This dissertation examines reported speech production among undergraduate college students with a history of developmental language disability (DLD) compared to controls with a history of typical language development (TD). 59 people participated across two separate studies. Study 1 involved a reanalysis of previously recorded in-person dyadic interview data to assess reported speech (RS), and compare direct and indirect RS production in spontaneous speech, alongside syntactic and lexical complexity, and hesitation phenomena such as "uh," "um" and pauses. Study 2 was conducted online and in addition to an adapted online DLD screener, involved a task to produce various forms of complex syntax alongside RS (the adult version of the Peer Conflict Task which I developed based on the preexistent child version created by Nippold et al. (2009)), and a task that specifically elicited RS constructions from participants with three conditions: neutral, direct RS bias, and indirect RS bias. Similarly to Study 1, syntactic and lexical complexity, and hesitation phenomena were also evaluated. I analyzed participants' language production both using quantitative comparisons, and a qualitative approach using a performance studies framework, specifically Bauman (2004)'s investigation of performance limitations. Participants in the DLD group showed patterns of RS production that were not only distinct from controls', but also distinct from their general performance in the domain of complex syntax. I discuss how the three tasks of spontaneous speech, peer conflict descriptions and sentence elicitations form a continuum of increased abstraction / control and decreased ecological validity, and how these factors affect participants' strategies in handling task demands -- as present in both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the same dataset. Participants in the DLD group optimized their utterances in multiple ways during the performance of relatively restrictive tasks: on the structural, sentence level, adjusting other elements of the utterance to make the production of RS easier; on a more utterance-level pragmatic way by using specific constructions to get around the need to produce RS; and on a general discourse level by using disclaimers of performance. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]