In language, various ideas can be expressed in alternating ways which, in the end, can all have the same meaning. However, the speaker’s choices are influenced and restricted by linguistic factors.
The following example of a fictive story shows, how various different words can all have the same meaning “Yesterday, I went to the park and I saw a boy who killed a pigeon by throwing big chunks of bread at its head. This made me so mad that I had to walk up to the boy and yell at him. Telling him that he shouldn’t have done what he did, he told me that he didn’t do it intentionally.” In this little story, “this”, “what he did”, and “it” all refer to the action of the boy killing the duck with a piece of bread.
When the speaker of the story chose the pronoun “it”, he must have thought that his audience would easily identify “it” as the action of killing the duck. Speakers often tend to use pronouns instead of using the antecedent because it simplifies and shortens speech analysis. However, sometimes speech analysis can become very complicated and pronouns confuse the listener, let alone simplify the discourse. For example:
(1) “Peter hit Harry. After this, he didn’t like him anymore.”
In this case, the listener would have to have contextual information to determine whether Peter did not like Harry anymore or vice versa. Just from reading the sentence, the reader would not know what is really going on. As in this example, or in many other utterances and texts, where chains of pronouns strike the audience, discourse analysis becomes highly complicated.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Pronouns
3. Deixis
4. Person Deixis
5. Time Deixis
6. Spatial/ Place Deixis
7. Ambivalent Functions of deictic Expressions
8. Bibliography
Objectives and Topics
This paper aims to define and analyze the linguistic concept of deixis and its various manifestations in language, exploring how contextual information is essential for interpreting deictic expressions in communication.
- The role and definition of pronouns in discourse
- The classification of deictic expressions (Person, Time, and Spatial Deixis)
- The interplay between deictic and anaphoric functions
- The impact of situational and contextual factors on communication accuracy
- Participant roles and anchoring points within the speech event
Excerpt from the Book
3. Deixis
In general, deictic expressions are linguistic elements “whose interpretation in simple sentences makes essential reference to properties of the extra linguistic context of the utterance in which they occur”. This means, for example, the addressee in the sentence (2) “You shouldn’t stay out too long” cannot be identified unless the reader has contextual information concerning the identity of the addressee. Thus, the personal pronoun “you” is a deictic expression. According to Anderson and Keenan, there are three basic types of deictic expressions in language: Person deixis, time deixis and spatial deixis. Levinson also adds the dimension of social deixis and discourse deixis but these lie beyond the scope of this paper.
Lyons has defined the term deixis very precisely: “By deixis is meant the location and identification of persons, object, events, processes and activities being talked about, or referred to, in relation to the spatiotemporal context created and sustained by the act of utterance and the participation in it, typically, of a single speaker and at least one addressee”.
Charles Fillmore adds the dimension of an anchorage point that a deictic expression has to refer to in order to make sense for the addressee as in the following definition “lexical items and grammatical forms can be interpreted only when the sentences in which they occur are understood as being anchored in some social context, that context defined in such a way as to identify the participants in the communication act, their location in space, and the time during which the communication act is performed”.
Levinson follows the idea of deictic expressions having anchorage points in the speech event by introducing the deictic centre, claiming that all deictic expressions are anchored to specific points in the speech event.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter introduces the challenges of discourse analysis and highlights how linguistic choices can lead to ambiguity without sufficient context.
2. Pronouns: This section defines pronouns and distinguishes between deictic pronouns and textual (anaphoric) pronouns based on their referential nature.
3. Deixis: This chapter establishes the theoretical foundation of deixis, focusing on how utterances require anchorage in the extra-linguistic context.
4. Person Deixis: This section explores how personal pronouns function in speech events and discusses the distinction between deictic and impersonal usage of these terms.
5. Time Deixis: This chapter analyzes how temporal expressions refer to specific moments or spans in time, emphasizing the distinction between coding time and receiving time.
6. Spatial/ Place Deixis: This section covers how deictic expressions identify locations and spatial relations relative to the speaker or addressee.
7. Ambivalent Functions of deictic Expressions: This chapter investigates scenarios where deictic expressions are ambiguous, potentially serving both deictic and anaphoric functions simultaneously.
8. Bibliography: This section lists the academic sources utilized for the analysis of deixis and pragmatics.
Keywords
Deixis, Pragmatics, Pronouns, Person Deixis, Time Deixis, Spatial Deixis, Anaphora, Anchorage, Context, Discourse, Communication, Linguistic expressions, Deictic Centre, Speech event, Reference
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this paper?
The paper examines the concept of deixis in linguistics, explaining how certain words depend on the context of an utterance to be fully understood.
What are the main thematic fields covered?
The text focuses on pronouns, person deixis, time deixis, and spatial deixis, as well as the ambiguous nature of deictic expressions in communication.
What is the primary research goal?
The goal is to analyze how language users must rely on contextual and situational clues to interpret meaning accurately in a speech event.
Which scientific methodology is applied?
The author utilizes a theoretical approach based on established pragmatic literature, analyzing various linguistic examples to demonstrate the functions of deictic expressions.
What is discussed in the main body?
The main body breaks down the different categories of deixis and illustrates how they operate within sentences, often contrasting them with anaphoric usage.
How are the keywords characterized?
The keywords reflect core concepts in pragmatics, specifically focusing on the relationship between language, spatial/temporal context, and the participants in a speech act.
What is the difference between coding time and receiving time?
Coding time is the moment an utterance is produced, whereas receiving time is the moment it is heard or read by the recipient, which can create ambiguity in recorded messages.
Why can deictic expressions become ambiguous?
They can be ambiguous when the listener lacks sufficient contextual information, such as knowing where the speaker is standing or the exact time a message was recorded.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Benjamin Türksoy (Autor:in), 2007, Deixis - Communication could never exist without taking deixis into account, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/189742
