Pragmatics

Deixis

The meanings of certain utterances depend on their contexts of use. The deictic elements of an utterance vary with such contexts. Deictic elements are primarily of three types: person, spatial, and temporal. Person deixis is itself divided into three subtypes: first person (e.g., “I”), second person (e.g., “you”), and third person (e.g., “she”). Depending on which language one speaks, personal pronouns can be either singular or plural and the use of either depends partly on cultural practice. Thus, in modern English, it is not customary to employ the first person plural pronoun we when referring to oneself. There is also no second person plural pronoun in formal English. (“You people” would be an exception in informal English.) On the other hand, in French, as in many other languages, it is customary to employ the second person plural pronoun vous when speaking to a person of a higher social status or rank. The use of personal pronouns can thus communicate information not otherwise apparent in the literal form of an utterance.

Person deixis can also be used to send an indirect, but firm, message. A parent, for example, might employ a third-person pronoun when speaking about a child present in the room, as in (1):

Spatial deixis employs terms such as this, that, here, and there to indicate physical as well as psychological location and distance. Utterances [Page 594]employing spatial deictic terms might communicate directionality as well as location, as in (2):

Alternatively, an utterance might employ the term there to identify an abstract entity, as in

...