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. The following article will offer the definition of deixis, some deictic examples, but also the difference between some types of deixis such as spatial deixis and temporal deixis.

Deixis definition

What is the definition of deixis?

Deixis examples

Some deictic examples include "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 to the speaker instead and is therefore termed 'deictic'.

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

We do not have enough context to completely understand the whole sentence, whereas the speaker and the addressee do; they don't need to repeat or state the precise context. Instead, they use words and phrases that refer to people, time and place and these function deictically.

Let's examine another deictic example sentence taken out of context:

What questions do you find yourself asking as you look at the sentence?

Fig. 1 - Without context, we cannot completely understand a sentence that relies on Deixis.

Firstly, we don't know who is speaking, or to whom; we also don't know where 'here' is, or what happened. Our questions will tend to be 'where, who, what?' and probably also 'when?'. The speaker and his audience, however, have no such problem. They are in the context and they know the topic so they use deictic expressions or words to reference (or 'show') what they are talking about.

There are several examples of deixis in the sentence we have just looked at, e.g: 'Here', 'you' and 'where'. These are deictic expressions of place, person and location.

Let's now recreate the earlier example, starting from context:

A tour guide is showing his group around an old fort where a famous battle took place a few hundred years ago. He says to them: 'If you come over to this part of the castle, I can show you where the siege took place 500 years ago.'

Here we have the context: we know the speaker is a tour guide, we know he is speaking to a group of tourists, we know where they are (the castle), and we know what he is talking about (the siege) and when it took place (500 years ago).

Fig. 2 - Once we know the context, we will often automatically switch to deixis.

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.

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' and 'you' are examples of personal deixis, (people)
• 'Here' is an example of spatial deixis, (place)
• And 'yesterday' is temporal deixis. (time)

• '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:

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.

Other categories of 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!'

Fig. 4 - Distal deixis, where the object is far from the speaker.

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 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.

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’.

Deixis versus 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.

'He' refers back to Titian and so becomes anaphoric - we avoid repeating the name Titian and thereby create a smoother piece of text.

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:

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' functions as spatial deixis.

What are the similarities and differences between Deixis and Anaphora?

There are a number of similarities and differences between deictic examples in the English language.

• Both Deixis and Anaphora can take the form of pronouns, nouns, adverbs.
• Deixis references time, place and people in a context familiar to both the speaker and the person spoken to.
• Anaphora refers back to a prior element in a discourse, ie Alice fell down the rabbit hole and lost her way.
• We cannot fully understand a sentence reliant on Deictic expressions if we have no context.
• While Deixis functions within a closed context, Anaphora can only function as part of a clear context, which it refers back to.