2-Deixis and distance

Deixis is a technical term which means ‘pointing’ via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this ‘pointing’ is called a deictic expression or an indexical.

Deixis person temporal Time spatial Location (me, you) (now, then) (here, there)

Person Deixis Person Deixis operates on a basic three-part division: 1- speaker  ( I ) 2- addressee  (you) 3- other(s)  (he, she/ it) These three deictic categories are elaborated with markers of relative social status. Expressions which indicate higher status are described as honorifics. The choice of these forms is described as social deixis.

T/V distinction A well known example of a social contrast encoded within person deixis is the distinction between forms used for familiar versus non-familiar addressee in some languages such as French, German and Spanish. This is known as the T/V distinction, from the French forms ‘tu’ (familiar) and ‘vous’ (non-familiar). The choice of one form will communicate something (not directly said) about the speaker’s view of his/ her relationship with the addressee.

In Spain, age distinction is more powerful than the economic distinction, so the older people use ‘tu’ and the younger use ‘Usted’. Historically, ‘Usted’ is used to refer to third person (other) who is not a direct participant in the interaction. Thus, third person pronouns are distal forms in terms of person deixis, which communicate distance (and non-familiarity). In English, this can be done in three situations:

1- for an ironic or humorous purpose. e.g. Would his highness like some coffee? 2- to make potential accusations less direct. e.g. Somebody didn’t clean up after himself. 3- to make a potentially personal issue seem like an impersonal one. e.g. Each person has to clean up after himself or herself.

The above example is based on a general rule The above example is based on a general rule. The speaker can state such general rules by using “we” referring to the speaker and other(s). e.g. We clean up after ourselves around here. There is exclusive ‘we’ (speaker plus other(s), excluding addressee) and an inclusive ‘we’ (speaker and addressee included). So the hearer has to decide what is communicated by ‘we’.

Spatial deixis English uses two adverbs for location: ‘here’ and ‘there’, but we can find more adverbs in old English. ‘Yonder’ is still used, ‘hither’ and ‘thence’ sound archaic. Some verbs of motion such as ‘come’ and ‘go’ retain a deictic sense. It is important to remember that location from the speaker’s perspective can be fixed mentally and physically. Speakers also seem able to project themselves into other locations by dramatic performance (deictic projection).

The 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 be treated as psychologically distant. Similar psychological processes seem to be at work in proximal and distal expressions used to mark temporal deixis.

Temporal deixis The distal expression ‘then’ applies to both past and future time relative to the speaker’s present time. e.g. Deictic temporal reference includes calendar time, hour time, and expressions as ‘yesterday’, ’tomorrow’ today’ etc. The psychological basis of temporal deixis seems to be similar to that of spatial deixis

One basic type of temporal deixis in English is the choice of verb tense. English has only two basic forms: the present and the past. I live here now. = proximal form I lived there then. = distal form The past tense is used in if-clauses to communicate not only distant from current time but also distant from current reality or facts.

Deixis and grammar Deixis can be seen at work in the structural distinction between direct and indirect (reported) speech. Are you planning to be here this evening?  I asked her if she was planning to be there that evening. a= proximal form  b= distal form Deictic expressions always communicate much more than is said