Narration Rules, Examples, Questions

There two ways to convey a message of a person, or the words spoken by a person to other person.

1. Direct speech: Direct or quoted speech is a sentence (or several sentences) that reports speech or thought in its original form, as phrased by the original speaker. It is usually enclosed in quotation marks. The cited speaker is either mentioned in the inquit (Latin "he/she says") or implied.

Example: Mini said, “I will give you a pen”.

2. indirect speech: indirect speech, also called reported speech or indirect discourse, is a means of expressing the content of statements, questions or other utterances, without quoting them explicitly as is done in direct speech. For example, He said "I'm coming" is direct speech, whereas He said he was coming is indirect speech. Indirect speech should not be confused with indirect speech acts.

Example: Mini said that he would give me a pen.
Reporting verb: The verb first part of sentence (i.e. he said, she said, he says, they said, she says,) before the statement of a person in sentence is called reporting verb.

Examples. In all of the following example the reporting verb is “said”

• He said, “I work in a factory” (Direct speech)
• He said that he worked in a factory. (Indirect speech)
• They said, “we are going to cinema” (Direct speech)
• They said that they were going to cinema. (Indirect speech)

Reported Speech: The second part of indirect speech in which something has been told by a person (which is enclosed in quotation marks in direct speech) is called reported speech. For example, a sentence of indirect speech is, He said that he worked in a factory. In this sentence the second part “he worked in a factory” is called reported speech and that is why the indirect speech as a whole can also be called reported speech.