4 - Speech Representation

Summary

Chapter 4 introduces the categories of speech and thought representation and traces their development in the history of English. Categories of speech representation can be identified in Old and Middle English, but thought representation existed only in the more narrator-controlled forms such as indirect thought and narrative representation of thought; mixed forms, such as “slippage” between direct and indirect speech, were common. The conventionalization of quotation marks in Early Modern English led to the clearer marking of direct speech. Overall, there is a general trend from more indirect (narrator-controlled, summarizing) forms to more direct (autonomous or non-narrator-controlled, verbatim) forms of representation. For all periods, (free) direct speech is the norm for speech representation. Internal narration takes over from narrative representation of thought in the modern period. Free indirect discourse did not exist in earlier English, arising perhaps in proto-form in the seventeenth century, but became fully conventionalized only in the course of the nineteenth century. Present-day English is characterized by the rise of new reporting verbs, especially go and be like.