The ways of expressing deixis in different languages

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Azerbaijan University of Languages (Baku)

The ways of expressing deixis in different languages

S. Mursaliyeva,

Lecturer of English grammar Department,

Annotation

Deixis is a linguistic notion within the domain of pragmatics. Pragmatics studies the way individuals produce and comprehend communicative acts of speech in a concrete speech situation. The ability to produce and comprehend these acts requires a special knowledge of context. That's why deixis is a crucial element of pragmatics. It is closely related to the context of an utterance and the structure of language. Deictic elements are present not only in literary texts but in other pragmatic texts such as newspaper articles or even everyday speech. There are two main divisions of deictic elements. According to traditional linguists there are three main types of deixis: Person deixis, Temporal deixis and Spatial deixis. Modern linguists recognize two extra divisions. They are: Social deixis and Discourse deixis.

Key words: pragmatics, deixis, temporal, spatial, discourse.

Аннотация

deixis linguistic speech communicative

Дейксис - це лінгвістичне поняття в області прагматики. Прагматика вивчає способи того, як індивіди відтворюють і запам'ятовують комунікативні акти мови в конкретних мовних ситуаціях. Здатність відтворювати і запам'ятовувати ці акти потребує особливого знання контексту. Тому дейксис є ключовим елементом прагматики. Дейктичні елементи присутні не тільки в літературних текстах, а й в інших прагматичних текстах, таких як газетні статті або навіть повсякденна мова. Існують два основні підрозділи дейктичних елементів. Згідно з традиційними лінгвістичними уявленнями, існують три основних типи дейксиса: особисті, часові та просторові дейксиси. Сучасні лінгвісти розпізнають два додаткові підрозділи: соціальний дейксис і дискурсний дейксис.

Ключові слова: прагматика, дейксис, часовий, просторовий, особистий, дискурс.

Анотація

Дейксис - это лингвистическое понятие в области прагматики. Прагматика изучает способы того, как индивиды воспроизводят и запоминают коммуникативные акты речи в конкретных речевых ситуациях. Способность воспроизводить и запоминать эти акты требует особого знания контекста. Поэтому дейксис является ключевым элементом прагматики. Дейктические элементы присутствуют не только в литературных текстах, но и в других прагматических текстах, таких как газетные статьи или даже повседневная речь. Существуют два основных подраздела дейктических элементов. Согласно традиционным лингвистическим представлениям, существуют три основных типа дейкси- сов: личные, временные и пространственные дейксисы. Современные лингвисты распознают два дополнительных подразделения: социальный дейксис и дискурсный дейксис.

Ключевые слова: прагматика, дейксис, временной, пространственный, личный дискурсы.

Modern linguistics is one of the most remarkable and successful scientific innovations of the twentieth century. It is related only to linguistic studies, but to other disciplines as well such as: philosophy, cognitive psychology, anthropology and literary studies. The ability to comprehend and produce a communicative act is referred to as pragmatic competence which often includes one's knowledge about the social distance, social status between the speakers involved, the cultural knowledge such as politeness, and the linguistic knowledge explicit and implicit. Deixis belongs within the domain of pragmatics because it directly concerns the relationship between the structure of language and the context in which they are used [4, p. 55].

The phenomenon of deixis has been of considerable interest to philosophers, linguists, and psychologists. It raises a great number of puzzles about the proper way to think about the semantics of natural languages, and about the relation of semantics and pragmatics. It also reminds us that natural languages have evolved for primary use in face-to-face interaction, and are designed in important ways to exploit that circumstance [1, p. 98]. The word deictic has its roots in the Greek word 'deiktikos', meaning 'able to show. A related word is deixis, used in pragmatics and linguistics where it refers to a process whereby either words or expressions are seen to rely on context. Deixis is an important field studied in pragmatics, semantics and linguistics. Deixis refers to the phenomenon wherein understanding the meaning of certain words and phrases in an utterance requires contextual information. Words or phrases that require contextual information to convey any meaning are deictic. It means «pointing» via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this «pointing» is called a deictic expression. Deictic expressions are sometimes called indexicals. All these expressions depend on the speaker and hearer sharing the same context.

Levinson [4, p. 54] states that deixis concerns the way in which languages encode or gram- maticalize features of the context of utterance or speech event, and thus also concerns ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance.

Deixis is not a simple as it seems. Deixis shows the important meaning which is expressed by the writer to help the reader to understand the text. It means that it will be better if the reader understand deixis to discover the meaning in a text. Moreover, sometimes the readers read some discourses of the text to get the real sense of words or phrases because some words in a language cannot be interpreted directly.

