A. What is Direct speech?
In a play the speeches of the characters are given as they speak them. In the work of fiction such as a short story or a novel, the speeches of the characters are separated from the rest of the narrative by putting quotation marks or the inverted commas at the beginning and at the end of each speech. This technique of reproducing the exact words spoken by a person or a character is called the use of the Direct or Reported speech.
As an exercise in the writing of correct English, it familiarizes us with the rules and regulations of changing the Direct or the Reported speech into the Indirect speech and vice versa.
The direct speech is reported in the following ways:
1. “You will spoil your frock,” said the man warningly.
2. She said to her husband, “I am not well.”
3. Waheed said to the boy, “Who is your father?”
4. The teacher said, “Show me your note-book.”
5. They shouted, “Hurrah! Pakistan has won the world cup in Hockey.”
Features of the Direct Speech
1. The Direct or the Reported speech is always enclosed within the quotation marks except in a play.
2. The first word of the Reported speech begins with a capital letter.
3. The Reported speech is separated from the rest of the sentences with a comma.
B. What is Indirect speech?
When the words spoken by a person or a character are reproduced or rewritten in our own words by changing the tense and the person whenever necessary, it is called the Indirect speech. Thus, if we change all the examples of the Direct Speech given above in our own words, they will read as follows in the Indirect Speech.
1. The man told her warningly that she would spoil her frock.
2. She told her husband that she was not well.
3. Waheed asked the boys as to who his father was.
4. The teacher ordered the student to show him his note-book.
5. They exclaimed joyfully that Pakistan had won the World Cup in Hockey.
Features of the Indirect Speech
After changing the Direct Speech into the Indirect Speech in the manner given above, the following features of the Indirect Speech are noticed:
1. The quotation marks or the inverted commas are completely removed in the Indirect Speech.
2. In most cases, the Indirect Speech is joined with the rest of the sentence with the help of the conjunction “that”.
3. Punctuation marks such as the sign of interrogation (?) and the sign of exclamation (!) are not used in the Indirect. In other words, the Indirect Speech is always in the form of Assertive sentences.
4. It has been noticed that a Direct Speech in fiction and in general narratives is introduced by words such as “He said” and “She answered”, etc. This fragment of a full sentence in the Direct Speech is called the “Reporting Speech”. It is important in that it has its own Finite Verb which affects the tense of the Reported Speech when it is changed into the Indirect Speech.
5. The tense of the Reporting Speech is never changed.
6. The sentence (or sentences) within inverted commas is called Reported Speech.
C. Rules governing the change of tense in the Indirect Speech.
Rule No.1