Dei

xis

A Comparative Study of Deixis in

English and Turkish language

By Farah Jamil
 Definiton:
It is a term borrowed from the Greek word
(deiktikos) which means pointing or indicating
through language. The standard pronunciation has
two syllables (dyke-sis) while the adjective form is
deictic (dyke-tik).

Deixis is an important field of language study in its

own right - and very important for learners of
second languages. But it has some relevance to
analysis of conversation and pragmatics. It is often
and best described as “verbal pointing”, that is to
Deixis signals a referent and it relates that referent
to a common ground shared by the speaker and the
addressee. Typical deictics include this, that, here,
and now. All of these words have the ability to
situate the speaker and hearer in relation to one
another and to the world around them.

Deixis is reference by means of an expression

whose interpretation is relative to the context of
the utterance, such as
• who is speaking
• the time or place of speaking
• the gestures of the speaker
• the current location in the discourse
Deictic expressions (indexicals)
include such lexemes as:
Personal or possessive pronouns
(I/you/mine/yours),

Demonstrative pronouns (this/that),

(Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now),

Other pro-forms (so/do),

Personal or possessive adjectives (my/your),

Demonstrative adjectives (this/that),

According to Stephen C.Levinson
“Deixis concerns the ways in which languages
encode...features of the context of utterance ... and thus
also concerns ways in which the interpretation of
utterances depends on the analysis of that context of
utterance.” (eg. The pronoun ‘this’).
Examples:
1. Listen, I’m not disagreeing with you, but with you, and
not about this but about this. (you and this refers
to what :S)
2. Meet me here a week from now with a stick about
this big.
( meet who, where and when, or how big a stick to
bring)
Deixis-> are they part of semantics or
pragmatics?
According to Stephen C.Levinson
‘The fact that deixis are so pervasive in natural
languages, and so deeply grammaticalized , that
it is hard to think of them as anything other than
essential part of semantics. If semantics is taken
to include all conventional aspects of meaning,
then perhaps most deictic phenomenona are
properly considered semantic. Deixis belongs
within the domain of pragmatics because it
directly concerns the relationship between the
structure of languages and the context in which
they are used.’
Deixis are not subject to truth conditionals in semantics.
Examples:
1. Letizia De Ramolino was the mother of Napoleon.
2. I am the mother of Napoleon. (the identity of the
speaker)
In order for us to asses the truth of those both examples, we
have to not only know the facts of history, but specific
details about the context in which it was uttered.
Same applied to the following examples:
1. You are the mother of Napoleon. (if the addressee is
napoleon’s mother)
2. That is an 18th century man-trap. (indeed an 18th
century man trap)
3. Mary is in love with that fellow over there. (the fellow in
Each deictic expression in the previous examples
depend on the context of the utterance. (identity of the
speaker, addressees, indicated objects, place and
times, etc.), therefore apart of being called deictic
expression they are also called context-dependent
expressions.
Three things to remember when
analysing
The 1st thing: deictic expressions:
A deictic expression can be used either deictically or non-deictically.
Examples:
1. You, you, but not you, are dismissed. (used deictically)
2. Now, that is not what I said. (non-deictically)

Deictic usage can be:

1. Gestural usages: (there is a physical pointing)
This finger hurts / Not that one idiot, that one
2. Symbolic usages: (no pointing is done)
What did you say?/ let’s go now rather than tomorrow.
 Non-deictic usage includes
1. Anaphoric references:
John came in and he lit a fire.
I was born in London and have lived there ever since.
2. Non-anaphoric references:
I cutusage
gestural a finger: this one. symbolic usage non-deictic usage

You, you, but not you are dismissed. What did you say? You can never tell what
sex they are nowadays.

This finger hurts. This city stinks! I met this weird guy the
other day

Push not now, but now. Let's go now, rather than Now, that is not what I
tomorrow. said.

Not that one, you idiot, that one. That's a beautiful view. Oh, I did this and that

Move it from there to there. Hello, is Harry there? There we go

The 2nd thing:
To understand deictic expressions always
consider the following:
1. Speaker: (position in space, his place,
when s/he produces the utterance, or time
of production of the utterance).
2. Addressee: i.e. the person to whom the
utterance is addressed (position in space,
his place when s/he receives the message,
or time of receipt of the message.)
3. Hearer: hearer may or may not coincide
The last thing:
The meaning of a deictic expression depends on the
deictic center. The deictic centre maybe the speaker,
or the addresseess, or something else.

