Discourse Deixis

Discourse deixis deals with the orientation in the text through the writer or the speaker, the relation of the text passages to the current utterance either as a head of time or past, forthcoming or simultaneous. It encodes reference to portions of the unfolding discourse in which the utterance is located (Levinson, 1983, p.62). It means that discourse deixis is deictic reference to a portion of a discourse relative to the speaker’s current location in the discourse, such as: above, below, last, previous, proceeding, next or following (usually used in texts) and this, that, there, next, last (usually used in utterances).

In spoken or written discourse, there is frequently occassion to refer to earlier or forthcoming segments of the discourse. Since discourse unfolds in time, it is natural to use temporal deictic terms to indicate the relation of the referred to to the temporal location of the present utterance in the discourse. But spatial terms are also often employed. Reference to parts of of a discourse which can only be interpreted by knowing where the current coding or receiving point is, are clearly deictic in character (Asher 1994, p.856).

Levinson (1983, p.85-86) added that discourse deixis should be distinguished from a related notion that of anaphora. Moreover, discourse deixis shares with anaphora and cataphora the capacity to function as a text cohesion device. As we noted, anaphora concerns with the use of a pronoun to refer to the same referent as some prior term. Anaphora can hold within sentences, across sentences, and across at speaking in a dialogue. Deictic or other referring expressions are often used to introduce a referent, and anaphoric pronouns are used to refer to the same entity thereafter. However, it is important to remember that deictic and anaphoric usages are not mutually exclusive. Therefore, in principle the distinction is clear: when a pronoun refers to a linguistic expression itself, it is discourse deictic. When a pronoun refers to the same entity as a prior linguistic expression refers to, it is anaphoric.

In other words, discourse deixis is an expression used to refer to certain discourse that contain the utterance or as a signal and its relations to surrounding text.

A. Person Deixis

B. Place Deixis

C. Time Deixis

D. Discourse Deixis

E. Social Deixis
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See also:
Deixis

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Social Deixis

Social deixis does not deal with three main components (person, place and time) of the coordinate system of subjective orientation, but they show how different social rankings and the participants of communication utter relationships within society via language. Briefly, it is rather to refer to the level of relationship between people than to information.

Levinson (1983, p.90) stated that social deixis concerns with the aspects of sentences which reflect or establish or determined by certain realities of participants or the social situation in which the speech event occurs. He adds that there are two basic kinds of social deixis information that seems to be encoded in language around the world. They are: Relational social deixis and Absolute social deixis. Relational social deixis is a deictic reference to some social characteristic of referrent apart from any relative ranking of referents or deictic reference to a social relationship between the speaker and addressee. In English, relational social deixis may be a lexical items (e.g. my husband, teacher, cousin, etc), pronouns (you, her). Absolute social deixis is a deictic reference usually expressed in certain forms of address which will include no comparison of the ranking of the speaker and addresse. For examples: your highness, Mr. President, your majesty, etc.

Briefly, social deixis is a deictic expression used to distinct social status. Social deixis separated in to two kinds relational and absolute social deixis.
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 A. Person Deixis

B. Place Deixis

C. Time Deixis

D. Discourse Deixis

E. Social Deixis
 ...................................................................................
See also:
Deixis

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Time Deixis

Time deixis is also called as temporal deixis. Renkema (1993, p.79) stated that time deixis is a reference to time relative to a temporal reference point and it is typically the moment of utterance. These language resources are the adjectives of time in the line….yesterday….now….tomorrow, and the verb tenses. The verb sometimes also has another function besides referring to a specific time.

Furthermore, Levinson (1993, p.73) said that the basis for systems of reckoning and measuring time in most languages seem to be the natural and prominent cycles of day and night, lunar months, season and years.

While, Grundy (2000, p.31-32) states another important time deixis is tense system. In fact, almost every sentence makes reference to an event time. Often this event time can only be determined in relation to the time of the utterance. Moreover, Yule (1996, 14-15) says that the basic type of temporal deixis in English is in the choice of verb tense. English only has two basic forms, the present and the past. For example:
a. I live here now.
b. I live there then.
The present tense is the proximal form as in (a) and the past tense is distal form as in (b).

The deictic items use reference can only be determined in relation to the time of the utterance in which they occur. Such as:
• This / last / next Monday / week / month / year.
• Now, then, ago, later, soon, before.
• Yesterday, today, tomorrow.
In other words, time deixis is an expression in relation to point to certain period when the utterances produced by the speaker.

