Rules of direct and indirect speech

Back to: Rules for Narration Change of Optative Sentences • Optative sentence is different from exclamatory sentence in the sense that this kind of sentence expresses hope, wish, prayer, whereas exclamatory sentence expresses emotions. Optative sentence starts with ‘may’ or ‘wish’ • Instead of a question mark (?), a full stop (.) or exclamatory mark (!) can be used in case of optative sentence. • The reporting verb of optative sentence changes to wished/prayed/hoped in narration change from direct to indirect speech. • The reporting clause and reported clause is connected with conjunction ‘ that’, sometimes no conjunction is used. Examples Direct Speech Indirect Speech The man said to the old man, “May you live a longer life.” The man wished that the old man might live a longer live. The priest said, “May the god bless you.” The priest prayed that the god might bless him/her. She said to me, “Wish you a happy life ahead.” She wished me a happy life ahead. Mother said, “May my son recover soon.” Mother wished that her son might recover soon. His friend said to him, “may you find success in life.” His friend wished that he might find success in life. I said to my brother, “May you pass the exam.” I wished that my brother might pass the exam. The monk said, “May you find your path in life.” The monk wished that he/she might find his/her path in life. The villagers said to the volunteers, “May you be rewarded for your good works.” The villagers wished that the volunteers might...

The way we talk or we narrate any story is called narration . There are mainly two ways how a speaker reports words to narrate anything. What are the types of narration? The two ways to report the words of a speaker are known as Direct Speech and Indirect Speech. But what exactly are they? And how do we use it in narration ? • What is Direct Speech? A direct speech is a sentence in which the exact words said are repeated in inverted commas (also known as quotation marks). To write and indicate a direct speech , we use quotations (“ “). That’s why it is sometimes called quoted speech. An important thing to remember is that the words inside the quotation marks should be the exact words of the speaker or the person in concern. For example: • “Do you understand the narration rules ?” asked Nishat. • Mahi said, “Bring me a fruit basket when you come back home.” • “What’s that?” asked Junayed. Image Source: Key Differences • What is Indirect Speech? When the message of what someone said is communicated without actually writing the statement out in whole, it is known as indirect speech. It is also known as reported speech. Indirect Speech refers to conveying the message of the speaker only. It doesn’t have to be the exact words. Here, the main focus is on the message. Indirect Speech is not written with quotations (“ “) and we convey the message of the speaker in our own words without changing its meaning. Besides, when we change the speech, the tense of the sentence usually chan...