Speech and Thought Presentation

• Speech Presentation
• Speech Presentation in Real Life
• First and Third Person Narration
• Different Ways of Presenting Speech
• Speech Presentation in the Novel
• Thought Presentation
• The Categories of Thought Presentation
 Speech Presentation

Stylistics analyzes how character speech is

presented in the literary texts. However, bear
in mind that the various presentational forms
explored here with respect to speech
presentation can also be used to present the
thoughts of characters and what they write.
 Speech Presentation in Real Life
Before dealing with fiction, we need to understand what
happens when speech is presented in real life. Let’s
consider:

Mary talks to Helen and tells her that Amy told her
husband she wants to separate.
In the anterior, reported situation Amy talks to Mary. In the
posterior, reported situation Mary talks to Helen and tells her
what Amy said to her husband.

The posterior situation is current for Mary and therefore it is

also close,and the anterior one is more remote. The anterior
one is more remote. However, that anterior, reported
situation may seem more or less remote, depending upon
the kind of speech presentation involved.
 As in 1st and 3rd Person Narration…
Reported discourse structure: we can think of speech presentation in
terms of 1st-person or 3rd person narration in novels. In the former the
narrator effectively reports to the narratee (posterior situation) what he or
she heard one character say to another (anterior situation). So the
reporting discourse is that between narrator and narratee and the reported
situation is that between character A and character B. In the latter,
because the narrator is not a character in the story, and is conventionally
assumed to be omniscient, the effect is more like one where we 'look in'
on the characters' conversation, as it unfolds, without the effect of report.
 Exercise 1

Now look at the following sentences and decide

which, in a scale from 1 (more) to 4 (least) shows
the details of what the person says:

1. He pointed him out his mistake.

2. “I told you to fix that bloody machine, not to start
it”.
3. He spoke severely to him.
4. He told him to fix the machine not start it.
 Exercise 1 - Key

1. “I told you to fix that bloody machine, not to

start it”. (DIRECT SPEECH, DS)
2. He told him to fix the machine not start it.
(INDIRECT SPEECH, ID)
3. He pointed him out his mistake (Narrator's
Representation of Speech Act, NRSA)
4. He spoke severely to him (Narrator's
Representation of Voice (NV))
 Different Ways of Presenting Speech
The Direct Speech (DS), within the so-called reported clause,
connects to the reported discourse situation and reports exactly
what the character said and the words and grammatical structures
used to say it (indications of the narrator are the quotation marks
and he said, which is the reporting clause).
The Indirect Speech (IS) reports the propositional content of what
the character said in the reported clause, but the words and
structures used to report it belong to the narrator.
The Narrator's Representation of Speech Act (NRSA), as with IS,
displays the words and structures of the narrator, and the only trace
of the character is a summary of what he said. Unlike DS and IS,
there is no reported clause at all.
The Narrator’s Representation of Voice (NV), simply reports on the
fact that the main character said to the other character. We don't
even know what speech act was used, let alone what was said or
what words were used to say it.
 More Ways of Presenting Speech

The Free Indirect Speech (FIS) is a mixture of DS and IS

features. As a result, it is often very ambiguous as to whether it
represents faithfully the words of the character or whether it is the
narrator's words which are being used. Very often there will be no
reporting clause, which may achieve a main clause status as in
DS. The tense and pronouns, but not necessarily the other deictic
markers, stay appropriate to the narrator, not the character.
However, any mixture of DS and IS features counts as FIS (e.g.
Fix that bloody machine, idiot!)

The Narrator’s Report of Action (NRA or simply N) does not

involve any presentation. The narrator just tells what happens
in the fictional world of the story (e.g. He pushed him)

(Leech and Short 2007, ch.10 Speech Acts)

 Exercise 2
For each sentence of the story below, indicate which speech
presentation category you think is involved:

• 1. Joey told Mary the story of his upbringing.

