Deixis most basically means "pointing". The term has become fashionable in
part because it is one of the simplest examples, in its more specialized
linguistic meaning (below) of the important semiotic phenomenon known as
indexicality: that some signs-in-use always point back to their user and
tell us something about him/her/it. Perhaps all signs can be construed as
having an indexical component to their meaning ... they potentially tell us
something about the user, e.g. at least that the user is competent to some
degree in the use of the sign system on display. This is normally also an
"unintended" aspect of every meaning-making act and calls into question
theories of meaning based solely on intentionality. Whatever I may say
about the world, you can also hear that I am a speaker of English, of a
certain dialect, perhaps of a certain social class, and that I am nervous
or drunk; whatever I write will be placeable in my historical era, will say
something about my expected readers, etc.
In linguistic theory, "deictics" are a class of verbal signs whose
reference depends on the speech situation, the specific material-historical
setting-of-the-moment in which they are used; their meaning is
occasion-specific. Deixis names the phenomenon that such things happen in
language, and no one would be surprised by it or consider it at all unusual
were there not a bias in many philosophical views of meaning, including of
linguistic meaning, toward the notion that verbal signs have or ought to
have generic or occasion-independent reference and meaning, and especially
that the best use of language is the kind that mirrors objective reality
and so is true in God's eyes and independent of time, space, persons,
history, who says so, what language they're speaking, etc. Sometimes also
known as the context-independent view of linguistic meaning. Some sorts of
rather artificial academic discourses go to great lengths to seem universal
and speaker-independent, but of course this is impossible because of the
ubiquity of deixis and indexical meaning. Deixis is language's way of
connecting to the here and now, without which it might have some esthetic
appeal, but not much practical use ... and so would never have evolved in
the first place. If the role of language in activity is as "mediational
means", a key property of language that enables it to take this role is
deixis.
Deictics in English and related languages include: first and second person
pronouns ( I, you, us, ours); demonstrative pronouns, adjectives, etc.
(this, that); time-specifying tenses of verbs (e.g. past or future relative
to speaker's now); and words like "here" and "now", etc. Even many of the
common uses of the definite article "the" to specify referents in the
speech setting ("pass THE=that salt"). Other languages make much of other
deictic matters like near-to-the-speaker, far-from-the-addressee,
dead-relative-of-speaker, mother-in-law-of-addresee, etc. More arcane for
English speakers are notions like:
agent-different-from-the-one-so-far-referred-to-by-speaker-on-this-occasion,
which may show up as a special suffix on a verb giving the action
performed by such an agent.
Dialogue is inherently deictic; uses of language to get things done by
referring to the shared setting require deixis. Deixis, and more generally
indexicality, are simply fundamental to the relations of speech, speakers,
and on-going activity. They are also rather unpopular and marginalized in
theories of meaning that see context-independent universality and
objectivity as the glory of (mainly their own) language. But they ought to
be fundamental in a theory that seeks to understand how we use language as
a tool in material activity.
ME.
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JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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