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13. Deixis AND Deictic Shift-2
Lingua Inglese (Università degli Studi di Torino)
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13. DEIXIS AND DEICTIC SHIFT
NOTES
" Derived from the greek for ÒpointingÓ, the term refers to the linguistic encoding of
spatial and temporal relations between objects and entities. It thus refers to those
aspects of language which anchor the utterance or the discourse in a particular
situation or contextual word.
" Primarily e feature of spoken, face-to-face conversation, a situation.
n.b. cognitive: the work our mind does to understand reality.
SELF AND PERSPECTIVE
" Each one of us has a notion of self which forms the basic reference point from
which we evaluate our relationship, with all the other elements which make up our
environment, as well as the relationships which exists between these elements.
" This zero reference point of subjectivity is known as origo
These are the traditional deictic categories:
" TIME/TEMPORAL DEIXIS : yesterdayÉ
" PERSON DEIXIS: you, he, sheÉ
" SPACE/PLACE DEIXIS: thereÉ
" SOCIAL DEIXIS(
PLACE DEIXIS
" Pure place deixis: elements that can only be interpreted by reference to the
position of the speaker/writer of those words: here, there, this;
" Locational deictic expressions: interpreted in relation not to the speaker or writer
but to the position of other referents within the situational context
" Importance of demonstrative ( see Carter Moodle).
NON.PURE PLACE DEIXS
" Ò BombayÕs Shuklaji street was a fever grid of rooms, boom-boom rooms, family
rooms, god rooms, secret rooms that contracted in the daytime and expanded at
the night. It wasnÕt much of a streetÓ.
" The information about S. Street is included in the world-building elements of the
text ( es. We read that this street is in Bombay, that it is connected with illegal
activities) and this locative deictic expression does not depend on our knowing
the position in space of the narrator. So it does not represent a pure deictic form.
TEMPORAL DEIXIS
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" Temporal deixis: this encodes distance in time from the moment of speaking or
writing;
" Pure temporal deixis: now, then, yesterday
" Other temporal deictic references: a week ago, previously.
PERSON AND SOCIAL DEIXIS
" These two categories are related to each other and encode the speakers and
readers within a situational context and their relative distance from the speaker or
writer.
" Personal deixis. I, you, he;
" Person deixis operates on a basic three-part division ( Þrst, second, third person).
In many languages the deictic categories of speakers addressee, and others are
elaborated with marker of social status
" Implication in the use of pronouns: distance, formality, roles, proximity
" We exclusive vs. Inclusive we
SOCIAL DEIXIS: expresses social distance between speakers/characters via form of
dress, honoriÞc, titles ( ex. Senpai, san, chan, kun)
FORM OF ADDRESS AS DEICTIC STRATEGIES
" Use of title to display social distance vs. Use of the personal names to point out
social proximity ( lei, tu);
" The relationships display power and subordination, distance and solidarity or
intimacy.
" Sociolinguistic conventions regulate social relationships and norms.
LANGUAGE AND POWER
" Ambiguity in language use: tu spoken by someone of high status (A) to someone
of lower status (B) may either be an assertion of the power diûerence and or AÕs
right to patronise B, or it may be a gesture of solidarity with B.
PRONOMINAL SYSTEM IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLISH (CARTER 2)
" Thou ( thee/thy/thine): used either downward by a superior, in which case it
encoded status, or sideways, reciprocally, between intimates
" You ( your/yours): deferential when used upwards by a subordinate ( who must not
use thou I that situation) but distant if respectful, perhaps neutral, between, nonintimates of any rank
" Evaluative words: how z see, consider something, we give value to something
( ex. A lovely girl).
" Denotation is the meaning ( the dictionary meaning) of a word
" Connotation is all the things we associate with the meaning of a word, its
surroundings. Is the feeling and the ideas associated with a word.
