Topic: Deixis and Distance

Subject: Pragmatics Course/Year: BAEL 2

Reporters:
Queenie Rose Caslangen
Shiela Mae Ambatang
Jen Mirazol Lazo
Queennielyn Jacinto
Jamaica Jem Deg-aoan

DEIXIS
 (Greek word) "pointing via language"
 Any linguistics form used to accomplish this pointing is called a deictic expression.
ex. here, there, this, that, now, then I, we, you, he, her, them
 Deictic expressions are also sometimes called indexical.

Deictic Expressions include such lexemes as:

 Personal or possessive pronouns
 Demonstrative pronouns
 (Spatial/temporal) adverbs
 Personal or possessive adjectives
 Demonstrative adjectives
 Articles

Deixis is reference by means of an expression whose interpretation is relative to the context of

the utterance, such as:
• who is speaking
• the time or place of speaking
• the gestures of the speaker
• the current location in the discourse
• the topic of the discourse

“Deixis is a form referring that is tied to the speaker’s context, with the most basic distinction
between deictic expressions being ‘near speaker’ versus ‘away from speaker’. Yule (1996:9)

Proximal terms (the near speaker)-'this', 'here', 'now'

Distant terms (the away from speak)- 'that', 'there', 'then'
Deictic Centre: the time of the utterance's time; the place of the utterance's place, the person
just giving the utterance.
In verbal communication, deixis in its narrow sense refers to the contextual meaning of
pronouns, and in its broad sense, what the speaker means by a particular utterance in a given
speech context.

Deixis concerns the ways in which language encode or grammaticalize features of the context
of utterance or speech event, and thus also concerns ways in which the interpretation of
utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance.

Primary and Secondary Deixis

• Primary/exophoric/simply deixis- reference to the context surrounding an utterance.
• Secondary/endophoric/textual deixis- contextual use of deictic expressions.

Endophora- an expression which refers to something.

Endephoric expression- refers to something already mentioned in the text.
Exophoric expression- if something appeared by itself.

TYPES OF DEIXIS
I) PERSON DEIXIS: used to point people ("The who")
 3 categories:
1. Speaker/first person (I)
2. Addressee/second person (you)
3. Others/third person (she, he, they, it)

• HONORIFICS (social deixis): expressions that mark that the addressee is of higher
status.

• In French and Romanian, there are two different forms that encode a social contrast
within person deixis, "tu" and "vous”. This is known as T/V distinction.

• Using a third person form, where a second person form would be possible, is one way of
communicating distance. This can be done for humorous or ironic purposes, such in:
"Would his highness like some fruits?"
• The distance associated with third person forms is also used to make potential
accusations less direct, as in:
"Somebody didn't clean up after himself."

• There is also a potential ambiguity in the use in English of the first-person plural. There
is an exclusive 'we' (the addressee is excluded) and inclusive 'we' (both the speaker and
addressee are included), as in:
We clean up after ourselves around here.
II) SPATIAL DEIXIS: used to point the location (''The when")
• "here" and "there" adverbs (Contemporary English)
  'yonder' (more distant from speaker)
 'hither' (to this place) and (Archaic)
 'thence' (from that place)
• Some verbs of motion, such as 'come' and 'go', retain a deictic sense when they are used
to mark movement toward the speaker or away from the speaker.
ex. Come to bed or go to bed

• In considering spatial deixis, however, it is important to remember that location from the
speaker's perspective can be fixed mentally as well as physically.
• Deitic projection- speakers being able to project themselves into other locations prior to
actually being in those locations.
• A similar deictic projection is accomplished via dramatic performance when I use direct
speech to represent the person, location, and feelings of someone or something else.
• It may be that the truly pragmatic basis of spatial deixis is actually psychological
distance. Physically close objects will tend to be treated by the speaker as psychologically
close. Also, something that is physically distant will generally be treated as
psychologically distant. However, a speaker may also wish to mark something that is
physically close as psychologically distant.

III. TEMPORAL DEIXIS: used to point the time ('The When')

• now, then, tonight, tomorrow, last week, last year, etc.

• The proximal form 'now' is indicating both the time coinciding with the speaker's
utterance and the time of the speaker's voice being heard. In contrast to 'now', the distal
expression 'then' applies to both past and future time relative to the speaker's present
time, as in:
a. November 22nd, 1963? I was in Scotland then.
b. Dinner at 8:30 on Saturday? Okay, I'll see you then.

•It is worth noting that we also use elaborate systems of non-deictic temporal reference such as
calendar time and clock time. However, these forms of temporal reference are learned a lot later
than the deictic expressions like 'yesterday', 'tomorrow', 'today', 'tonight', 'next week', 'last
week', 'this week'. All these expressions depend for their interpretation on knowing the relevant
utterance time.
ex. Back in an hour.
Free lunch tomorrow.
• The psychological basis of temporal deixis seems to be similar to that of spatial deixis.
We can treat temporal events as objects that move toward us or away from us. One
metaphor used in English is of events coming toward the speaker from the future and
going away from the speaker to the past. We also seem to treat the near or immediate
 future as being close to utterance time by using the proximal deictic 'this', as in 'this
(coming) weekend' or 'this (coming) Thursday'.
• One basic type of temporal deixis in English is in the choice of verb tense. English has
two basic forms, the present (proximal form) and the past (distal form) as in:
a. I live here now.
b. I lived there then.

• The past tense is always used in English in those if-clauses that mark events presented by
the speaker as not being close to present reality as in:
a. If I had a yacht,..
b. If I was rich,..

DEIXIS AND GRAMMAR

• The distinctions for person, spatial, and temporal deixis can be seen at work in English
grammar structures such as DIRECT and INDIRECT (reported)SPEECH, as in:
a. Are you planning to be here this evening? -Direct speech
b. I asked her if she was planning to be there that evening. -Indirect/reported speech

• The proximal forms presented in

[a.] have shifted to the corresponding distal forms in
[b.]. This very regular difference in English reported discourse marks a distinction
between the 'near speaker' meaning of direct speech and the 'away from speaker'
meaning of indirect speech.

• The proximal deictic forms of a direct speech reporting communicate, often dramatically,
a sense of being in the same context as the utterance. The distal deictic forms of indirect
speech reporting make the original speech event seem more remote.

CONCLUSION
Deictic expressions were all to be found in the pragmatics wastebasket.
Their interpretation depends on:
o the context
o the speaker's intention
o and they express relative distance.

REFERENCES:

STEPHEN ANDERSON and EDWARD KEENAN: 'Deixis' in Timothy Shopen (ed.):

Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Volume 3: Grammatical Categories and the
Lexicon. Cambridge University Press 1985
ROBERT JARVELLA and WOLFGANG KLEIN (eds.): Speech, Place and Action: Studies in
Deixis and Related Topics. John Wiley &C Sons 1982

JOHN LYONS: Natural Language and Universal Grammar. Cambridge University Press 1991

ROGER WALES: 'Deixis' in P. Fletcher and M. Garman (eds.): Language Acquisition (znd
edn.) Cambridge University Press 1986

JURGEN WEISSENBORN and Wolfgang KLEIN (eds.):

Here and There: Cross-linguistic Studies on Deixis and
Demonstration. John Benjamins 1982

https://www.slideshare.net/radiaali2/deixis-28122884