Deixis is a form of referring that is tied to the speaker's context which the most basic distinction between deictic expressions being «near speaker» versus «away from speaker». In English the «near speaker», or proximal terms, «this», «here», «now». The «away from speaker» or distal terms, are «that», «there», «then». Proximal terms are typically interpreted in terms of the speaker's location, or the deictic center, so that «now» is generally understood as referring to some point or period in time that has the time of the speaker's utterance as its centre. Distal terms can simply indicate «away from speaker», but, in some languages, can be used to distinguish between «near addressees» and «away from both speaker and addressee». In Japanese, the translation of the pronoun «that» will distinguish between «that near addressee» «sore» and «that distant from both speaker and addressee» are with a third term being used for the proximal «this near speaker» «kore» [2, p. 56].

The context of an utterance is crucial in the interpretation of certain words and in the complete convey of the meaning. Words such as here and there, this or that, now and then, yesterday, today or tomorrow as well as pronouns such as you, me, she, him, it,them can be ambiguous if we are not aware of the physical context of the speaker. Certain circumstances determine the meaning of some English sentences. In order to understand these sentences we must know who the speaker is, who is he/she speaking to, about whom, where and when. This knowledge about the context is identified as non-linguistic knowledge because the knowledge of these circumstances does not belong within the framework of the general knowledge about a language.

Levinson points out that there are five types of deixis:

Person deixis.

Place (spatial)deixis.

Time (temporal) deixis.

Discourse deixis.

Social deixis.

The first three are more common than the last two [3, p. 39].

Person deixis. Person deixis deals with the correct identification of the grammatical persons used to refer to the speaker and the addressee. In every language there is a first-person pronoun and a second-person pronoun. The first person is used by the speaker as a means of referring to him/herself and the second-person is used to refer to the addressee or the audience. In many languages (not all of them) we notice the presence of the third-person pronoun, which is used to refer to entities different from the speaker and the addressee. For example: in English I- you, in Azerbaijani man-san/siz, in Russian я-ты/вы, in German ich-du/Sie, in French je-tu/vou- sand etc.

She watched a television.

Could you open the door, please!

I've lost the pen.

They played cricket on Sunday [6].

The number system differs from language to language. The most commonly found systems make a distinction between the Singular and the Plural or sometimes between the Singular-Dual-Plural. Those pronouns that must be carefully considered are the first person plurals. As we all know these pronouns refer to more than one entity, but what we might not know or be sure about is whether the speaker includes or excludes the addressee. This is the case with English and Russian. We do not know whether the pronoun «we» includes the addressee or not. For defining it the context must be clear to speaker and addressee at the same time. For example:

We are not happy together; I want to part but can't speak about it with him.

Мы не счастливы вместе; Я хочу расстаться, но не могу говорить с ним об этом (addressee is exclude)

We are not happy together, let's part.

Мы не счастливы вместе, давайте расставаться (addressee is include) [5].

Place (spatial) deixis. In every language the speaker sets up a frame of reference around himself. So there is always a division of space around him and of course there is a division of time relative to his utterance. The most frequent words that carry deictic characteristics are the demonstrative pronouns, respectively this/ that and these/those in English, bura(ya), bura- da, ora(ya), orada in Azerbaijani, там, туда, здесь, сюда in Russian, ici, la in French, diese in German. There are some verbs that have deictic function in their meaning, such as come/go in English, kommen/gehen in German, venir/aller in French. This kind of deixis is known as spatial or space deixis. Other expressions that belong to this category are the adverbs here/ there and some uses of the prepositions in/ on (in the classroom, on the chair). Spatial deixis also implies some proximal or distal interpretations. For instance, here/this/these locate something near to the speaker. Anyway we still cannot denote the complete meaning of the utterance because here might refer to every kind of area, being this room, a city or a country. On the other hand, there/that/those locate something far from the speaker [6]. The basis of spatial deixis is often psychological distance (rather than physical distance). Usually physical and (metaphorical) psychological distance will appear the same. But a speaker may wish to mark something physically close as psychologically distant, as when you indicate an item of food on your plate with - I don't like that.

Time (temporal) deixis. However, in language time is commonly objectified by the metaphorical structuring of time in terms of spatial concepts The conceptual relationship between space and time is reflected in the frequent development of temporal expressions from spatial terms. The time line is divided into three domains: present, past, and future. The present is conceptualized as the deictic centre, which in English is commonly referred to by now. Now may refer to the very moment of the speech event, but may also refer to a larger time period that includes the time of the current speech event (e. g., Peter is now thirty years old ). The deictic centre is distinguished from the time conceptualized as past and future, for which English has a variety of deictic expressions: Then can be used with reference to both past and future time but other time deictic expressions such as soon and ago refer only into one direction along the time line; that is, they are exclusively used with reference to the past or future. For example:

I was still in school then [past].

