6.7 Deixis 2
1. Types of Deixis
Now that we have an idea how deixis works, let's look deeper into the various categories.
There are three traditional types of deixis:
Personal - relating to the speaker, or the person spoken to: the 'who'.
Temporal - relating to time: the 'when'.
Spatial, or Local - relating to place: the 'where'.
NOTE: the 1st and 2nd person pronouns (I, you, we) are typically active participants (in that they speak and hear speech); the third person pronouns (she, he, they) refer to inactive, ie non-speech or narrated participants.
Personal, Temporal and Spatial Deixis
Looking at our earlier examples again, we can now identify temporal, spatial and personal deixis:
I wish you'd been here yesterday
- 'I' and 'you' are examples of personal deixis, (people)
- 'Here' is an example of local deixis, (place)
- And 'yesterday' is temporal deixis. (time)
Last week I flew over there for a quick visit.
- 'Last week', which relates to when, is the temporal deixis,
- 'I' refers to a person, and becomes the personal deixis,
- 'There' refers to location, and is the local deixis.
See if you can identify the temporal, local and personal deixis in the following:
When he got there, he went straight to her.
We booked into this hotel last night; I think he's arriving tomorrow.
In the first, the speaker is referring to third party inactive participants: 'he' and 'her'. 'There' refers to location, so it becomes location-specific (and therefore 'local deixis').
In the second, note 'this' becomes the local deixis, while 'last night' and 'tomorrow' refer to time, so become 'temporal deixis'.
Other Categories of Deixis:
- Proximal Deixis
If you think of proximity, i.e closeness, it should become clear that proximal deixis refers to what is close to the speaker - think of 'this', 'here', 'now'.
- Distal Deixis
Distal deixis instead refers to what is distant, or away, from the speaker; usually, these would be: 'that', 'there', and 'then'.
Example : 'That one over there.'
- Discourse Deixis
Discourse Deixis, or Text Deixis, happens when we use deictic expressions to refer to something we are talking about in the same utterance. Imagine you have just finished reading a great story. You might show it to your friend and say:
‘This is an amazing book’.
‘This’ refers to the book which you are going to tell your friend about.
Somebody mentions a film they saw earlier. You have also seen it, and you say ‘That was a brilliant film.’
Because the film has already been mentioned in the same conversation, you can use ‘that’ to refer back to it, instead of ‘this’.
Both these cases are examples of discourse deixis.
- Social Deixis
Social deixis is when we use a term of address to indicate social or professional status. In many languages there is a distinct change of form for second-person pronouns, to indicate familiarity or politeness.
Example:
Jan is talking to his friend in German and when he wants to say ‘you’ will use ‘du’(you). When he is talking to his professor or supervisor he will more likely address them with ‘Sie’ (formal-you).
This way of addressing people is called the T-V distinction and is virtually non-existent in modern English.
Formality and familiarity in English are expressed in other ways, such as using forms of address, terms of endearment, formal and informal language.
- Deictic Centre
Deictic centre indicates where the speaker is at the time of speaking. When someone says ‘I am standing here’ they are using a deictic centre to indicate their current location, from this utterance alone we cannot know where ‘here’ is, only the speaker and the person addressed will realise this from context.
This location could change ten or more times in the next hour or so, but the speaker can still, at any point during that hour, indicate his location in the same way: ‘I am here’.
2. Deixis vs Anaphora
Both Deixis and Anaphora are similar, in that they are used to reference people, objects, times etc., but in different ways. Anaphora has two functions or meanings - one is rhetorical, the other grammatical.
- Grammatical Anaphora
In its grammatical function, Anaphora serves as a means of avoiding clumsy repetition, usually through the use of a pronoun.
Example 1:
Titian was born in Cadore but later moved to Venice, where he set up his studio.
'He' refers back to Titian and so becomes anaphoric - we avoid repeating the name Titian and thereby create a smoother piece of text.
Example 2:
When Alice fell down the rabbit hole, she noticed a lot of books floating around her.
Again, we avoid repetition by using 'she' and 'her' to refer back to Alice, so in this case, both of these words function as anaphors.
By contrast, if we were with Titian in his studio, he could say to us 'I have set up a studio here,' and this would be an example of deixis: we would know where we were already (i.e. Venice), so it would be enough to use 'here' as spatial deixis.
- Anaphora as rhetoric:
While Deixis refers, Anaphora repeats.
Anaphora, in its other form as a rhetorical device, relies instead on repetition to emphasize a point; it is used in poetry, speeches and prose, and can add dramatic value as well as pace and rhythm.
For instance, in the opening lines of Dickens' Bleak House, the word fog is repeated throughout a whole paragraph, to emphasize its presence, to give the London fog a personality of its own:
Example 3:
'Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights.
Charles Dickens, Bleak House(1852)
Imagine if we had the fog speaking for itself, ie 'I am everywhere. I am up the river, where I flow ... I am down the river, where I roll ... I am on the marches, on the heights ... etc '.
Without context, we could only guess what or who is speaking; the 'I' becomes personal deixis, whereas 'up, down, on' function as spatial deixis.