Deictic Center:
A deictic center, is a set of theoretical points that a
deictic expression is ‘anchored’ to, such that the
evaluation of the meaning of the expression leads one
to the relevant point. As deictic expressions are
frequently egocentric, the center often consists of the
speaker at the time and place of the utterance, and
additionally, the place in the discourse and relevant
social factors. However, deictic expressions can also
Examples:
1. I’m standing here now.
the deictic center is simply the person at the
time and place of speaking.
Say two people are talking on the phone long-
distance, from London to New York. The
Londoner can say
a. We are going to New York next week.
in which case the deictic center is in London,
or they can equally validly say
b. We are coming to New York next week.
in which case the deictic center is in New
Deixis is clearly tied to the speaker's context,
the most basic distinction being between
near the speaker (proximal) and away from
the speaker (distal).
1. Proximal deictic expressions include: this,
here and now.
2. Distal deictic expressions include: that,
there and then.
Example:
I was born in London and have lived (there,
here) ever since.
Deixis refers to the world outside a text. Reference to the
context surrounding an utterance is often referred to as
primary deixis, exophoric deixis (eg. She was lying on
the beach) or simply deixis alone. Primary deixis is used
to point to a situation outside a text (situational deixis) or
to the speaker's and hearer's (shared) knowledge of the
world (knowledge deixis).

Contextual use of deictic expressions is known as

secondary deixis, textual deixis or endophoric deixis. Such
expressions can refer either backwards or forwards to other
elements in a text:
1. Anaphoric deixis is backward pointing, and is the norm
in English texts. Examples include demonstrative pronouns:
such, said, similar, (the) same.
News narratives show many examples of
deixis:
Example 1 - from a CBS Evening News
broadcast.
1. The Americans arrested three suspects, but
they made many more enemies here,
3. when the soldiers shot back at the gunmen
hiding in these houses

“Here” (line 1) and “these” (line 2) are two

deictic words.
Example 2

1. But it’s clear the situation here could grow

far
worse
2. before the U.S. even has a chance to win
it.

In this case, “here” is equivalent to “here in

Iraq” or
possibly “here in Baghdad” due to the context
Deictic expressions fall into three
categories:
Personal deixis (you, us)

Spatial deixis (here, there)

Temporal deixis (now, then)

Though the traditional categories of deixis

are perhaps the most obvious, there are other
types of deixis that are similarly pervasive in
language use. These categories of deixis were
first discussed by Fillmore and Lyons.
Personal Deixis:

Person deixis concerns itself with the grammatical persons (personal

pronouns) involved in an utterance, both those directly involved (e.g. the
speaker, the addressee), not directly involved (e.g. overhearers — those who
hear the utterance but who are not directly addressed) and those mentioned
in the utterance. In English, this is generally accomplished with pronouns.
1st person pronouns: speaker inclusion.
Eg. I am going to the movies.
We can be inclusive (include also adressee)
Eg. We should bear in mind that what am saying is extremely important.
Or exclusive (exclusive of adressee)
Eg. We carried out an important experiment.
2nd person pronoun: adressee inclusion
Eg. Would you like to have dinner?
3rd person pronouns: speaker and addressee exclusion.
Eg. They tried to hurt me, but he came to the rescue.
Under this type we have VOCATIVES.
Vocatives :are noun phrases that refer to the addressee,
but are not syntactically or semantically incorporated as the
arguments of the predicate, they are rather set apart
prosodically from the body of a sentence that may
accompany them.
Vocatives are of two types:
1. Calls (Summons): is deictic, always in utterance initial
position, appear only in conversation, are independent
speech acts.
Eg. Hey you, you just scratched my car with your frisbee.
2. Addresses: are parenthetical and can occur on the sorts
 Spatial Deixis:

Space deixis, also known as place deixis, concerns itself

with the spatial locations relevant to an utterance. Similarly
to person deixis, the locations can be those of the speaker
and addressee, or those of persons or objects being referred
to.
The most salient English examples are the adverbs “here”
and “there” and the demonstratives “this” and “that”,
though they are far from the only deictic words. The verbs
“come” and “go” , “bring” and “take”.
this that

