Indexicality

Indexicality is the capacity of language to point to something without directly referring to it. All language has the capacity for indexical function, but some expressions and communicative events suggest more indexicality than do others. This includes indexical expressions, which draw meaning from their surrounding content or context (e.g., personal and demonstrative pronouns such as you and that, temporal–spatial expressions such as here or then). In addition to expressions or phrases, larger chunks of discourse can take on indexical meaning, including inside jokes that refer to another occurrence, code switching between languages or dialects, and reported speech or quotes. Indexicality implies these other occurrences' existence and relevance in relation to the current communicative event. Examining indexicality is common in various modes of discourse analysis, including conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, membership categorization analysis, and semiotic analysis.

Indexicality relies on assumptions that communicative contexts reveal and/or create meaning. In contrast to the referential or denotational capabilities of language use, indexicality requires that the context of communicative production must be considered for meaning to be inferred. Instead of directly naming, or drawing attention to, an unambiguous referent, indexical elements of language draw meaning from their variable contexts (e.g., time, situation, surrounding content). In addition, such “pointing to” requires that surrounding grammatical, semantic, or pragmatic context (other words, available meanings, or inferred content) be observed to be understood.

When examining or analyzing language use, attention to its indexical functions provides insights into speaker intention and sensemaking in ways that attention to more literal referential functions of language do not make available. For instance, in conversation analysis, indexicality directs interlocutors to relevant pieces of the current discursive interaction (e.g., roles, other events, prior turns at talk). This can reveal implied intent or meaning that, for various reasons, is not represented explicitly in talk. In linguistic anthropological treatments of discourse analysis, indexicality is seen as directing interlocutors to power-laden, authorized, and sociocultural aspects of the situation. Thus, from this perspective, indexicality includes attention not only to indexical expressions but also to larger chunks of discourse such as other texts, sociocultural discourses, and power-related mediating symbols.

The conversation analytic treatment of indexicality differs from anthropological treatment in that the former considers indexical referents as grammatically and sequentially manifest, whereas the latter requires consideration of the sociocultural background of speakers [Page 424]and hearers to analyze indexicality. For example, although race might not be mentioned explicitly in an interaction, knowledge of its potential relevance to the situation may be required to understand an indexical reference to a well-known sociohistorical event that is politically and ideologically loaded. These references point to circulating discourses and sociocultural moments, including the power, opportunity, and membership they imply.