Making your reference appropriate

7.57 People, things, times, and places can be referred to in different ways, depending on who is speaking or on when or where they are speaking. For example, the same person can be referred to as 'I', 'you', or 'she', and the same place can be referred to as 'over there' or 'just here'.

If you use a report structure to report what someone has said, the words you use to refer to things must be appropriate in relation to yourself, the time when you are speaking, and the place in which you are speaking. The words you use may well be different from the words originally spoken, which were appropriate from the point of view of the speaker at the time.

7.58 For example, if a man is talking to someone about a woman called Jenny, and he says, 'I saw her in the High Street', there area a number of ways in which this statement can be reported. If the original speaker repeats what he said, he could say, 'I said I saw her in the High Street.' 'I' and 'her' do not change, because they still refer to the same people.

If the original listener reports what was said, he or she could say, 'He said he saw her in the High Street.' 'I' becomes 'he', because the statements reported from the point of view of a third person, not from the point of view of the original speaker.

If the original listener reports the statement to Jenny, 'her' becomes 'you': 'He said he saw you in the High Street'.

The original listener might report the statement to the original speaker. This time, 'I' has to change to 'you': 'You said you saw her in the High Street'.

You're crazy.

I told him he was crazy.

Possessive determiners and pronouns change in the same way as personal pronouns in order to keep the same reference. So the following sentences could all report the same question: 'She asked if he was my brother', 'She asked if you were my brother', 'I asked if he was her brother.' The original question might have been expressed as 'Is he your brother?'

7.59 When reporting, you may need to change adjuncts of time such as 'today', 'yesterday' or 'next week'.

For example, if someone called Jill says 'I will come tomorrow', you could report this statement the following day as 'Jill said she would come today'. At a later time, you could report the same statement as 'Jill said she would come the next day' or 'Jill said she would come the following day'.

We decided to leave the city the next day.

I was afraid people might think I'd been asleep during the previous twenty-four hours.

7.60 You may need to change words which relate to position of place.

For example, if you are talking to a man about a restaurant, he might say 'I go there every day'. If you report his statement while you are actually the restaurant, you could say 'He said he comes here every day'.

Using reporting verbs for politeness

7.61 Reporting verbs are often used to say something in a polite way.

7.62 If you want to contradict someone or to say something which might be unwelcome to them, you can avoid sounding rude by using a reporting verb such as 'think' or 'believe'.

I think it's time we stopped.

I don't think that will be necessary.

I believe you ought to leave now.

Alternatively, you can make the reporting clause into a negative question.

Don't you think we'd better wait and see?

Don't you think you'd better slow down?

For more information on the use of reporting verbs to decrease the strength of a statement, see the section on performative verbs in Chapter 10 (10.102 to 10.105).

'suppose' and 'wonder' 7.63 You can use 'suppose' and 'wonder' to introduce polite requests. When you use 'suppose' like this, you can make either the reporting clause or the reported clause negative.

I wonder if you've got any books on linguistics?

I suppose you couldn't just stay an hour or two longer?

I don't suppose you'd be prepared to stay in Edinburgh?