Филология
4. Синтаксис, структура,
семантика, функция.
Liubov
M.Khacheresova
Pyatigorsk State Linguistic
University
Pyatigorsk, Russia.
DEICTIC TRIADE IN DISCOURSE
The term «deixis» has been in use since ancient time though its study
used to be limited by grammatical paradigm. The second part of the XX-th
century came to be the turn point of developing the deixis into the universal
category functioning on all the levels of the language
structure. Therefore there are various points of view on the status of deixis –
a lingual cultural category , or a universal
category , the definition of the deixis, a deictic paradigm, etc. (А.А. Уфимцева, И.А
Стернин, G.Lyons, Ю.Д.Апресян, R.Jackobson, E.Ерзинкян, Ch.Pierce, Т.И.Мисайлова [1] and others). The term comes from the Greek deiktikos which
is related to Greek dèiknymi (dyke-nimmy) meaning “explain”
or “prove”. In western linguistics the research has been focused on the temporal-spatial relationship,
while the personal deixis has been in
the periphery till the second part of the XX-th century which came to be the
turnpoint in the linguistic research
paradigm. Yu. D. Apresian (1995) underlines that previously language meaning
directly reflected facts of reality now it began to refer to the
facts of reality through the details of
the naïve worldview as it is verbalized in language. Here is the basis for
the study of universal and ethnic cultural features in the semantics of natural
languages.
We
would like to clarify the functions of the deictic units in the discourse,
wherein they refer to the subjects, objects, time and location in the outside
world, but inside of the discourse they perform a cohesive function and a
compressive function. The deictics make the discourse a true language
continuum. Though most scholars believe that deictics provide links between the
content of the message, the linguistic text itself, and the context in which
the message is generated. They introduce new participants, signal changes in
thematic structure, bracket topical units, and mark the relative status of
information. Deixis has some relevance to the analysis of conversation and
pragmatics [4:39–55]. It is often and best
described as “verbal pointing”, i.e.to say pointing by means of language
[2:127-136; 3:80-84]. The linguistic forms of this pointing are called deictic
expressions, deictic markers or deictic words; they are also sometimes called indexicals [6:32-45, 8:553–95].
1. Personal or
possessive pronouns (I/you/mine/yours), e.g: From 100.000.000 word usages in The British National Corpus
the deictics have the following frequency: ”I” frequency in the British
National Corpus is 868973 ; ”you” frequency in the is 667652; ”yours” frequency in the British National Corpus is
4094; ”mine” frequency in the British
National Corpus is 6127.
1.1. What I regret is that we didn't force the bank into this situation 15
months ago when we first approached it over the demerger.
1.2. How, you might
ask, does this theory of mine apply to the case in point?
1.3. After a moment or two he lifted his head and, his face impassive, said,
I must leave for my business appointment in ten minutes or so.
1.4. And my journey is no
business of yours.
2. Demonstrative pronouns (this/that).
”This” frequency in the British National Corpus is 457821;”that” frequency in
the British National Corpus is 1119443, e.g.:
2.1. Its estimates show that
interest rates may have to be raised to 12 per cent as a result of exchange
market pressure if Labour comes to power.
2.2. Nevertheless, this
threefold distinction highlights key assumptions underlying different
initiatives.
3.
(Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now), ”There” frequency in the
British National Corpus is 31939e. ”Here” frequency in the British National
Corpus is 67859.”Now” frequency in the British National Corpus is 139133, e.g.:
3.1. Between 1979
and 1982 there was a reduction in farm net profit of almost 44%.
3.2. Here there
is a straightforward legacy to the debtor of a sum of money and also of the
amount of his debt to the testator.
3.3. Leaving
aside the question of a total reform of the education system, it is estimated
that to provide all children with roughly the same standard of provision as
white children have now would entail at least doubling or trebling the
education budget.
4. Other
pro-forms (so/do). “So” frequency in the British National Corpus is
239233. “Do” frequency in the British National Corpus is 270537. E.g.:
4.1. The
government's aim is evidently to shift the taxation of motorists on to petrol;
this will link the tax more closely to vehicle use, and so provide a greater
incentive to economise on fuel.
4.2. They can't
wait until next year's race to see if they can do even better.
5.Personal or
possessive adjectives (my/your). “My” frequency in the British National
Corpus is 146645. “Your” frequency in the British National Corpus is 134346.
E.g.:
5.1. I can go
home now and again to stay with my sister, and Newbury Council have said that
when I come back into circulation they'd be willing to find me another place,
and hopefully I'll find a little job.
5.2. It may well
force you to go looking for more information about your potential audience.
6.Demonstrative
adjectives (this/that). “This (adj.)” frequency in the British National
Corpus is 457821. “That (adj.)” frequency in the British National Corpus is
1119443.
E.g.:
6.1. This adds up
to £109.70, some £54.90 above the applicable amount, and 70 per
cent of that is £38.43.
6.2. However,
Mrs. Buttigieg claimed that there had been no prior warnings to indicate that
changes would take place over the weekend.
7.Articles (the).
“The” frequency in the British National Corpus is 6055159.
E.g.:
7.1. Leaders of
the three, who will form Britain's biggest union, agreed on Unison as its title
after a competition among members produced a short list of five names
market-tested by the designers Wolf Olins.
In an
utterance the speaker makes, according to Bühler, a threefold reference:
1.The speaker posits him- or herself as a speaking
individual, designated by the personal pronoun “I”.
2. Speaker refers to a temporal dimension in the
utterance, such as by using verb tenses or employing words like “tomorrow” or
“last year”. All such temporal references are ultimately anchored in and
defined from the “now” of the utterance.
3.The speaker places the utterance in space with
deictic words like “this”, “there” or “left”. Again the reference point of
spatial deixis is the place of the utterance, the “here”. The linguistic act of
“pointing out” the speaker is so fundamental, argues E.Benveniste, that a
language which does not have the capacity to identify the person speaking
cannot be understood. E.Benveniste’s contention is that the speaker comes to
think of him or herself as a subject through the linguistic obligation to say
“I”. However, personal pronouns cannot achieve the task of installing
subjectivity on their own. Deictic words that establish the temporal and
spatial location of the speaking “I” are indispensable for the task of
installing subjectivity in a “here” and “now” [5:262]. Without constant
reference, either implicitly or explicitly, to the temporal and spatial
location of the “I” in speech, language would be just as unintelligible as it
would be without the personal pronoun. At least this is the assertion of the
German psychologist and linguist Karl Bühler [7]. In
Bühler’s terminology “origo” is this fixed point in space, time and individuality
that the utterance creates by establishing the identity of the speaker (“I”), a
position in space (“here”), and a moment in time (“now”).
The linguistic
devices which function in these dimensions encode information status by serving
one or more communicative functions, including the presentative, directive,
identifying, informing, acknowledging, and expressive functions.
Deixis refers to the world outside a text. Reference to the context
surrounding an utterance is often referred to as primary deixis, exophoric
deixis or simply deixis alone. Primary deixis is used to point to a situation
outside a text (situational deixis) or to the speaker's and hearer's (shared)
knowledge of the world (knowledge deixis).
References
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денотативного содержания в повествовательном и описательном художественных
текстах: автореф. дис. на соиск. учен. степ. к.филол.н.: спец. 10.02.01
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семантика “there”
/В.В.
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Pp. 32-45.
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