Deixis

In pragmatics and linguistics, deixis is collectively the orientational features of human languages to have reference to points in time, space, and the speaking event between interlocutors. A word that depends on deictic clues is called a deictic or a deictic word. Deictic words are bound to a context — either a linguistic or extralinguistic context — for their interpretation.

In our day-to-day conversational exchanges, the speaker does not consciously use deictic expressions, as well as the adressee usually understands the utterance immediately (meaning that the adressee does not need much time to think about an utterance before understanding the message). Deixis makes discourse easier and more effective, giving us a means to pass more information in less time. Nevertheless, there are certain situations making an interpretation difficult or even impossible, mostly when we only get chunks of information and therefore lack context. If, for example, a person tells a story and forgets to give the essential information a deictic term refers to, we will grow aware of the weakness the deictic system features. Or if the fax machine just receives the second page of a letter, beginning with “Then he was quite embarrassed about it ” – the adressee will never be able to guess what “then”, “he” and “it” stands for. Similar gaps arise if we read about an utterance made in the past and lack information about the references. Although the adressee at that time could easily have understood the sense, we may not be capable of getting the original meaning. Even if we knew the context in detail, this might not be sufficient to understand discourse, for example if a special gesture is made when pointing at a building.

Deixis is an important field of language study in its own right – and very important for learners of second languages. But it has some relevance to analysis of conversation and pragmatics. It is often and best described as “verbal pointing”, that is to say pointing by means of language. The linguistic forms of this pointing are called deictic expressions, deictic markers or deictic words; they are also sometimes called indexicals.

Deictic expressions include such lexemes as:

• Personal or possessive pronouns (I/you/mine/yours),
• Demonstrative pronouns (this/that),
• (Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now),
• Other pro-forms (so/do),
• Personal or possessive adjectives (my/your),
• Demonstrative adjectives (this/that),
• Articles (the).

Deixis refers to the world outside a text. Reference to the context surrounding an utterance is often referred to as primary deixis, exophoric deixis or simply deixis alone. Primary deixis is used to point to a situation outside a text (situational deixis) or to the speaker’s and hearer’s (shared) knowledge of the world (knowledge deixis).

Contextual use of deictic expressions is known as secondary deixis, textual deixis or endophoric deixis. Such expressions can refer either backwards or forwards to other elements in a text:

• Anaphoric deixis is backward pointing, and is the norm in English texts. Examples include demonstrative pronouns: such, said, similar, (the) same.
• Cataphoric deixis is forward pointing. Examples include: the following, certain, some (“the speaker raised some objections…”), this (“Let me say this…”), these, several.

Deictic expressions fall into the following categories:

• Personal deixis (you, us),
• Spatial deixis (here, there)
• Temporal deixis (now, then)
• Discourse Deixis (“see section 8.4”)
• Social Deixis (the difference between formal and polite pro-forms)

Deixis is clearly tied to the speaker’s context, the most basic distinction being between near the speaker (proximal) and away from the speaker (distal).

• Proximal deictic expressions include this, here and now.
• Distal deictic expressions include that, there and then.

Proximal expressions are generally interpreted in relation to the speaker’s location or deictic centre. For example now is taken to mean some point or period in time that matches the time of the speaker’s utterance. When we read, “Now Barabbas was a thief” (John 18.40) we do not take the statement to mean the same as “Barabbas was now a thief” (i.e. he had become a thief, having not been so before). Rather we read it as St. John’s writing, “I’m telling you now, that Barabbas was (not now but at the time in the past when these events happened) a thief”.

Personal Deixis

Pronouns are generally considered to be deictics, but a finer distinction is often made between personal pronouns such as I, you, and it (commonly referred to as personal pronouns) and pronouns that refer to places and times such as now, then, here, there. In most texts, the word deictic implies the latter but not necessarily the former. (In philosophical logic, the former and latter are collectively called indexicals.)

Switch reference is a type of discourse deixis, and a grammatical feature found in some languages, which indicates whether the argument of one clause is the same as the argument of the previous clause. In some languages, this is done through same subject markers and different subject markers. In the translated example “John punched Tom, and left-[same subject marker],” it is John who left, and in “John punched Tom, and left-[different subject marker],” it is Tom who left.