• 2. “I lived in a stinky place until I was seven,” he said.
• 3. He talked with a charming soft voice.
• 4. Then he looked down.
• 5. Mary told him he ought to get up before her parents came
back home.
• 6. And he really had to stop worrying about money!
• 7. He wasn't going to stop worrying, he replied.
• 8. “Either you love me for what I am or we're finished”.
• 9. Mary apologised for her unreasonable attitude.
• 10. They lived happily ever after in a small bungalow near
Swansea.
 Exercise 2 - Key
• 1. Joey told Mary the story of his upbringing. NRSA
• 2. “I lived in a stinky place until I was seven,” he said. DS
• 3. He talked with a charming soft voice. NV
• 4. Then he looked down. N
• 5. Mary told him he ought to get up before her parents
came back home. IS
• 6. And he really had to stop worrying about money! FIS
• 7. He wasn't going to stop worrying, he replied. FIS
• 8. “Either you love me for what I am or we're finished”. DS
• 9. Mary apologised for her unreasonable attitude. NRSA
• 10. They lived happily ever after in a small bungalow near
Swansea. N
 Speech Presentation in the Novel
In order to understand how speech presentation in novels
works, we will need:

1. To identify the category of speech presentation used

2. Work out why the writer has chosen the mode of

presentation involved (i.e. what effect does it have?)
 Forward about Nabokov’s Lolita
• Lolita was first published in 1955. The 1st-person narrator,
Humbert Humbert, is telling his story from prison, in the form of
a direct written address to the jury at his trial. He is clearly
going to be convicted of murder and sexually assaulting a
minor. But this 1st-person narration, and its ironic, self-
deprecating and humorous style means that it is difficult not to
sympathise with the narrator, even though he has committed
heinous crimes.
• Humbert Humbert falls headlong in love with Lolita, a teenage
beauty and a minor. He persuades Lolita's mother to marry him
(so that he becomes Lolita's legal guardian) and then secretly
murders her, so that he can be alone with Lolita. The extract
below occurs soon after Humbert Humbert has murdered
Lolita's mother. Lolita is away at summer camp at the time, and
Humbert Humbert now takes her away from the camp,
pretending that his wife, and Lolita's mother, is ill. Here they
are, driving away from the camp.
 Example
[DS] 'How's Mother?' [N] she asked dutifully. [N] I said
[FIS] the doctors did not quite know yet what the trouble was.
[FIS-DS] Anyway, something abdominal. [FIS-DS] Abominable?
[FIS-DS] No, abdominal. [FIS] We would have to hang around for
a while. [FIS] The hospital was in the country, near the gay town
of Lepingville, where a great poet had resided in the early
nineteenth century and where we would take in all the shows.
[FIS] She thought it a peachy idea and wondered if we could
make Lepingville before 9 p.m. [DS] 'We should be at Briceland
by dinner time,' [N] I said, [DS] 'and tomorrow we'll visit
Lepingville. [DS] How was the hike? [DS] Did you have a
marvellous time at the camp?'
[DS] 'Uh-huh.‘
[DS] 'Sorry to leave?'
[DS] 'Un-un.'
[DS] 'Talk, Lo, - don't grunt.
[DS] Tell me something.
(Nabokov, Lolita, Ch 27)
Speech Presentation: A summary Overview
Alternatives What is presented? Example

e.g. He talked on and on.

NARRATOR Narrator's e.g. In a hoarse voice he
Merely that speech occurred, perhaps
CONTROL/ Representation of muttered something
with an indication of general topic.
PRESENCE Voice (NV) indecipherable about his
boss.
Narrator
Speech occurred
Represents the e.g. She gave him his
+The Speech Act (perhaps with an
Speech Act marching orders
indication of topic)
(NRSA)
Speech occurred e.g. She insisted
Indirect Speech
+Act e.g. that he should
(IS)
+Propositional Content e.g. go.
Speech occurred
e.g. She looked from him to
Free Indirect +Act
the door. Why didn't he get
Speech (FIS) +Propositional Content
lost?
+??Actual words & structure used??