here there
come indicate ‘close to speaker’ go
indicate ‘away
Examples:
1. I enjoy living in this city.
2. Here is where we will place the statue.
3. She was sitting over there.
place deictic terms are generally understood to be relative
to the location of the speaker, as in
The shop is across the street.
where “across the street” is understood to mean “across the
street from where I am right now.”
It is interesting to note that while “here” and “there” are
often used to refer to locations near to and far from the
speaker, respectively, “there” can also refer to the location
of the addressee, if they are not in the same location as the
speaker.
Typically we say ‘come here’ or ‘go there’
Examples:
We could also say:
1. ‘I’ll come there ate 5:00’
‘there’ is far from the speaker and close to the
addressee (deictic focus is the speaker), but
‘come’ is used to show empathy with addressee
(deictic center is the adressee).
2. I’m coming.
Speaker is moving towards the listener (deictic
center is the listener).
3. [context: Lulu is at home and says to Fofo:]
4. [context: on the mobile phone, Lulwa says to Farah:] I
came over several times but you were never home.
‘came’ indicates away from the speaker, and probably also
from the hearer, but reference to a home-base (deictic
center that is the hearer’s house.
Time Deixis:
Time deixis concerns itself with the various times
involved in and referred to in an utterance. This includes
time adverbs like “now,” “then,” “soon,” and so forth, and
also different tenses. A good example is the word
tomorrow, which denotes the consecutive next day after
every day. The "tomorrow" of a day last year was a different
day than the "tomorrow" of a day next week. Time adverbs
can be relative to the time when an utterance is made
(what Fillmore calls the “encoding time,” or ET) or when the
utterance is heard (Fillmore’s “decoding time,” or DT). While
For example, if one were to write
1. It is raining out now, but I hope when you read
this it will be sunny.
the ET and DT would be different, with the former
deictic term concerning ET and the latter the DT.
Tenses are generally separated into absolute (deictic)
and relative tenses. So, for example, simple English
past tense is absolute, such as in:
2. He went.
while the pastperfect is relative to some other
deictically specified time, as in
3. He had gone.
Deictic center can be the time when the text is produced
(producing time) or when the text is received (receiving
time). This influences verb tense choice:
I’m writing this letter because..(deictic center is the
producing time)
I wrote this letter because..(deictic center is the
receiving time)
Temporal context is relevant also to other aspects of
speech, such as greetings. You should choose the correct
greeting depending on the time when the greeting is
uttered:
Good morning! / Good night!
 Discourse Deixis:
Discourse deixis, also referred to as text deixis, refers to
the use of expressions within an utterance to refer to parts
of the discourse that contains the utterance — including the
utterance itself.
Examples:
1. This is a great story.
“this” refers to an upcoming portion of the discourse.
2. That was an amazing day.
“that” refers to a prior portion of the discourse.
Distinction must be made between discourse deixis
and anaphora, which is when an expression makes
reference to the same referent as a prior term, as in
“here” or “there” function anaphorically in their reference to London,
and deictically in that the choice between “here” or “there” indicates
whether the speaker is or is not currently in London. [1]
The rule of thumb to distinguish the two phenomenon is as follows:
when an expression refers to another linguistic expression or a piece
of discourse, it is discourse deictic. When that expression refers to the
same item as a prior linguistic expression, it is anaphoric.
Switch reference is a type of discourse deixis, and a grammatical
feature found in some languages, which indicates whether the
argument of one clause is the same as the argument of the previous
clause. In some languages, this is done through same subject
markers and different subject markers. In the translated example
"John punched Tom, and left-[same subject marker]," it is John who
left, and in "John punched Tom, and left-[different subject marker]," it
is Tom who left.
Social Deixis:

Social deixis concerns the social information that is

encoded within various expressions, such as relative
social status and familiarity. Two major forms of it are the
so-called T-V distinctions and honorifics.
Honorific speech is a type of social deixis, as an
understanding of the context—in this case, the social
status of the speaker relative to the other
participants or bystanders—is crucial to its use.
There are three main types of honorifics, categorized
according to the individual whose status is being
expressed:
1. Addressee (or Speaker/Hearer)
Addressee honorifics express the social status of the person
being spoken to (the hearer), regardless of what is being
talked about.

Referent honorifics express the status of the person being

spoken about. In this type of honorific, both the referent
(the person being spoken about) and the target (the person
whose status is being expressed) of the honorific
expression are the same.

Bystander honorifics express the status of someone who is

nearby, but not a participant in the conversation (the
overhearer). These are the least common, and are found
primarily in avoidance speech such as the "mother-in-law
languages" of aboriginal Australia, where one changes
A fourth type, the Speaker/Situation honorific, does not
concern the status of any participant or bystander, but
the circumstances and environment in which the
conversation is occurring. The classic example of this is
diglossia, in which an elevated or "high form" of a
language is used in situations where more formality is
called for, and a vernacular or "low form" of a language
is used in more casual situations. (kuwaiti dialect Vs.
Fusha)
One common system of honorific speech is T-V
distinction. The terms T-form and V-form to
describe the second person pronouns tu and vos,
respectively, were introduced by Brown and
Gilman, whose 1960 study of them introduced
the idea that the use of these forms was
governed by "power and solidarity." The Latin tu
refers to the singular T-form, while the the Latin
vos refers to the V-form, which is usually plural-
marked. Tu is used to express informality, and in
contrast, vos is used to express politeness and
formality. T-V distinction is characteristic of many
Indo-European languages including Polish and
Russian.
Modern English has no system of honorific
speech. Middle English once exhibited a T-V
distinction between the 2nd person singular
pronoun thou and the 2nd person plural ye and
later you, with the latter being used as an
honorific regardless of the number of
addressees. Thou and its associated forms have
fallen into disuse and are considered archaic,
though it is often used in recreations of archaic-
sounding speech.
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