Types and Functions of Deixis
Deixis is how we "point" with words. Terms like I, here, tomorrow, and this don't have fixed meanings on their own. Their meaning shifts depending on who's speaking, where they are, and when they're speaking. If you read the sentence "I'll meet you here tomorrow" with no other context, you can't determine who, where, or when. That's deixis at work.
This matters for pragmatics because it shows how deeply language depends on context. A sentence can be grammatically perfect but meaningless without knowing the situation it was spoken in.
Types of Deixis
Person deixis categorizes referents based on their role in the speech event:
- First person refers to the speaker or a group including the speaker (I, we, me, us)
- Second person addresses the listener or audience (you)
- Third person indicates those not directly involved in the conversation (he, she, it, they)
Note that "we" can be tricky. In some languages, there's a distinction between inclusive we (including the listener) and exclusive we (excluding the listener). English doesn't mark this grammatically, but context usually makes it clear.
Spatial deixis locates referents in physical space relative to the speaker:
- Demonstratives point to specific objects or locations (this/these for things nearby, that/those for things farther away)
- Adverbs indicate relative proximity or distance (here vs. there, come vs. go)
The key word is relative. "This chair" only makes sense if you know where the speaker is sitting.
Temporal deixis anchors events in time relative to the moment of speaking:
- Time adverbs like now, then, today, yesterday, tomorrow all depend on when the utterance happens. "Tomorrow" in a letter written on March 3rd means March 4th, but if you read that letter on June 10th, "tomorrow" still means March 4th.
- Tense markers on verbs also function as temporal deixis. The past tense in "She walked home" places the event before the moment of speaking.
Social deixis encodes social relationships and status in language:
- Honorifics show respect or deference (Your Honor, Dr., Professor)
- Forms of address reflect social distance or intimacy (Mr. Smith vs. a first name vs. a nickname)
- Many languages build social deixis directly into grammar. French has tu (informal "you") vs. vous (formal "you"). English used to have this with thou vs. you but lost the distinction over time.
Context in Deictic Interpretation
Deictic expressions are only interpretable with context. Several types of context come into play:
- Situational context provides the physical and social setting. The physical environment gives spatial reference points, and the social setting influences which forms of address are appropriate (you'd use different language in a courtroom than at a barbecue).
- Shared knowledge between speakers aids interpretation. If two friends both visited a restaurant last week, one can say "Remember that place?" and the other knows exactly what's meant. This common ground allows for more efficient communication.
- The deictic center is the reference point from which all deictic terms are interpreted. By default, the deictic center is the speaker, at the speaker's location, at the time of speaking. But this center can shift. In a novel, "here" might refer to a fictional castle, and "now" might mean the 1400s. The reader adjusts the deictic center to follow the narrative perspective.
- Ambiguity resolution depends on context. Consider "She took her book." Whose book? She and her might refer to the same person or two different people. Context (and sometimes stress or intonation) is what resolves this.
Deixis in Referential Meaning
Beyond simply pointing, deixis plays several roles in how we build meaning across a conversation:
- Establishing shared focus. Deictic expressions direct the listener's attention: "Look at this" creates a joint focus between speaker and listener.
- Building coherence. Deixis links utterances together by connecting them to specific times, places, or participants. "We'll meet there at noon" ties together a person reference, a place reference, and a time reference in one sentence.
- Managing information flow. Deixis helps distinguish between information already established and new information. "That's the one I was talking about" uses that to connect back to something previously discussed.
- Discourse deixis refers to parts of the conversation or text itself. Phrases like "as I mentioned earlier" or "the following example" point to other locations within the discourse rather than to things in the physical world.
- Gestural deixis combines speech with physical indicators like pointing or nodding. Saying "it's over there" while pointing is a classic case. The gesture and the word work together to establish reference.
Anaphora and Cataphora for Reference
These are two strategies for tracking referents across a stretch of discourse without repeating full noun phrases every time.
Anaphora refers back to a previously mentioned entity (its antecedent):
- Pronominal anaphora uses pronouns: "John arrived late. He was stuck in traffic." (He refers back to John.)
- Lexical anaphora repeats or rephrases the noun: "The dog was barking. The animal wouldn't stop."
- Zero anaphora omits the repeated element entirely: "John came in and __ sat down." (The subject of "sat down" is understood to be John without stating it.)
Cataphora points forward to an entity mentioned later (its postcedent):
- "Before he arrived, John called to say he'd be late." Here, he appears before John, so you don't know who's being discussed until you finish the sentence. Cataphora can create suspense or emphasis.
A few things to keep in mind:
- Anaphora is far more common than cataphora in most languages. We usually introduce a referent first, then refer back to it.
- Reference resolution is the process of figuring out which antecedent or postcedent a pronoun points to. In "The boys argued until they were tired," you resolve they as referring to the boys using both grammatical cues and meaning.
- Both anaphora and cataphora serve the same core purpose: maintaining coherence and avoiding clunky repetition. Compare "Sarah went to the store. Sarah bought milk. Sarah drove home." with "Sarah went to the store. She bought milk and drove home."