Deixis in Semantics & Pragmatics

The linguistic subfields of semantics and pragmatics are both related to the study of meaning.
Semantics studies the relation between word meanings. On the other hand, pragmatics studies the
way in which the context shapes meaning. Pragmatics shows that the interpretation of utterances
not only depends on linguistic knowledge, but also depends on knowledge about the context of
the utterance, knowledge about the status of those involved, such as the social information that is
encoded with various expressions regarding the relative social status and familiarity, the intent of
the speaker, the place and time of the utterance. Pragmatic awareness is regarded as one of the
most challenging aspects of language learning, and it often comes through experience. Deictic
expressions fall into the following categories: person deixis, spatial deixis, temporal deixis,
social deixis, and discourse deixis.

Deixis derives from Ancient Greek - δεῖξις (deîxis, “pointing, indicating, reference”) and
δείκνυμι (deíknumi, “I show”) and forms an important part of linguistics and pragmatics, serving
to interpret speech in context. Deixis refers to a word or phrase that shows the time, place or
situation a speaker is in when talking.

It is also known as deictic expressions (or deictics), they typically include pronouns and adverbs
such as 'I', 'you', 'here', and 'there', and tend to be used mostly where the context is known to both
the speaker and the person spoken to.

Example,

"I wish you'd been here yesterday."

In this sentence the words 'I,' 'you', 'here', and 'yesterday' all function as deixis - they reference a
speaker and an addressee, a location and a time. As we are outside of the context, we cannot
know who 'I' is, where 'here' is, nor can we be entirely sure when 'yesterday' was; this
information is known as ‘deictic’.

"Last week I flew over there for a quick visit."

In this sentence, 'last week', 'I' and 'there' are the deixis - referencing time, speaker and place.

Types of Deixis
Now that we have an idea of how deixis works, let's look deeper into the various types of deixis.

There are three traditional types of deixis:

 Personal deixis relates to the speaker, or the person spoken to: the 'who'.

 Temporal deixis relates to time: the 'when'.

  Spatial deixis relates to place: the 'where'.

Personal Deixis
Personal deixis refers to the way language points to the participants in a conversation. It involves
the use of words and expressions that refer to the speaker (first person), the listener (second
person), and others (third person). Personal deixis is essential in communication as it helps to
identify who is speaking, who is being addressed, and who is being referred to.

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.

Temporal Deixis

Temporal deixis refers to the use of language to refer to the time in which an event takes place. It
involves the use of temporal expressions such as "now", "then", "yesterday", "tomorrow", "last
week", "next month", and so on. Temporal deixis is important in understanding the meaning of a
sentence, as it allows the listener or reader to determine when the event being referred to
occurred or will occur.

Spatial Deixis

Spatial deixis describes the way language refers to spatial locations, such as those related to the
speaker and the listener. It involves the use of spatial markers and indicators, such as adverbs,
pronouns, and prepositions, to indicate the location of objects or events in space.

Personal, temporal, and spatial deixis examples

Looking at our earlier deictic examples again, we can now identify temporal deixis, spatial deixis
and personal deixis:

I wish you'd been here yesterday.

 'I' and 'you' are examples of personal deixis, (people)

 'Here' is an example of spatial 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 spatial deixis.

See if you can identify the temporal deixis, spatial deixis, and personal deixis in the following:

1. When he got there, he went straight to her.

2. We booked into this hotel last night; I think he's arriving tomorrow.

In the first deictic example, the speaker is referring to third-party inactive participants: 'he' and
'her'. 'There' refers to location, so it becomes location-specific, and therefore it is an example of
'spatial deixis'.

In the second deictic example, 'this' becomes the 'spatial deixis', while 'last night' and 'tomorrow'
refer to time, which is 'temporal deixis'. The second sentence is an example of both spatial
deixis and temporal deixis.

The other categories of deixis are proximal, distal, discourse, social, and the deictic centre.

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'.

A good deictic example would be '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.

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

The 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’.