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Bilgewater: Speech & thought presentation
Task G - Our answer
Sentences 22-9 are direct thought (DT). The deictic items are all appropriate
for the character, as are the interrogative sentence structures. This
'turn' is also separated from the other two turns by virtue of its own
set of quotation marks. Indeed, if it wasn't for the fact that (i) S30
looks like the standard polite response to S22, (ii) the content of S23-S29
is so personal and impolite and (iii) sentences 23-9 are separated from
the rest of the text by brackets, we could construe it as DS, not DT.
The fact that the most direct form of thought presentation is used here
adds drama to the juxtaposition of the polite speech-question and the
impolite thought-answer (particularly when we contrast it with the following
polite speech-answer). The DT form also makes it seem that the character
is consciously aware of her thoughts, adding to that hyper-aware emotional
state which we have associated with her from our first reading of the
passage onwards.
Effectively, the rest of the thought presentation is in this DT form.
From just after the extract we have been examining, the base form of the
narrative shifts to 1st-person and present tense, and so, because the
candidate becomes the narrator and all the thought presentation also relates
to her thoughts, in deictic terms there is little to distinguish the narration
from the thought presentation except our schematic and contextual knowledge
about what sorts of things count as actions and what sorts of things count
as thoughts in the passage. So effectively we have moved right inside
the candidate's consciousness, except for when actions are presented,
or the speech of the Principal (in sentences 51-2 and 54-6). And even
then, we are seeing what happens, and what is said, from the viewpoint
of the I-narrator/character.
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