Speech occurred
CHARACTER
Direct Speech +Act e.g. "Why don't you get lost!"
CONTROL/
(DS) +Propositional Content she shouted.
PRESENCE
+Actual words & structure used
 Thought Presentation
Novelists can also report on the presentation of thought.
It involves the same basic categories of presentation as the
presentation of speech does, but the effects of these categories
are sometimes rather different. This is essentially because we
cannot HEAR other people’s or our thoughts. It is this difference
which gives rise to the possibility of different effects for a
presentational category, depending on whether it is being used
to present speech on the one hand, or thought on the other.

Note that in 1st-person narrations we would normally expect the

narrator only to present his or her own thoughts in the story
about his or her past. In 3rd-person narrations, on the other
hand, where the convention is that the narrator is omniscient, it
is common to get the thoughts of more than one character
portrayed in the same story, perhaps at different points in the
story.
The Categories of Thought Presentation
Speech presentation Thought presentation

Direct speech (DS) Direct thought (DT)

Free indirect speech (FIS) Free indirect thought (FIT)

Indirect speech (IS) Indirect thought (IT)

Narrators representation of Narrators representation of

speech act (NRSA) thought act (NRTA)

Narrators representation of Narrators representation of

voice (NV) thought (NT)
 Execise 3
Look at the following sentences and decide which, in a scale
from 1 (more) to 5 (least) shows the details of a person’s
thought:

1. She thought for a long time

2. She carefully considered her future
3. What would she do for the rest of her bloody life?
4. She asked herself what she would do for the rest of her
bloody life
5. “What will I do for the rest of my bloody life?” she asked
herself
 Execise 3 - KEY

1. “What will I do for the rest of my bloody life?” she asked

herself (DT, effect: an apparently rather conscious,
soliloquy-like, kind of thought. It seems deliberate and
coherent)
2. What would she do for the rest of her bloody life? (FIT,
effect: we feel close to the character's thoughts)
3. She asked herself what she would do for the rest of her
bloody life (IT, effect: we are given the propositional content
of the thought, but through the narrator's words and
structures, not the character’s. So we are given the
information in a distanced, filtered, way)
4. She carefully considered her future (NRTA, effect: we know
the kind of thinking involved and the topic of those thoughts,
but no more that this)
5. She thought for a long time (NT, effect: although we know
she was thinking, we are distanced maximally from those
thoughts)
Speech presentation checksheet
All sentences in the novel are either direct address to the reader or narration or the
representation of character speech and/or character thought. This Guidesheet is
devoted mainly to the presentation of character speech.

1. Speech presentation - Five basic kinds

1.1 Narrator's Representation of Voice (NV)

Completely under the narrator's control, and with a perspective so 'distanced' from
the speech presented that all we know about that speech is that it occurred (e.g.
'They conversed quietly with one another.'), perhaps with some general indication
of the topic of the talk (e.g. 'He was saying something about his trip.').

1.2 Narrator's Representation of Speech Acts (NRSA)

Completely under narrator control (like the narrator's characterization of events,
states and actions); however, a particular act of speech is now being represented,
although in a pretty minimal way.
"Speech Act" is the term used to designate ACTS performed by saying
something e.g. complaining, instructing, questioning, pleading, arguing. cf. She
insulted him. In the Narrator's Representation of a Speech Act (NRSA), we are told
what act of speech was used. We may also get some indication of the subject matter
talked about e.g. She told him about his bad breath. With NRSA, then, the report of
the speech is minimal, and completely under the control of the narrator. NRSA
usually contains:
o an indication of what speech act was used;
o (plus, optionally) what topic is talked about.
NRSA is the speech presentation category which connects the scale of speech
presentation with the straightforward narration of action. Narrators represent
actions (NRA). NRSA is speech action, action performed by saying things (e.g. 'He
ordered the prisoner's execution', 'He stated his demands'.

