stated above, the main reporting verbs within indirect speech are ‘say, affirm, answer, claim, confirm, deny, inform, report, state’ for statements; ‘ask, wonder (if), enquire/inquire, want to know’ for questions; and ‘beg, order, command, request, warn’ for commands. Exclamation verbs are included within the statement type.

5.3.2.

Word order: reported structures.

In order to examine word order in reported structures, we shall revise again the main discourse types mentioned above which may be converted into indirect speech. So, indirect statements will be

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introduced by a subordinate that-clause; indirect questions by a subordinate wh-clause or if-clause; indirect exclamation by a subordinate wh-clause; and finally, the indirect directive (or commands) will be introduced by a subordinate that-clause or to-infinitive clause (without subject). (1) First, when statements are built up syntactically, they follow the structure: reporting verb + optional ‘that’ + a subordinate clause (i.e. John said, ‘I don’t like meat’ vs. John said (that) he didn’t like meat). It must be borne in mind that any of the reporting verbs are valid in the place of ‘said’ (i.e. claimed, stated, affirmed). (2) Secondly, when we turn direct questions into indirect speech, there are necessary changes in tenses, pronouns and possessive adjectives, and also adverbs of time and place (as in statements). The interrogative form of the verb changes to the affirmative form and the question mark (?) is therefore omitted in indirect questions. Within the first type (a subordinate wh-clause), if the introductory verb is ‘say’, it must be changed to a verb of inquiry (ask, inquire/enquire, wonder, want to know) as in “He said, ‘Where is the shop?’ vs. He asked where the shop was’. Yet, they are usually placed at the end of the sentence. On the other hand, in the indirect clause ‘ask’ can be followed by the person addressed (indirect object) as in ‘He asked me where the shop was’ and as we may observe, the question word with which the direct question begins is repeated in the indirect question (i.e. ‘How are you?’, he said vs. He asked me how I was).

When there is no question word, we are dealing with if-clauses in the indirect questions, and then ‘if’ or ‘whether’ (less usual) must be used (i.e. ‘Is anyone there?’ he asked vs. He asked if anyone was there).’Whether’ can emphasize that a choice has to be made (i.e. ‘Do you want to bo by air or sea? He asked vs. He asked whether I wanted to go by air or sea). ‘Whether + infinitive’ is possible after ‘wonder, want to know’ (i.e. Should I wait for you? He wondered vs. He wondered whether to wait for me or go on). (3) With respect to indirect commands (requests and advice are included here), they are usually epxressed by the sequence: verb of command/request/advice + object + infinitive (i.e. He said, ‘Lie down, Tobby’ vs. He told Tobby to lie down). The following verbs can be used: advise, ask, beg, command, encourage, forbid, invite, order, remind, request, tell, urge and warn. Note that ‘say’ is not included in this list since it is related to statements.

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Negative commands, requests, etc are usually reported by ‘not + infinitive’ (i.e. He said, ‘Don’t lie down, Tobby’ vs. He told Tobby not to lie down). Most verbs mentioned above require object + infinitive and must be followed directly by the person addressed without preposition (i.e. He said, ‘Go away!’ vs. He told me to go away).

Other ways of expressing indirect commands are expressed by the sequences: ‘say/tell + subject + be + infinitive’ (i.e. He said/told me that his wife was pregnant) and ‘say/tell + (that) + subject + should’ (i.e. He said/told me that if it was too late I shouldn’t walk home alone).

(4) With respect to exclamations, we shall say that they usually become statements in indirect speech and that the exclamation mark disappears (i.e. He said, ‘What a wonderful day!’ vs. He exclaimed that it was a wonderful day/He told us how wonderful the day was). Other types of exclamation such as ‘Good! Marvellous! Splendid! Heavens!’ have to be paraphrased when reported indirectly (i.e. ‘Good!’ he exclaimed vs. He gave an exclamatio n of pleasure)

5.4. Main uses. As stated above, we namely use indirect speech to give the exact meaning of a remark or a speech, without necessarily using the speaker’s exact words (i.e He said that he had no money at all). Yet, in everyday life we use it ve ry often since it is quite difficult to remember the exact words a person said some time ago (and sometimes even recently!). Moreover, we often use it to express the speakers’ feelings, thoughts and attitudes, for instance, when swearing as in ‘Damn!, he said’, we can report it by just saying ‘He swore’; ‘Liar!’ he said, by saying ‘He called me a liar’ and so on. There is a variety of indirect speech called ‘free indirect speech’ which is used extensively to report speech or (particularly in fiction) the stream of thought. “It is basically a form of indirect speech but (a) the reporting clause is omitted (except when retained as a parenthetical clause, as in direct speech), and (b) the potentialities of direct-speech sentence structure are retained (for example, direct questions and exclamations, vocatives, tag questions, and interjections). It is therefore the backshift of the verb, together with equivalent shifts in personal pronouns, demostratives, and time

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and place references, that signals the fact that the words are being reported, rather than being in direct speech” (Quirk et al. , 1990).

6.

EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS.

