Direct speech: My mom said, ‘What are you doing now, Honey?’ Reported speech: My mom asked what was I doing now.
The first reported speech is incorrect. The word order of reported clause is still in question form. The correct word order of the yesno-question is ifwhether + subject
she + verb would be. The question mark ? should be omitted since direct question becomes statement when it is reported. Therefore, the correct sentence
should be He asked ifwhether she would be there the next day. The second example is incorrect of word order of WH-question. The correct word order is WH what +
subject I + verb was doing. Therefore, the correct reported speech should be My mom asked what I was doing then.
8. To-Infinitive
From the data analysis, it was found that there were 2 errors of to-infinitive 0.56 the students made in the test. The examples and the discussions are
presented below. Example:
Direct speech: Jack said to Jane, ‘Don’t go now I still need you.’ Reported speech: Jack asked Jane to not go now because he still need her.
To report command, advice, request, and suggestion, the form of to-infinitive is used. To-infinitive is used in the positive command, advice, request, and suggestion.
While not to-infinitive is used in the negative form of them. The example above is incorrect because not is put after to. The correct form is
not to -infinitive, not to not-infinitive. The correct reported speech should be Jack
asked Jane not to go then because he still needed her. 60
Although there were only 2 errors of to-infinitive found in the test, students have to notice their errors and learn to-infinitive more in order not to make the same
errors.
9. That-Clause
In the test which consisted of 30 items, there was only one item, number 29, which used that-clause form. From 52 students, there were 28 errors of that-clause
7.91 found in their test. However, there was only one type of that-clause error found, which is presented below.
Example: Direct speech: Mrs. Judy said to me, ‘You should be the first.’
Reported speech: Mrs. Judy suggested me to be the first. The reported speech above is incorrect since the reporting verb suggest cannot be
followed by object and infinitive structure. Suggest can be reported with that-clause. Therefore, the correct reported speech should be Mrs. Judy suggested that I should
be the first.
c. The Types of Errors Based on the Types of Reported Speech
Not only the errors based on the surface strategy taxonomy and the grammatical changes, but also errors based on the types of reported speech were found in the test.
The number of errors is presented in the table 4.8.
Table 4.8 Reported Speech Errors Found in the Test Based on the Types of Reported Speech
Types of Errors Number of Errors
Percentage Statement
- -
Question 11
33.33 Command
17 51.51
Request -
- Suggestion and Advice
- -
Exclamation 5
15.15 61
