indirect speech

noun

1. Also called: reported speech. the reporting of something said or written by conveying what was meant rather than repeating the exact words, as in the sentence He asked me whether I would go as opposed to He asked me, "Will you go?"

Example Sentences

This “free indirect speech” allowed the reader to see, think and feel exactly as the character did while also maintaining a critical distance and the ability to move between various points of view.

Read more on Economist

In rural Madagascar, men are prized for kabary: flowery, indirect speech that avoids putting other people on the spot, a mode that is thought to be beyond women’s abilities.

Read more on Economist

Readers generally find that direct speech is more vivid than indirect speech, and there’s evidence to tie this to specific processes in the brain.

Read more on Time

She cares nothing for the circumscribed style of narration known as “free indirect speech,” enshrined as the one true method by the critic James Wood in his book How Fiction Works.

Read more on Slate

In these later pieces, the writing was so saturated in free indirect speech, so infused with her character’s thoughts, that it became difficult to tell whether the voice narrating belonged to MacFarquhar or the person being profiled.

Read more on The Guardian