Questões de Concurso sobre Discurso direto e indireto | Reported speech

There are different ways to present speech in written texts. These include direct speech, reported (indirect) speech, free direct speech, and free indirect speech. Understanding how each one works can help readers and teachers recognize narrative styles and voices.

Read the following statements and choose the correct statement:

(PMM/URCA 2025) Which of the following sentences correctly represents this statement “Basil gives the painting to Dorian.” in reported speech?

Choose the option that best reports the statement below, adjusting tense, pronouns, time references and the relative clause.

Direct speech: The chair said to the board, “We can’t approve the draft that the consultant, whose portfolio I admire, emailed yesterday unless she sends us the missing data now.”

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a research area which focuses on the relationship between language and power in society. Fairclough (2001) points out that discourse shapes and is shaped by social structures, particularly the ways in which language can reflect and reinforce inequalities.

Fairclough (2001) refers to the social practice dimension of Critical Discourse Analysis as

According to Christine Goh (In: RENANDYA & WIDODO, 2016), speaking activities that foster real communication among learners can be divided into three broad categories: communication-gap tasks, discussion tasks, and monologic tasks. With this idea in mind, read the following statements:

I. Communication-gap tasks can take various forms, often involving missing information or details that one student must describe, narrate, or explain to their partner.

II. In discussion tasks, learners are expected to present their ideas individually to either one listener or an audience of listeners. Students may also speak extensively on a topic without interruptions.

III. Monologic tasks are interactive activities in which learners exchange ideas, opinions, or information on a particular topic, typically in a pair setting. When a consensus is required, students should also negotiate with one another.

IV. Monologic tasks may be done in small groups, but presenting them to the entire class is preferable, as it lowers speaker anxiety and allows peers to ask questions and offer feedback in a more spontaneous manner.

The INCORRECT affirmatives are only

Study the sentence: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth", said Sherlock Holmes. Choose the option in which the Indirect Speech is used correctly.

Change the following sentence into Reported Speech: 'I will finish the report tomorrow,' said John. Judge the following statements as True (T) or False (F).

(__)John said that he would finish the report the following day.

(__)John said that he will finish the report tomorrow.

(__)John told that he would finish the report the next day.

(__)John said that he would finish the report tomorrow.

Mark the alternative that shows the correct sequence, from top to bottom.

Concerning reported speech, analyze the statements.

I. When the reporting verb is in the present, backshift is optional in neutral contexts.

II. Yesterday commonly becomes the previous day in indirect reports.

III. Must for obligation is normally reported as had to under backshift in neutral contexts.

IV. Would generally stays would in reported conditionals.

V. Universal truths often remain in the present even after a past reporting verb.

Which statements are CORRECT?

O Discurso Indireto (*Reported Speech* ou *Indirect Speech*) é a estrutura usada para relatar o que outra pessoa disse, sem citar suas palavras exatas. Esse processo geralmente envolve mudanças nos tempos verbais (chamado *backshift*), nos pronomes e nos advérbios de tempo e lugar, para adequar a fala relatada ao novo contexto temporal e espacial do narrador.

Acerca das regras de transformação do discurso direto para o indireto, marque V, para as afirmativas verdadeiras, e F, para as falsas:

(__)Ao relatar uma fala, o *Simple Present* do discurso direto ("I *work* here") geralmente muda para o *Simple Past* no indireto ("He said he *worked* there").

(__)O *Simple Past* do discurso direto ("I *saw* the movie") geralmente muda para o *Past Perfect* no indireto ("She said she *had seen* the movie").

(__)Advérbios de tempo e lugar também mudam para refletir a perspectiva do narrador, como "now" mudando para "then" e "here" mudando para "there".

(__)Não é necessário fazer qualquer alteração no tempo verbal se o verbo principal de relato (*reporting verb*) estiver no presente (e.g., "She *says*...").

Após análise, assinale a alternativa que apresenta a sequência correta dos itens acima, de cima para baixo:

Van Dijk's perspective on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) highlights the relationship among discourse, power, and ideology. His method incorporates cognitive elements, exploring how mental models and social cognition engage with discourse to either perpetuate or contest societal power structures.

Read the paragraph below about the topic:

Social cognition is crucial in shaping individual _____ (1), interpretations, and responses to political power. Political leaders and institutions frequently mold public perception via strategic communication, ______ (2), and media, affecting how citizens comprehend ______ (3), leadership, and governance. By presenting issues in specific lights, those in ______ (4) can steer social beliefs and actions to preserve control or influence viewpoints. Concurrently, individuals employ social cognition to assess political deeds and form ______ (5) about governance, potentially bolstering or contesting prevailing power ______ (6). This interplay underscores the profound link between social cognition and the dynamics of ______ (7) power.

The alternative which presents the correct sequence of expressions to fill in the gaps above is

Match the items in Column B to the corresponding concepts in Column A regarding sentence relationships and forms of speech representation:

Column A: concepts

1.Direct speech

2.Reported speech

3.Discourse markers

Column B: descriptions

(__)Words used to organize ideas in a text, signaling contrast, consequence, addition, or sequence.

(__)A structure in which the speaker's exact words are reproduced without grammatical changes.

(__)A structure that requires changes in pronouns, verb tenses, and time expressions when reporting someone's speech.

Choose the alternative that presents the correct association between the columns:

Read the following sentence: "I am preparing new activities for my students," said the teacher.

Choose the alternative that correctly rewrites the sentence in reported speech:

The appropriate punctuation to indicate indirect speech is

The sentence “What do they enjoy doing?” becomes indirect speech as:

Based on the excerpt presented, consider the following statements:

“You’re not alone in your workweek dread: ‘They’re very, very common,’ says Susanne Cooperman, a neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst at New York University Langone Huntington Medical Group.”

I- The sentence ‘They’re very, very common’ consists of a direct speech.

II- In ‘You’re not alone in your workweek dread’, the term “your” is a possessive adjective.

III- Susanne Cooperman is the author of the text “How to Cope with the Sunday Scaries”.

Select the alternative in which the statements are CORRECT.

Examine the sentence structure: "Professor Mookherjee said she was honoured to receive the 2025 Rivers Memorial Medal, adding: 'The research among various communities has meant so much for my learning, thinking, writing and teaching.'" What type of syntactic construction is represented by the relationship between the main clause and the quoted speech?

The principal said to the students: “Don’t bring drugs to school”.

Choose the alternative that expresses the above sentence in reported speech:

In the meme’s humorous complaint about the overuse of “like” in teenage speech, the repeated insertion of the word serves as an example of a discourse marker rather than a literal lexical item. From a pragmatic perspective, discourse markers like “like” may fulfill conversational functions such as hedging, approximating, or signaling hesitation. Therefore, despite the perceived redundancy, their presence is not necessarily grammatically incorrect, but rather reflects informal speech strategies.

Situação hipotética: Em uma aula de inglês, o professor apresenta a frase 'She said that she had been studying for hours'. Assertiva: Para analisar a estrutura de 'Reported Speech' (Discurso Indireto) e a sequência de tempos verbais nesta frase, é fundamental que o aluno identifique o 'reporting verb' ('said') no passado e a consequente 'backshift' do tempo verbal original ('present perfect continuous' para 'past perfect continuous'), compreendendo também que o pronome e o advérbio de tempo/lugar (se houvesse) seriam ajustados para refletir a nova perspectiva do falante reportado. Essa compreensão requer o domínio não apenas de transformações gramaticais, mas também de uma consciência pragmática do contexto comunicativo.

Consider the sentence below:

"Active methodologies promote interaction", said the teacher.

Now, choose the alternative below that correctly restates it into reported speech: