Reported speech (indirect speech) is the grammatical system for conveying what someone said without quoting their exact words. It contrasts with direct speech, which preserves the original utterance verbatim.
| Feature | Direct | Indirect |
|---|---|---|
| Quotation | "I am tired," she said. | She said (that) she was tired. |
| Verb form | Original tense preserved | Backshifted (present to past) |
| Pronouns | Speaker's perspective | Reporter's perspective |
| Time/place | Original deixis | Shifted (today to that day, here to there) |
The core mechanism is tense backshift: when the reporting verb is past, the reported verb typically shifts one step back.
Backshift is optional when the reported information is still true (She said she lives/lived in Hanoi) or when the reporting verb is present (He says he is coming).
The choice of reporting verb adds meaning beyond neutral say/tell:
| Function | Verbs |
|---|---|
| Neutral | say, tell, mention, state |
| Suggestion/advice | suggest, recommend, advise, urge |
| Assertion | claim, assert, maintain, insist |
| Denial/refusal | deny, refuse, reject |
| Question | ask, inquire, wonder, want to know |
Reporting verbs govern different complementation patterns: suggest + gerund/that-clause, advise + object + infinitive, deny + gerund. These patterns are lexically specific and must be learned individually. See Complementation.
Reported questions use statement word order (no Inversion) and drop the question mark:
Yes/no questions take if or whether; wh-questions retain the wh-word.
The traditional approach of drilling mechanical backshift rules produces learners who can transform sentences on paper but struggle with natural reporting in conversation. Key problems:
Effective teaching moves beyond transformation drills to tasks involving genuine reporting: retelling stories, summarising interviews, reporting news, and comparing different reports of the same event.