I'll be ready then [future].

I'll be there soon [future].

Ten years ago I was a graduate student [past] [6].

Examples for temporal deixis in different languages: now, then, soon, before, later, ago, yesterday, today, tomorrow, next, last Monday, this week, last year in English; indi, sonra, onda, tezlikla, avval, sonralar, dunan, bu gun, sabah, bazar ertasi, bu hafta, galan hafta, galan il, kegan ilin Azerbaijani; maintenant, alors, bientot, devant, antan, aujourd'huidemain, demainmatin, de- mainsoir in French.

One basic type of temporal deixis in English is in the choice of verb tense. Whereas other languages have many different forms of the verb as different tenses, English has only two basic forms, the present and the past. For example:

I live here now.

I lived there then.

The present tense is the proximal form and the past tense is the distal form. Something having taken place in the past (I could swim in my childhood.) is typically treated as distant from the speaker's current situation. At the same time, something that is treated as extremely impossible from the speaker's current situation is also marked via the distal form (I could be there if I had a lot of money) [7].

The past tense is always used in English in those if-clauses that mark events presented by the speaker as not being close to present reality. For example:

If I had a chance, I would study abroad.

If I were child again, I wouldn't like to grow up.

They are presented as deictically distant from the speaker's current situation.

Discourse deixis. Like time deixis, discourse deixis is based on the metaphorical structuring of time as space. However, while the deictic centre of time deixis is defined as the time including the moment of utterance, the deictic centre of discourse deixis is defined by the location of a deictic word in the ongoing discourse. Discourse deixis can be realized by a variety of expressions. English has a few linguistic terms that may be analyzed as genuine discourse deictics (e.g., the latter); but more frequently discourse deixis involves deictic expressions from other conceptual domains. For instance, sequential adjectives such as last and next, which are commonly used as time deictic expressions, may be used with reference to linguistic elements in the ongoing discourse. For example:

the last paragraph,

the next chapter.

The most frequent discourse deictic expressions are borrowed from the spatial domain. Across languages, demonstratives are used as discourse deictics, as in the following example from English.

Mostly referred to as text deixis, discourse deixis refers to the expressions used in a discourse. These expressions include the utterance itself.

This is an unusual party.

It sounded like this: whoosh.

«this» refers to an upcoming portion of the discourse, and in

That was comprehensible.

«that» refers to a prior portion of the discourse.

You are wrong. That's exactly what she said.

This type of deictic expressions can sometimes be confused with the anaphora. Anaphora is used to refer to something previously mentioned [6].

Social deixis. This kind of deixis is related to the social information encoded within an utterance. According to Levinson [3, p. 67] social deixis is: those aspects of language structure that are anchored to thesocial identities of participants (including bystanders) in the speech event, or to relations between them, or torelations between them and other referents.

There are two examples of social deixis:

1. The T/V form. It stands for the Latin words «tu» (singular second person pronoun), which is used to address to a speaker in an informal and relaxed way and «vos» (plural second person pronoun), which is used in a more formal or polite context. However in English has not only been widely used but it has the same role as Vous in French, or Lei in Italian, or Sie in German.

2. Honorifics. Honorifics are similar to the T/v distinction, however they are more complex. They involve the usage of particular lexemes in order to show the actual status of the inter actants. For example the meaning of the phrase «The President» may be determined by the country in which it is spoken. Since there are many presidents around the world, the location of the speaker provides extra information that allows the president to be identified [7].

Bibliography

1. Bloomfield L. Language / Leonard Bloomfield. - London: George Allen & Unwin, 1933. - 566 p.

2. Fillmore C. Toward the theory of Deixis / Charles Fillmore // University of Hawaii working papers in linguistics. - 1971. - Vol. 3. - P. 219-242.

3. Levinson S. C. Pragmatics and Social Deixis: Reclaiming the Notion of Conventional Impli- cature / Stephen C. Levinson // Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society. - 1979. - Vol. 5. - P. 206-223.

4. Levinson S. C. Pragmatics / Stephen C. Levinson. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. - 420 p.

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8. Bloomfield, L. Language. London, George Allen & Unwin, 1933, 566 p.

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11. Levinson, S.C. Pragmatics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983, 420 p.

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