English does not use personal deixis to indicate relative social status in the same way that other languages do (such as those with TV pronoun systems). But the pronoun we has a potential for ambiguity, i.e. between exclusive we (excludes the hearer) and the hearer-including (inclusive) we.

Spatial Deixis

• Place deixis: a spatial location relative to the spatial location of the speaker. It can be proximal or distal, or sometimes medial. It can also be either bounded (indicating a spatial region with a clearly defined boundary, e.g. in the box) or unbounded (indicating a spatial region without a clearly defined boundary, e.g. over there)

It is common for languages to show at least a two-way referential distinction in their deictic system: proximal, i.e. near or closer to the speaker, and distal, i.e. far from the speaker and/or closer to the addressee. English exemplifies this with such pairs as this and that, here and there, etc. In other languages, the distinction is three-way: proximal, i.e. near the speaker, medial, i.e. near the addressee, and distal, i.e. far from both. This is the case in a few Romance languages and in Korean, Japanese, Thai, Filipino and Turkish.

• Empathetic deixis: where different forms of the deictic are used to indicate the speaker’s emotional closeness or distance from the referent.

The use of proximal and distal expressions in spatial deixis is confused by deictic projection. This is the speaker’s ability to project himself or herself into a location at which he or she is not yet present. A familiar example is the use of here on telephone answering machines (“I’m not here at the moment…”). While writing e-mails, I often edit out the use of here, when I see that the reader will not necessarily understand the intended meaning. (My here is this room in East Yorkshire, England, while yours may be this school in Maryland, this flat in Moscow or this university in Melbourne.)

It is likely that the basis of spatial deixis is psychological distance (rather than physical distance). Usually physical and (metaphorical) psychological distance will appear the same. But a speaker may wish to mark something physically close as psychologically distant, as when you indicate an item of food on your plate with “I don’t like that”. Perhaps a better (real example) was Graham Taylor’s famous remark on his England soccer team’s conceding a goal: “Do I not like that!” This moment, from the qualifying competition for the 1994 World Cup, was recorded for, and broadcast on a documentary film for, Channel 4.

Temporal Deixis

Temporal deixis is reference made to particular times relative to some other time, most currently the time of utterance. For example, the use of the words now or soon, or the use of tenses. Psychological distance can apply to temporal deixis as well. We can treat temporal events as things that move towards us (into view) or away from us (out of view). For instance, we speak of the coming year or the approaching year. This may stem from our perception of things (like weather storms) which we see approaching both spatially and in time. We treat the near or immediate future as being close to utterance time by using the proximal deictic expression this alone, as in “this (that is the next) weekend” or “this evening” (said earlier in the day)

Discourse Deixis

Discourse deixis where reference is being made to the current discourse or part thereof. Examples: “see section 8.4”, “that was a really mean thing to say”, “This sentence is false”. The last is an example of token-reflexive discourse deixis, in which a word in the utterance refers to the utterance itself.

Spatial deictics are often reused as anaphoric pro-forms that stand for phrases or propositions (that is, items of discourse, not items of the outside reality). Consider the following statement:

There may be ice hidden in unexplored places of the Moon. This ice could be useful for future lunar expeditions.

In the above example, this ice is not near the speaker in the physical sense, but the deictic does not refer to real ice. This ice refers to the phrase ice hidden in unexplored places, which is conceptually near the speaker in the discourse flow.

Social Deixis

Social deixis is the use of different deictics to express social distinctions. An example is the difference between formal and polite pro-forms. Relational social deixis is where the form of the word used indicates the relative social status of the addressor and the addressee. For example, one pro-form might be used to address those of higher social rank, another to address those of lesser social rank, another to address those of the same social rank. By contrast, absolute social deixis indicates a social standing irrespective of the social standing of the speaker. Thus, village chiefs might always be addressed by a special pro-form, regardless of whether it is someone below them, above them or at the same level of the social hierarchy who is doing the addressing.

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