A Preliminary Study of Free Indirect Speech

【Abstract】Free indirect speech is vital to express the thoughts of characters， so it’s significant to have a comprehensive knowledge of its form and function， which is also vital to the appreciation and creation of literary works. To have a better understanding of it， this study will illuminate syntactic and pragmatic features of free indirect speech and generalize its main functions.

【Key words】free indirect speech; features; functions

【作者簡介】李潔（1994.02-），女，漢族，河南駐馬店人，首都師范大學外國語學院，碩士研究生在讀，研究方向：外國語言學及應用語言學。

Introduction

Free indirect speech is the representation of consciousness. By use of it， it’s possible to capture perceptual and preverbal states of a character’s mind while maintaining a ‘narrative internal observation point’. It helps to appreciate literary characters’ inner world by studying its features and functions.

1. The Definition of Free Indirect Speech

Free indirect speech is a term used for the discourse presentation category that combines features of indirect discourse （past tense and third person reference） with features of direct discourse. It expresses a character’s subjectivity without quoting him or her directly and without subordinating it syntactically to a reporting clause.

2. Syntactic and Pragmatic Features of Free Indirect Speech

The key to recognize a free indirect speech is to find the subject of the discourse or consciousness which differs from the narrator. If we can find such a subject， the discourse may be a free indirect speech. The language materials that identify the existence of character’s subject of discourse or consciousness are pragmatic features of free indirect speech. It mainly has following pragmatic features.

2.1 The Existence of Psychological Verbs and Sensory verbs

2.1.1 The Existence of Psychological Verbs

Psychological verbs describe activities of thinking， such as， tell oneself， think， wonder， it implies a subject of consciousness which differs from narrator and means the following discourse may be a free indirect speech.

2.1.2 The Existence of Sensory Verbs

Sensory verbs that express vision， hearing and smell indicate the existence of a perceptual center， the following discourse may be his perceptual contents， so the description of character’s sensory behavior may be the omen of free indirect speech.

E.g.， He looked into her eyes. She seemed angry.

“Look” is the vision behavior of character “he”， so the second sentence is his judgment of what he saw， it’s his free indirect speech.

2.2 The Existence of Expressive Elements

Expressive elements include some special sentence patterns such as exclamatory sentence and interrogative sentence. It also includes words that express value judgments， such as， awful， poor， great. Some adverbs also have evaluative property， such as， just， maybe， hardly. They’re indications of free indirect speech.

E.g.， She （the girl） thought. How could the poor thing have married him in the first place？

The word “poor” is the girl’s judgment， it’s an interrogative sentence， so it’s her free indirect speech.

Main Functions of Free Indirect Speech

Effectively Express Characters’ Mental Activities

Free indirect speeches express characters’ stream of consciousness. It helps to find the mystery of character’s inner world.

E.g.， He told…their attitude toward Saul Bird was disgusting. They were sick people， he could not live under the same roof with such sick， selfish people！

The italic sentence is a free indirect speech， it’s the character’s internal activity reflecting his disgust.

Strengthen the Feeling of Sympathy and Ironical Effect of Language

Free indirect speech has the property of duplicity which’s also called double voice， it can reveal both author’s and character’s view. When the author’s view is in consistent with the character， it strengthens sympathy to character. If author’s view differs from character， the interferential voice of the narrator is usually satirical.

3. Conclusion

Free indirect speech is of great importance in western novels and literary creations， it’s beneficial to have a vivid expression of characters’ mental feeling. Moreover， the study of it helps to better understand western novels and appreciate the colorful mental feelings of literary characters.

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