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DEICTIC CATEGORIES REVISED
BASIC DEICTIC CATEGORIES
COGNITIVE DEIXIS
Person deixis
Perceptual deixis
Place deixis
Spatial deixis
Time deixis
Temporal deixis
Social deixis
Relational deixis
Discourse deixis
Textual deixis
Syntactic deixis
Compositional deixis
PERCEPTUAL DEIXIS
" Elements referring to participants with perceptual capabilities, comprising :
personal pronouns, demonstratives, mental states phrase ( believing, imagining)
naming procedures, deÞnite references ( the girl)
SPATIAL DEIXIS
" Elements that link the deictic centre to a place, comprising: spatial adverbs( here,
there, nearby) and locatives ( by the river, south of), demonstratives ( that) verbs of
motion ( drive, come, get)
TEMPORAL DEIXIS
" Elements that link the deistic centre to a particular time, comprising: temporal
adverbs ( today), locatives (in my youth), tense and aspect in verb form that
distinguish the Òspeaker-nowÓ, Òstory-nowÓ and Òreceiver-nowÓ.
RELATIONAL DEIXIS
" Elements that express the social point of view and relative situations of writer,
characters, readers, comprising: modality, focalisation, naming, form of address,
evaluative words ( lovely girl), politeness.
" Relational deixis through these forms expresses the charactersÕ POV in Þction.
TEXTUAL DEIXIS
" Elements that emphasise the textual dimension of the book/poem/extract,
comprising: chapter, titles, text organisation/division/conventions, paragraphs, use
of diûerent fonts, co-referencer and intertextuality, meta-textuality
" EXAMPLE: the prologue in Narcopolis ( see extract in your lecture notes p. 2029
reveals the narrative aspect of the text and its belonging to the genre of novel
COMPOSITIONAL DEIXIS
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" Elements that link the text to generic type of literary standards, comprising: choice
of texts, syntax, register, poetic licence, and other that tie the text to a literary
tradition
" Compositional deixis also forges the relationship between author and literary
reader: a novel written in the form of documentary, history, autobiography
The prediction of the activity is a prophecy.
DEICTIC PROJECTION
" Origo vs. Deictic projection
" Instruction from an it technician Ò remove the ßash drive from the USB part on
your left and try the USB part on the rightÓ
" Left/right in text refers to your deictic centre and not the technicianÕs
" In Þction, readers assume the spatial, temporal and social categories of deixis
linked to the text world
DEICTIC SHIFT THEORY
" An interdisciplinary approach from linguistics, psychology, computer science and
literary criticism;
" ÒDeictic shift theory was developed to account for the way in which readers can
come to feel deeply involved in what they are reading, to the extent that they
forget about their position within the real worldÓ
DEICTIC SHIFTS
" Deictic shifts must be triggered ( linguistically or non linguistically)
" First shift : we pick up a novel and start reading ( we enter the Þctional/ textual
world and shift into/out of the various deictic Þelds of the narrative)
PUSH AND POP
" As readers we push into deictic Þelds and pop out of them
" A push: movement from a basic level to a less available deictic place, such as
episodic memory ( a ßashback in Þction), Þctional story world ( a Þction within a
Þction) or fantasy
" A pop: movement out of a particular deistic Þled
" Pop/push: derived from computer science.
DEICTIC SHIFT THEORY AND COGNITIVE STYLISTICS
" DST explain how we conceive of the meaning projected by the texts through the
idea of deictic Þelds and the notion of pushing and popping;
" Cognitive stylistics highlights the active role of the reader in text processing
" From the perspective of cognitive stylistics Pop and push represent deictic shifts.
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13. DEIXIS AND DEICTIC SHIFT
13.1. Cognitive deixis
Green refers to deixis as a Òfundamental element of human discourseÓ. Deixis is a
greek term meaning ÒpointingÓ and refers to a subset of words that are dependent
on their contexts of usage for meaning. Our understanding of deictic words is
underpinned by our embodied cognition. Our cognition of language is grounded in
our bodily experiences within the world. Pronouns, demonstratives, and adverbs are
typical deictic elements, though deixis is not restricted to any particular word class.