 A. Person Deixis

B. Place Deixis

C. Time Deixis

D. Discourse Deixis

E. Social Deixis
 ...................................................................................
See also:
Deixis

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Place Deixis

Place deixis is also described as spatial deixis, where the relative location of people and things is being indicated. Place deixis or spatial deixis usually expressed in this, these, there, here, that, and those. Place deixis can be described along many of the same parameters that apply to the time deixis. Therefore, those references to place can be absolute or relational in nature. Absolute references to place locate an object or person in a specific longitude and latitude, while relational references locate people and place in terms of each other and the speaker (Cummings 2005, p.26).

Levinson (1983, p.79) stated that place or space deixis concerns for the specification of locations to anchorage points in the speech event and typically the speaker, and there are two basic ways of referring objects by describing or naming them on the one hand and by locating them on the other. Alternatively, they can be deictically specified to the location of participants at the time of speaking. There are a proximal (close to the speaker) such as this, and these, and a distal (sometime close to the addressee) such as that, and those. Each may be used either as a pronoun or in a combination with noun.

Grundy (2000, p.28) add that there are three degrees of proximity is by no means uncommon, with some languages distinguishing proximity to the speaker and to the addressee. They are: here (proximal), there (distal), where (and the archaic hither, hence, thither, thence, wither, whence), left, right, up, down, above, below, in front, behind, come go, bring, and  take.

Briefly, place deixis is an expression used to show the location relative to the location of a participant in the speech even.

 A. Person Deixis

B. Place Deixis

C. Time Deixis

D. Discourse Deixis

E. Social Deixis
 ...................................................................................
See also:
Deixis

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Deixis Theory Proposed by Stephen C. Levinson

There are four kinds of deixis proposed by Levinson, they are:
A. Person Deixis
In many languages, person deixis can also contain other meaning elements like the gender of the third person. In addition, to pronoun and agreeing predicates, person, or participant-role is marked in various other ways. Person deixis concerns with the encoding of the role of participants in the speech even in which the utterance in question is delivered. Yule (1996, p.9-10) describe that person deixis involves the speaker and the addressee and operates in a basic three-part division they are:

a) First person (I). The first person deixis is a reference that refers to the speaker or both speaker and referent grouped with the speaker which is expressed in singular pronouns (I, me, myself, mine) and plural pronouns (we, us, ourselves, our, ours). The first person deixis can be divided into exclusive first person deixis, which refers to a group including addressee.

b) Second person (you). The second person deixis is a deictic reference to a person or persons identified as addressee, such as you, yourself, yourselves, your, yours.

c) And the third person (He, She, It). Third person deixis is a deictic reference to a referent(s) not identified as the speaker or addressee and usually imply to the gender that the utterance refers to, for example: he, she, and they, him, himself, her, herself.

Renkema (1993, p.77) adds that person deixis is realized with personal pronouns. The speaker as the first person (I) direct the utterance to the listener as second person (You), and conclude be talking about a third person (He, She, and It).

In other words, person deixis is described as expression in which to refer to person who the speakers intend to refer.

 A. Person Deixis

B. Place Deixis

C. Time Deixis

D. Discourse Deixis

E. Social Deixis
 ...................................................................................
See also:
Deixis

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Deixis

Deixis deals with connections between discourse and the situation in which discourse is used. The term of ‘deixis’ is derived from the Greek word which mean ‘to show’ or ‘to indicate’ used to denote the elements in a language which refer directly to the situation. Moore (2001, 14) give definition about deixis as follows:

"Deixis is an important field of language study in its own right and very important for learners of 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."

Moreover, deixis is a technical term (from Greek) for one of the most basic things we do with utterance. Or it can be said ‘pointing’ via language. Essentially language, deixis concerns with the ways in which the interpretation of utterance depends on the analysis of that context of utterance.

In English, according to Yule (1996, p.93) there are three different ways to point out in. They are gesture, symbolic and anaphoric. Gesture is used by which it can be properly interpreted only by somebody who is monitoring some physical aspects of communication situation. Example: I want you to copy this paper. Symbolic use of deictic expression means that the interpretation involves merely knowing certain aspects of the speech communication situation, whether this knowledge comes by common perception or not. For example: I want you to put the paper there. Anaphoric is the use of expression that can be correctly interpreted by knowing what other portions of the same discourse that expression is co-referential with anaphoric use of an expression, which can be seen in the sentence; I have copied the paper and I put it there.


A. Person Deixis

B. Place Deixis

C. Time Deixis

D. Discourse Deixis

E. Social Deixis
 ...................................................................................
See also:
Deixis

Read more »