Stylistic classification of the english vocabulary

c) Represented speech

Represented or reported speech is a stylistic de­vice combining characteristic features of direct and indi­rect speech. Introducing represented speech into his narration the author creates the effect of hero's immediate presence and participation. For example:

He saw men working, and sleeping towns suc­ceeding one another. What a great country America was! What a great thing to be an artist here! ...If he could only do it! If he could only do it! If he could only stir the whole country so that his name would be like that of Dore in France or Vereshchagin in Russia. (Dreiser)

As we see, the morphological structure of the given example is that of indirect speech. But though the quota­tion marks are absent and though the structure of the passage does not indicate the hero's interference into the writer's narration, still there is a certain feature which enable us to distinguish it from the author's indirect speech proper. They stand close to the norms and patterns of direct speech. See how many exclamatory sentences there are in the extract: they help to reflect the emotional state of the hero.

The writer does not eliminate himself completely from the narration, but coexists with the personage.

Represented speech can be divided into two uneven groups: uttered represented speech and unuttered or inner represented speech.

Uttered Represented Speech

Uttered represented speech is a mental repro­duction of a once uttered remark or a whole dialogue. For example:

Old Jolyon was on the alert at once. Wasn't the "man of property" going to live in his new house, then? He never alluded to Soames now but under this title.

"No",- June said - "he was not; she knew that he was not!"

How did she know?

She could not tell him, but she knew. She knew nearly for certain. It was most unlikely; circumstances had changed! (Galsworthy)

The first sentence is the author's speech. In the second sentence "Wasn't the "man..." there is uttered represented speech: the actual speech must have been "Isn't the...". This sentence is followed by one from the author: "He never...". Then again comes uttered repre­sented speech marked off in inverted commas, whicn is not usual. The direct speech "No", the introductory "June said" and the following inverted commas make the sentence half direct half uttered represented speech. The next sentence "How did she know?" and the following one are models of uttered represented speech: all the pecu­liarities of direct speech are preserved, i.e., the repetition of "She knew"; the colloquial "nearly for certain", the absence of any connective between the last two sentences and finally the mark of exclamation at the end of the passage. And the tenses and pronouns here show that the actual utterance passes through the authors mouth.

Representee! uttered speech is a mental reproduction of a once uttered remark or even a whole dialogue. E.g.:

"So I've come to be servant to you".

"How much do you want?"

"I don't know. My keep, I suppose". Yes, she could cook. Yes, she could wash. Yes, she could mend, she could darn. She knew how to shop in a market." (Du Maurier)

The contents of the last four sentences leaves no doubt that they are answers to further questions, though their form - the third person of the pronouns, the change of the tense, the abolition of quotation marks - clearly shows that the author turned from direct to represented speech.

This device is used not only in the belles-lettres style. It is also efficiently used in newspaper style.

In the modern belles-lettres prose style the speech of the characters is modelled on natural colloquial patterns. The device of uttered represented speech enables the writer to reshape the utterance according to the normal polite literary usage.

Unuttered or Inner Represented Speech

Unuttered or inner represented speech is in­comparably larger, it enables the writer to give a fuller and more complete picture of the hero's state of mind. For example:

"To bed then and to sleep. To total darkness. No thoughts, no dreams, nothing till morning came - and then the sharp swift torture of waking life" (Du Maurier)

The writer often resorts to inner represented speech with the commentary: "he thought", "he dreamed", etc.

Inner represented speech, unlike uttered represented speech, expresses feelings, emotions and thoughts of the character which were not materialized in spoken or written language. That is why. it abounds in exclamatory words and phrases, elliptical constructions, breaks and other me­ans of conveying the feeling and psychological state of the character. When a person is alone with his thoughts and feelings, he can give vent to those strong emotions which he usually keeps hidden.

"His nervousness about this disclosure irritated him profoundly; she had no business to make him feel like that - a wife and a husband being one person. She had not looked at him once since they sat down, and he wondered what on earth she had been thinking about all the time. It was hard, when a man worked hard as he did, making money for her - yes and with an ache in his heart - that she should sit there, looking - looking as if she saw the walls of the room closing in. It was enough to make a man get up and leave the table" (Galsworthy)

The inner speech of Soames Forstyle is here introdu­ced by two words describing his state of mind - "irritated" and "wondered". The colloquial aspect of the language in which Soames'. thoughts and feelings are expressed is obvious. He uses colloquial collocations: "she had no business", "what on earth", "like that" and colloquial constructions: "yes and with...", looking - looking as if...", and the words used are common colloquial".

Being a continuation of the author's speech and that of the character, inner represented speech fully discloses the feelings and thoughts of the character, his world outlook.

Inner represented speech, unlike uttered represented speech, is usually introduced by verbs of mental percep­tion as think, meditate, feel, occur (an idea occurred to...), wonder, ask, tell oneself, understand and the like. For example:

"Over and over he was asking himself; would she receive him? would she recognize him? what should he say to her?" "why weren't things going well between them? he wondered".

The only indication of the transfer from the author's speech to inner represented speech is the semicolon which suggests a longisn pause. The emotional tension of the inner represented speech is enhanced by the emphatic "these" (in "these children"), by the exclamatory sen­tences "God bless his soul" and "in the name of all the saints". This emotional charge gives an additional shade of meaning to the "was sorry" in the author's statement: Butler was sorry,, but he was also trying to justify himself for calling his daughter names.

E. Transferred Use of Structural Meaning