Examples: Direct speech: ‘You might post some letters for me,’ my boss said.
Reported speech: My boss asked me to post some letter for him. letters
Direct speech: He said to her, ‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ Reported speech: He asked her wheather he would be there tomorrow.
whether Direct speech: ‘Will you do this for me, Jim?’ Grace said.
Reported speech: Grace asked wheter he would do that for her. whether
3. Possible Causes of Student’s Errors in Reported Speech
The answer to the second problem formulation, ‘What are the possible causes of students’ errors in reported speech?’ is the interpretation of the research result in the
light of the theories proposed in Chapter II. There are three sources of a learner is producing errors in learning a new language. Those are interlingual transfer,
intralingual transfer, and context of learning Brown, 1987.
a. Interlingual Transfer
In learning a new language, students often make errors due to the interference of the students’ mother tongue. This happens because the system of a new language is
the only linguistic system for them Brown, 1987. The students who had not mastered the target language sometimes made errors in altering direct speech into
reported speech due to the interference of the mother tongue, Indonesian. 64
Examples: Direct speech: Mrs. Judy said to me, ‘You should be the first.’
Reported speech: Mrs. Judy suggested me that I should be the first. Direct speech: My mom said, ‘What are you doing now, Honey?’
Reported speech: My mom asked to me what I was doing then. Direct speech: Jack said to Jane, ‘Don’t go now I still need you.’
Reported speech: Jack asked Jane to not go then because he still needed her. If they are translated into Indonesian the reported speech, they will be:
Ibu Judy menyarankanku bahwa aku seharusnya menjadi yang pertama. Ibuku bertanya padaku apa yang aku lakukan pada saat itu.
Jack meminta Jane untuk tidak pergi saat itu karena dia masih membutuhkannya. In the first reported speech, the students made an error by adding object me after
suggest . It is because the students were interfered by their mother tongue,
Indonesian, in which they translated the sentence word by word, suggested into menyarankan
, me into ku. In fact, in English, reporting verb suggest is not followed by object. It is followed by that-clause. In the second reported speech, reporting verb
ask should be directly followed by personal indirect object without preposition to.
The students seemed to take the Indonesian transfer by translating the sentence word by word, asked into bertanya and to into pada. In the third reported speech, the
students translated the sentence using Indonesian word order, Jack asked Jane to not go then because he still needed her
. It is clear that students were interfered by Indonesian language. In fact, negative command of English reported speech is
expressed by not to-infinitive. From the three examples above, it is clear that Indonesian language influenced students in producing incorrect English reported
speech. 65
