Reported speech.

Students just make mechanical drills, but what they are doing has nothing in
common with the way we report things in real life.

What grammars tell us.

present tenses become past; I may become he or she; my may become his or her. When the
indirect speech is perceived as referring to the past, the tense in the reported clause usually changes to
a past form of the tense of the original speech. This process is known as tense backshift. Coursebooks
regularly produce guidance of this kind. explaining that yesterday may become the prelvious day and so
on. However, there are three problems with these formulations:

1. If we cannot recall the tense used in the original, how can we possibly shift it
back into the past?
2. They imply that there is something unusual about the way in which we use
tenses in reported speech.
3. They can become extremely complex. If it is reported on Wednesday 7 th April,
then it would probably be reported as today.

A false assumption

The rules given for reported speech are based on the assumption that we recall exactly what
was said on a given occasion and then go through a process of ‘tense backshift'. Здесь был приведен
пример:

'The chair reminded everyone that the next meeting would be postponed until Monday, 31st
May.'

И, по идее, при пересказе, мы должны время сдвинуть назад. Но у нас будут получаться
разные варианты пересказа. Короче по-идиотски будет это все выглядеть.

Nobody, including the secretary who wrote the minutes, would be able to recall the precise
words. Even if they could, just try applying the rules to change one of the above into reported speech
and see how ridiculous they sound. And there is another problem: if we did recall and report exactly
what was said, then the minutes would be slightly longer than the original meeting.

Report or summary?

We very rarely remember precisely what was said. but we do recall what was meant. Reported
speech is a summarising rather than a reporting process. Example: I read an article about that Star Wars
will… You would not even try to remember the article word for word. You would summarise what it
meant.

What about all those tenses?

Здесь приводится пример про студентку, которая училась, сдавала экзамены, хотела в
путешествие и тд. Fifteen years later. she was asked how she became an English teacher. She might say
something like: 'Well, I suppose it all started when I was about 20. I was in my final year at university
and I wanted to travel after graduation. But I couldn't afford to travel unless I earned some money.

As we can see, There is absolutely no need for a special set of rules about reported speech.
And there is no such thing as 'tense backshift'.

Choosing the right form

 Sometimes, however, we have to choose between a past form and a present form because
either one is possible. So if last week Mary said to you:

I am going to stay at the Ritz because it's the most comfortable hotel in…

you could report it as a narrative:

'Mary said she planned to stay… because it was the most…

On the other hand, you could take it as telling us something about Ritz Hotel and say:

'Mary said she planned to stay at the Ritz because it is the most comfortable… We normally
use the present tense for something that everyone agrees is still true. We might, for example say:

'They wanted to climb Scafell Pike because it is the highest peak in England. '

BUI if we think the statement is mistaken, we would use a past tense form:

'They said they wanted to climb… because it was the highest

peak in England, but actually the highest is Scafel Pike, '

So the choice of tense here is affected by what we want to emphasize and what we believe to
be true.

So what about next Wednesday?

There's no need to tell learners that I may become he or she, lI1y may become his or her. If
they know the way personal pronouns work in English, they just pill that knowledge to work. They don't
have to stop and think about how to change the pronoun I. and what to change it to. They don't think
'Now when Mary was speaking, she said I, but I am not Mary, so I can't say I. And you are not Mary, so I
can't say I’m so I must say he or she, and since Mary is female, I must say she. They simply know that
They are talking about Mary, and they know that they should refer to her in the third person as she.

And if we are talking about something that was happening next Wednesday, we don't need to
take out the calendar to tell us when the original words were uttered and how to refer to the day in
question. If the day in question was yesterday, we say yesterday, if it is tomorrow, we say tomorrow and
if it was a couple of weeks ago, we say a couple of weeks ago One of the few sources to recognize the
true nature of reported statements is the Collills COBUILD English grammar, which tells us that: 'You are
more likely to report what (someone) meant than what (they) said. Whatever the tense of your
reporting verb, you put the verb in the reported clause into a tense that is appropriate at the time you
are speaking.'

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There is no need to make life difficult and confusing for learners by telling them that there is
something different and complicated about reported speech.