1.3 Indirect Speech (IS)

In addition to the speech act(s) the character uses we are also given
the propositional content of his/her utterance but in the narrator's words.
The Propositional content of a sentence is the core meaning or statement expressed
independent of the words used to express it. For example, what is the core
statement made in the following sentences?
It's raining heavily.
It's raining cats and dogs.
It's pissing down.
It's bucketing down.
Il pleut a verse.
You might say any of these sentences, and I could reasonably report them all in
Indirect Speech as "You said that it was raining heavily".
Thus indirect speech, like NRSA, is speech filtered through the narrator. This
results in relative distancing of the reader from the character compared with Direct
Speech (see below). IS contains:
o what speech act was used;
o what proposition was conveyed by what was said.

1.4 Direct Speech (DS)

DS contains the actual words and grammatical structures which the character
used in the original utterance, not those of the narrator. Hence, apparently, only
minimal filtering through the narrator occurs (though, of course, in the novel,
unlike real-life speech reporting, there was no original speech which is being
reported by a third party - the author makes it all up). In the extreme versions of DS
even the inverted commas and/or the introductory reporting clause can be omitted,
thus reducing the amount of narrator filtering to zero. DS contains:
o what speech act was used;
o what proposition was conveyed.
o what words and structures were used by the character to utter the
proposition.
1.4.1 The Relationship between Original and Direct/Indirect Speech
In the simplest forms of IS and DS there are two clauses, the reporting clause,
which belongs to the narrator, and the reported clause, which is a representation of
the speech being reported. The two clauses belong to two different discourse
situations -- the reporting clause relates to the situation where the narrator is talking
to the reader, and the reported clause relates to a previous discourse situation where
a character said something to another character.
You can "translate" an original utterance into DS/IS by operating a series of rules:
Into DS
1. One normally repeats the exact words used by the original speaker in
between inverted commas.
2. The reporting clause is used to identify the speaker (and, optionally, the
addressee). It also gives the appropriate verb of speaking.
Into IS
1. No inverted commas occur around the reported clause and there is no comma
separating the reporting clause, if there is one.
2. Introduce an introductory conjunction (normally that) at the beginning of the
reported clause. Sometimes this conjunction is grammatically optional,
sometimes obligatory.
This change represents an important grammatical difference in the
status of the REPORTED CLAUSE. It has main clause status in DS but
subordinate clause status in IS.
 3. Change any original non-statement grammar form (e.g. interrogative,
imperative) to statement form (declarative) and remove related punctuation
marks (e.g. question marks and exclamation marks).
4. Remove any specially coloured lexical items (e.g. swear words) and do not
use abbreviated verb forms or deviant spellings which may otherwise in DS
have been used to represent non-standard pronunciation, conversational
style, etc.
5. Change all deictic markers (e.g. tense, pronouns, time references) which
relate to the original speaker in the embedded speech situation so that they
now relate to the narrator who is reporting the clause.
Example A:
Original: Are you coming back here to live next year?
DS: He asked his sister, "Are you coming back here to live next year?"
IS: He asked his sister whether she was returning to live there the following year.
(Note: the highlighted words are all deictic markers in the IS version which have
been changed from the DS version)
Example B:
Compare also:
DS: "Why, it was only last night, Sir," whispered Kit's mother, "that I left him in
little Bethel."
IS: Kit's mother whispered (that) it had been only the night before that she had left
him in Little Bethel.
(Note how "why" and "Sir" have been removed because they are inappropriate to
the IS representation.)

