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Dramatisation and narrative

501d

In narratives, especially spoken ones, the verb may occur in forms other than the

past simple. This dramatises the speech report, making it more vivid.

The past progressive is used to emphasise an ongoing or repeated event, or

simply to dramatise the reported speech:

He went in to the supermarket and he was singing down the aisles and 

he was

saying, ‘Come on everybody,’ you know, ‘join in.’ 

Then it really surprised me how 

she was saying, ‘Oh, take this fifty pence,’ and I

was thinking, gosh, did she really pay you for it?

Extra dramatisation can be created by using the historic present tense (i.e. present

simple form, but with past reference). This often occurs alongside the past simple:

So I go back to Doris and she 

says, ‘All right, Annie, will the bingo be starting

soon? I can’t see any chairs and tables.’ ‘No,’ I 

said, ‘we’re in the wrong place.’

(some speakers of English may consider this form non-standard)

822 | Speech representation

Cambridge Grammar of English

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