This study has looked at the expression of direct and indirect speech within lexical semantics, morphology and syntax in order to establish a relative similarity between the two languages that Spanish-speaking students would find it useful for learning English if these connections were brought to their attention, especially when different changes take place in time reference, pronouns, here and now words and so on. It has been suggested that a methodology grounded in part in the application of explicit linguistic knowledge enhances the second language learning process. In the Spanish curriculum (B.O.E. 2002), the expression of direct and indirect speech is envisaged from earlier stages of ESO in terms of stating what other people say up to higher stages of Bachillerato, towards more complex constructions, such as those of commands (i.e. He told me to leave the room). The expression of indirect speech has been considered an important element of language teaching because of its high-frequency in speech. We must not forget that the expression of these items is mainly drawn from both closed class categories, such as verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns, and open class categories such as prepositions which have a high frequency of use when reporting facts. Hence, the importance of how to handle these expressions cannot be understated since you cannot communicate without it. Current communicative methods foster the ‘teaching’ of this kind of specific linguistic information to help students recognize new L2 words. Learners cannot do it all on their own. Language learners, even 2nd year Bachillerato students, do not automatically recognize similiarities which seem obvious to teachers; learners need to have these associations brought to their attention. So far, we have attempted in this discussion to provide a broad account of the expression of direct and indirect speech in order to set it up within the linguistic theory and a theoretical framework so as to establish their main syntactic structures to be analysed individually. We hope students are able

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to understand the relevance of handling correctly these two ways of reporting in everyday life communication.

7.

CONCLUSION.

How language represents the world has long been, and still is, a major concern of philosophers of language. It is worth noting that although direct and indirect speech are fairly universal ways of reporting facts, thoughts, feelings and many more attitudes, they have separate syntactic constructions that distinguish them, for instance, an utterance like “Where are you? he asked” may be identified as a direct reporting fact within the type wh-questions. Moreover, almost any speech act is really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience. Making a statement may be the paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sorts of other things we can do with words (whisper, say, shout, apologize). We can make requests, ask questions, give orders, make promises, give thanks, offer apologies, expressing emphasis and disagreeing. In general, speech acts are acts of communication. To communicate is to express a certain attitude, and the type of reporting act being performed corresponds to the type of attitude being expressed (statement, questio n, command, exclamation). For example, a statement expresses a belief, a request expresses a desire, and a command expresses an order. Throughout this unit we have shown the correlation between direct and indirect speech. Communicative success is achieved if the speaker chooses his words in such a way that the hearer will, under the circumstances of utterance, recognize his communicative intention (inform, require, order). So, for example, if you spill some beer on someone and say 'Oops' in the right way, your utterance will be taken as an apology for what you did and reported indirectly with other words (paraphrased) as in ‘He apologized for spilling the beer on him’.

So far, in this study we have attempted to take a fairly broad view of the expression of direct and indirect speech since we are also assuming that there is an intrinsic connexion between its learning and successful communication. Yet, we have provided a descriptive account of Unit 30, untitled

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“Direct and Indirect Speech ” whose main aim was to introduce the student to the different ways of expressing these acts of speech. In doing so, the study has provided first a linguistic framework for these two items and then a theoretical framework to clarify some key terminology on the issue.

In fact, these two ways of reporting are speech acts which are a central element in communicative competence and in the acquisition of a second language since students must be able to express their thoughts, opinions and emotions in their everyday life in many different situations, directly or indirectly. As stated before, the teaching of these expressions comprises four major components in our educational curriculum: phonology, grammar, lexicon, and semantics, out of which we get five major levels: phonological, morphological and syntactic, lexical, and semantic plus that of pragmatics, which offers us the social context in which we must use them.

Therefore, it is a fact that students must be able to handle the four levels in communicative competence in order to be effectively and highly communicative in the classroom and in real life situations. Our two current expressions prove highly frequent in our everyday speech, and consequently, we must encourage our students to have a good managing of them.

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8. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

- Aarts, F., and J. Aarts. 1988. English Syntactic Structures. Functions & Categories in Sentence Analysis. Prentice Hall Europe. - Bach, K. (1994) 'Conversational impliciture', Mind & Language 9: 124-62. (Identifies the middle ground between explic it utterances and Gricean implicatures.) - Bach, K. and R. M. Harnish (1979), Linguistic Commuication and Speech Acts , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press - B.O.E. RD Nº 112/2002, de 13 de septiembre por el que se establece el currículo de la Educación Secundaria Obligatoria/Bachillerato en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia. - Bolton, D. And N. Goodey. 1997. Grammar Practice in Context. Richmond Publishing. - Council of Europe (1998) Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European Framework of reference. - Eastwood, J. 1999. Oxford Practice in Grammar. Oxford University Press. - Greenbaum, S. and R. Quirk. 1990. A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. Longman Group UK Limited. - Greenbaum, S. 2000. The Oxford Reference Grammar. Edited by Edmund Weiner. Oxford University Press. - Quirk, R & S. Greenbaum. 1973. A University Grammar of English. Longman. - Sánchez Benedito, F. 1975. Gramática Inglesa . Editorial Alhambra. - Searle, J. 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press. - Thomson, A.J. and A.V. Martinet. 1986. A Practical English Grammar. Oxford University Press. - van Ek, J.A., and J.L.M. Trim, 2001. Vantage. Council of Europe. Cambridge University Press.

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