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. 

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      Deixis definition

      What is the definition of deixis?

      Deixis refers to a word or phrase that shows the time, place or situation a speaker is in when talking.

      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.

      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'.

      "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.

      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:

      'If you come over here I can show you where it happened, all that time ago.'

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

      Deixis a conversation without context StudySmarterFig. 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:

      'If you come over here I can show you where it happened, all that time ago.'

      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).

      Let's say we are now either the tour guide or the tourists. At this point, the tour guide starts to move over to one of the ramparts of the castle, and instead of repeating all the above information, the guide can simply say: 'If you come over here, I can show you where it happened all that time ago.'

      This avoids stating the obvious, it saves time repeating information already given, and both the guide and his audience understand immediately what he is referring to. At this point, a specific reference becomes an example of deictic reference, through the use of words such as 'here', 'it', and 'that'.

      NOTE: The pronouns 'I' and 'you' retain the same form as before, but their function shifts - they are now also deictic expressions or words, and only those aware of the context will know to whom these pronouns refer.

      Deixis, A tour of a castle with a guide StudySmarterFig. 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.

      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.

      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'.

      Deixis, A man with his dog, StudySmarter

      Fig. 3 - Proxima deixis, meaning: closer to the speaker.

      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!'

      Deixis, A figure pointing to a tree, StudySmarterFig. 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

      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’.

      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.

      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.

      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:

      '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' 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.

      Deixis - key takeaways

      • Deixis is a form of reference where the topic or context is already familiar to both speakers and addressee.

      • We cannot understand the full meaning of a deictic reference without context.
      • Deixis is used by the speaker to refer to the place, situation or time in which they find themselves when talking.

      • Typically, Deixis can be categorized as temporal, local or personal.

      • Other categories of Deixis include distal, proximal, discourse, social and deictic centre.

      Frequently Asked Questions about Deixis

      What does deixis mean?

      Deixis comes from the Ancient Greek δεῖξις (deîxis) which means:“pointing, indicating, reference”.

      What words are an example of deixis?

      Deixis words can pronouns and ad.verbs: ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘here’, ‘there’

       What is the purpose of deixis?

      Deixis refers to a word or phrase that shows the time, place or situation a speaker is in when talking.

      What is deixis in pragmatics?

      Deixis forms an important part of linguistics and pragmatics and serves to interpret speech context.

      What are the three types of deixis?

      The three types of deixis are: temporal, spatial and personal..

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      Test your knowledge with multiple choice flashcards

      Anaphora is used: to indicate specific people and places as a rhetorical device and as a referenceonly in speeches

      Discourse deixis refers to :a speech given in another contexta topic familiar only to the speakera topic you have spoken about or will speak about  

      Question 2: Proximal deixis involves:Referencing an object far away from the speakerReferencing a time connected to the speakerReferencing an object or person near to the speaker

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