1.5 Free Indirect Speech (FIS)

Free Indirect Speech (FIS) is a mixture of DS and IS features. As a result it is often
very ambiguous as to whether it represents faithfully the words of the character or
whether it is the narrator's words which are being used. Very often there will be no
reporting clause, and so the reported clause achieves main clause status as in DS.
But usually the tense and pronouns, but not necessarily the other deictic markers,
stay appropriate to the narrator, not the character. However, any mixture of DS
and IS features counts as FIS.
Any of the following could be FIS representations of the Dickens quotation above.
1. It had only been last night that she had left him in Little Bethel
[Tense and pronoun appropriate to IS, but main clause status of the speech
reported and use of near deictic last night appropriate to DS]
2. Why, it had only been last night that she had left him in Little Bethel.
[As above, but in addition, the use of the initial why, typical of speech,
makes this FIS representation a bit more free than (1)]
3. Why, it had only been last night, Sir, that she had left 'im in Little Bethel.
[This example is still a mixture of DS and IS features, and so counts as FIS,
but it is even more free than (2), because of the addition of the vocative Sir,
associated with speech, and the non-standard spelling IM, indicating dialect
pronounciation]
Hence, examples (1) - (3) are increasingly more free, showing the range of FIS
possibilities. FIS contains:
1. what speech act was used;
2. what proposition was conveyed.
3. ???????? What words and structures were used to represent that proposition
????????
A summary of speech presentation in prose style
{<------ Narration -------->}
{<------------- Speech Presentation ------------>}
NRA..............NV...........NRSA.................IS....................FIS......................DS
Control over
Narrator Character
<------------ speech -------------->
Control Control
representation
Less <------------------- Closeness to "Original" -------------------->More

2. Speech presentation and point of view

1. If the author wants to make his characters seem independent of the narrator,
he will use direct speech. If a character says things which are patently false
or silly, he will seem to condemn himself out of his own mouth.
2. Any move away from the DS end of the scale brings with it the feeling of
narrator interference.
3. NRSA and IS feel like forms which are heavily controlled narratorially,
because the words used are not those of the characters.
4. FIS has some narrator interference but also the feeling that some of the
words at least are those of the character. This mixed characteristic thus gives
the contradictory qualities of control and vividness, and is often, as a
consequence, used as a vehicle for irony (though note, irony in a novel can
be achieved in other ways too).
3. Thought Presentation
The same categories of presentation are available to an author when representing
the thoughts of his characters. These categories [Narrator's Representation of
Thinking (NT), Narrator's Representation of Thought Acts (NRTA), Indirect
Thought (IT), Free Indirect Thought (FIT) and Direct Thought (DT)] can be
defined in exactly the same way linguistically as for the equivalent speech
presentation categories. But the effects of one mode choice or another are different
from those for speech. Typically we tend to feel in the course of reading that Direct
Thought is the representation of conscious thought on the part of the character,
whereas Free Indirect Thought feels more like the representation of subconscious
thought. Note that with DT or FIT, you feel that you are getting the character's
process of thought represented, because of the assumption, borrowed from speech
presentation, that you are getting (completely with DT, and partially with FIT) the
"original" words and structures that the character used to do the thinking. This will
not be the case with IT or NRTA, and so you will feel much less close to the
character, and that the narrator is interposed between you and the character. We
will not examine thought presentation in any detail on this course as there is not
enough time. If you are interested in this area see section 4 of Short
(1996) Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose (pp311-20) and section
2 of chapter 10 of Leech and Short (1981) Style in Fiction (pp 336-50).

4. Reading and a word of warning

The relevant reading in Style in Fiction for speech presentation is pages 318-36.
However, that chapter makes a distinction between direct speech (DS) and free
direct speech (FDS), which we now think is unnecessary. Hence, we have not made
such a distinction in these notes, and we suggest that you ignore it.
5. Speech presentation: A summary overview
Alternatives What is presented? Example
NARRATOR Narrator's Merely that speech e.g. He talked on and
CONTROL/ Representation of Voice occurred, perhaps with on.
PRESENCE (NV) an indication of general E.g. In a hoarse voice
[NV is called NRS topic. he muttered something
(Narrator's indecipherable about his
Representation of boss.
Speech) in Short (1996)
Narrator Represents the Speech occurred e.g. She gave him his
Speech Act (NRSA) +The Speech Act marching orders
(perhaps with an
indication of topic)
Indirect Speech (IS) Speech occurred e.g. She insisted
+Act e.g. that he should
+Propositional e.g. go.
Content
Free Indirect Speech Speech occurred e.g. She looked from
(FIS) +Act him to the door. Why
+Propositional didn't he get lost?
Content
+??Actual words &
structure used??
CHARACTER Direct Speech (DS) Speech occurred e.g. "Why don't you get
CONTROL/ +Act lost!" she shouted.
PRESENCE +Propositional
Content
+Actual words
& structure
used