Free direct discourse and free indirect discourse?

[Albus Dumbledore]

..........

[aeroport]

"Free indirect discourse" is a third-person perspective that adheres closely to a character's consciousness. I don't know much about "free direct discourse", though...

[miss_chau]

Do you mean indirect speech? I've checked both my dictionaries of literary theory, and the closest I could find was indirect speech. If so, then I would say no, that's not an example of indirect discourse.

[miss_chau]

So, 'free indirect discourse' is otherwise known as third-person limited?

[The Doc]

Free indirect discourse is where the thoughts of a character are reported as if there were no intervening narrator. The gradations are as follows:
Direct discourse is where a character's thoughts are quoted, as it were:
Clarissa thought, 'I will buy flowers today.'
Indirect discourse dispenses with the quotes:
Clarissa thought that she would buy flowers.
Free indirect discourse omits the verb (thought etc):
She would buy flowers today.

Here's a more extensive example from Joyce's 'The Dead':
"Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece, full of runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing room. He liked music but the piece she was playing had no melody for him and he doubted whether it had any melody for the other listeners, though they had begged Mary Jane to play something."

It can be (deliberately) difficult to distinguish between a character's thoughts and the narrator's report.
The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms has really good definitions and explanations.

I have never heard of free direct discourse (except when students use it erroneously!), and it is probably a mistake, given what distinguishes the other terms.

Hope that helps!