Task C - the complete set of ways of presenting speech
Below we present a rather fuller and slightly different version of the
scale we began to examine in Task B. At the top of the scale we have a
sentence (the most extreme form of Direct Speech, with no quotation marks
and no narrator's reporting clause) in which only the speech of the character
is represented. Then, as we come down the scale, the 'mix' of character
and narrator gradually changes, so that at the other end we have the narrator
'on his or her own'. This bottom sentence is not a sentence of speech
presentation at all, but a sentence of 'pure narration'. In even the most
minimal representation of a character's speech there will still be a little
bit of the character in there.
You can click on each sentence in turn to learn
more about the sentences and categories and the relations among them.
Click on all of them to learn more about them before moving on to the
next page (which will look at some interesting examples of these categories
in novels and stories).
You can click on the sentences in any order that takes your fancy, but
we would suggest that you start at the two extremes and gradually work
in, leaving Free Indirect Speech (FIS) till last. We have not yet introduced
this category, which turns out to be very important in the novel, and
in any case, as it is a kind of blend of the DS and IS categories, it
is best understood after you have looked at DS and IS.
