Indirect Discourse for Dummies

Indirect Discourse

Let's dive right in and discover what this fancy term, "indirect discourse," really means. Have you ever played a game of telephone? You know, where one person whispers a phrase into another person's ear, and then they pass it along until it reaches the last person? Well, think of indirect discourse like that game of telephone, but with words instead of whispers.

Indirect discourse is a way of reporting or talking about something that someone else said or thought, without using their exact words. Instead of repeating what they said word-for-word, we paraphrase or summarize it. It's like giving a little summary of what someone else said, kind of like telling a friend what happened in a movie you watched last night.

Let me explain with an example to make it even clearer. Pretend your friend Sally said, "I love ice cream." If you were using direct discourse, you would say, "Sally said, 'I love ice cream.'" But with indirect discourse, you could say, "Sally mentioned that she really enjoys eating ice cream." See how we paraphrased what Sally said?

It's like being a translator, but instead of translating from one language to another, you're translating from someone's exact words into a more general description. Indirect discourse helps us share what someone else said or thought, without having to repeat every single word they said. It's like summarizing and retelling their message using our own words.

Now, here's where it gets a bit more interesting. Indirect discourse can also involve changes in verb tenses, pronouns, and even word order. Let's use another example to illustrate this. Imagine your friend Tom said, "I will buy a new bike." With indirect discourse, you could say, "Tom mentioned that he was going to buy a new bike." Do you notice how we changed "will" to "was going to" and "I" to "he"? We're still capturing the essence of Tom's message, but we're adapting it to fit our own style of speaking or writing.

So, in a nutshell, indirect discourse is a way of reporting or talking about what someone else said or thought by paraphrasing, summarizing, and adapting their words into our own style. It's like playing a game of telephone with words, where we translate their exact words into a more general description using our own words. Remember, just like in a game of telephone, the main goal is to stay true to the original message while putting it in our own words.