Deictic expressions encode a language userÕs embodied position in the world. The
origo or deictic centre is the conceptual position from which the speaker cognises
the world. The deictic expression ÒIÓ ÒhereÓ and ÒnowÓ encode a central point in
relation to perceptual, spatial and temporal Þelds.
There are six deictic Þelds or dimensions. The Þrst three are reader straightforward:
" Spatial deixis provides spatial orientation;
" Temporal deixis anchors the text in time:
" Perceptual deixis involves the subjective participants as represented by personal
pronounce and characters ( including proper names as well as noun phrases such
as the woman)
" Relational deixis is linked to perceptual deixis: it relates to participants by
encoding social relations. Thus relational deictic items include naming and
address conventions such as social titles and social roles.
The last two dimensions, textual and compositional deixis, are forms of what has
traditionally been called discourse deixis, where a deictic expression refers
metatextually to the utterance or discourse in which it occurs. For instance in the
statement ÒThis sentence is composed of seven wordsÓ the demonstrative this
refers to the sentente itself. In cognitive poetics analysis Stockwell outlines two
related dimensions of discourse deixis: textual deixis, which foregrounds the text
itself through devices such as meta textual reference and explicit signposting ( ex.
Chapter titles) and compositional deixis, such as expressions that encode literary
genres ( ex. Once upon a time). Humans have the immaginative and interpretative
capacities to cognitively relocate into deictic stances other than their own. This is
known as deictic projection.
13.2. Deictic shifts
When you read a story, you might project into the world of the story but such
projection is by no means stable. You may be distracted by something in the real
world and thus your attention will shift back to reality; alternatively, the deictic
parameters of the narrative might change, for instance if the character were to
experience a ßashback. Both scenarios would involve a deictic shift ,a term which
describes our ability to shift our cognitive stance across deictic coordinates. Within
Þctional world, when the parameters of a deictic Þeld change, a deictic shift occurs
and readers must subsequently reorient their projected deictic centre. Borrowing
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from computer science, Galbraith and Stockwell described the directionality of
deictic shifts using the terms push and pop:
- a push involves a cognitive shift to a deictic plane further away from the readerÕs
reality ( when we start reading);
- A pop is a shift to a deictic level closer to a readerÕs reality ( including reality
itself).
This is known as the Deictic Shift Theory. Ò There was a time, and it was many years
ago nowÓ: now in this case creates a toggle, where a readerÕs immaginative
attention and deictic orientation shift quickly between two distance deictic realms.
Here the toggle occurs between the story-now ( when the narrative events occur)
and a speaker-now (the moment in which the narrative is being told) initiated by the
adverb now. Also the verb ÒrememberÓ is interesting in terms of temporal deixis.
Although it is used in the presente tense, semantically it looks back to the past. It
thus generate another toggle, implicitly referencing the narratorÕs act of
remembrance in speaker-now. The toggles serve to remind readers that the narrator
is telling the story from a diûerent point in time (speaker-now) to the depicted events
( story-now).
13.4. Double deixis
Not only can deictic projection be inconsistent and unstable, but pronouns shift
their reference in context, for example I changes its referent depending on who is
speaking. Second-person you is even more complex, since in English the second
person pronoun can be used to designate a number of referents. Herman
categorises the use of you into Þve types:
1. Generalised you: indeÞnite plural you to address a group of people.
2. Functional reference: you is used to designate a character and therefore
functions more like third-person s/he;
3. Fictionalised (= horizontal) address: when you is uses by a character to address
another character;
4. Apostrophic ( = vertical) address: where direct address to readers in the real wolf
transcends the boundaries of Þction;
5. Doubly deictic you: when you appears to have two reference points- one within
the Þction and one outside the Þction.
Herman describes this Þnal category as a blended or double form of person deixis.
What he means is that sometimes in literary texts the second person can appear to
designate two referents simultaneously with neither context seeming primary or
more important. For you to be functioning doubly, one of the referents exists within
the dictional world ( you points to a character) and the other referent is situated in
the actual world ( you addresses the reader).
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