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2. Indirect Speech
According to Celce-Murcia and Larsen Freeman 1999, indirect speech is used “when one wishes to report the content of the original source without
necessarily repeating sentences exactly as they were originally uttered” p. 687. Indirect speech is derived from direct speech. Direct speech “refers to reproducing
words exactly as they were originally spoken” Azar, 1993: 273. Direct speech and indirect speech have different form. The main difference is in the way of
writing. According to Azar 1993, direct speech always uses quotation marks. Meanwhile, in indirect speech, there are no quotation marks.
Yule 2004 states indirect speech is introduced by a Quotative Frame. Quotative Frame consists of three parts. They are attributed speakers e.g., he, she,
the boss, my teacher, reporting verb e.g., said, asked, tell, report, and conjunction e.g., that, if, whether. Quotative Frame is also called reporting
clause. The reporting clause then followed by reported clause, which consists of the clause that is reported in the speech. For example:
[1] Smith reports that budget cuts may occur during this recession. Yule, 2004: 688
In example [1], the clause “Smith reports that…” is called reporting clause. The word report is called reporting verb. While the clause “…budget cuts
may occur during this recession” is called reported clause. In the example, the word that is put in the bracket since it is optional. According to Thomson and
Martinet 1986: 254, it is allowed to omit that when the reporting verb is say or
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tell. However, when reporting verb like complain, explain, object, and point out is used, that cannot be omitted.
a. Changes in Transferring Direct Speech into Indirect Speech
In changing direct speech into indirect speech, there should be some changes in some aspects, like in the tense, demonstrative, personal pronoun,
adverb of time and place, and word order Yule, 2004.
1 Tense
According to Celce-Murcia and Larsen Freeman 1999: 689, “…the tense in reported clause is in some sense controlled by the tense in the reporting clause,
such as when the reporting verb is in the past tense, the verb in the reported clause must be back shifted.” For example, when the direct speech is “I’m leaving
tomorrow”, the backshift is presented in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2: The Examples of Backshift Celce-Murcia and Larsen Freeman, 1999: 689
Reporting Verb Tense Indirect Speech
Simple Present no backshift She says that she is leaving tomorrow.
Present Perfect no backshift She has said that she is leaving tomorrow.
Simple Past to past progressive tense
She said that she was leaving tomorrowthe next day.
Celce-Murcia and Larsen Freeman 1999 state there are also some exceptions in backshift. There will be no backshifts if:
1 The event stated by the speaker remains true. 2 What is conveyed by the speaker is general truth.
3 The statement is reported to third person by a second person immediately after it is said by the first person.
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