Which term means direct or surface meaning?

• A. Subject
• B. indirect/reported speech
• C. literal
• D. simile

Answer: (C)

Direct or surface meaning is captured by the term literal. Literal language sticks to the ordinary, dictionary-like sense of the words, without reading in figurative interpretations or hidden motives. It’s the message as it appears on the page or in speech, not what the speaker might imply or what a metaphor would suggest. The other options don’t fit as well: a subject is about who or what is being talked about, not the meaning of the words themselves; indirect or reported speech describes conveying someone’s words without quoting them directly; and a simile is a figure of speech that compares something using like or as, signaling figurative meaning rather than surface meaning.