An Analysis of Deixis Used in Conversation

Annas Khairul Rozikin

English Education Study Program, University of Bengkulu

Abstract

This research aims to identify kinds of deixis and to find out the meaning of deixis in
the conversation. The source of the data is the recorded conversation of four people. The
method of this research is descriptive qualitative method. The data of this research have been
collected from the utterances from the participant. There were three techniques have been
used to collect the data; recording the conversation, transcribing the conversation, and give
the transcript the transcription symbols of CA. Furthermore, the data have been analyzed by
using reading, identification, classification and analyzing theory proposed by Yule (1996).
The result of this study can be concluded that kinds of deixis in the conversation have been
found in some utterance. In this case, there are utterances that include kinds of deixis itself
(temporal, persona and spatial deixis).

Key Words: Conversation, Communication, Deixis

Introduction

Human necessarily lives in society to communicate one to another. Communication

represents the vital and elementary social process in human life. According to Yoder in
Moekijat (1993:1), “communication is the interchange of information, ideas, attitudes,
thought and opinions”. Most of the people in Indonesia use language to communication.
Process it refers to communication while do interaction with human being. A language is
used to communicate among people, and it represents the personality and behavior of people
itself.

Communication will be realized if the target of language used is appropriate with the
situation or condition of the speaker and the discourse that is done. This situation is related to
determine factor in speech act such listener, goal, and utterance, problem of utterance and
situation. Those factors are mostly discussed in pragmatic. Pragmatic is study about meaning
that uttered by the speaker and interpreted by the listener. It is covered leech (in Mujiono,
2009:8) that pragmatic is study about meaning and has connection with utterance. It means
that this study concerns with how the listener concludes or interprets what the meaning of
utterance that uttered by the speaker is.

Hansen and Visconti stated pragmatic concerned with the redefinitions of the
respective roles of speaker/writers and address/readers in the process of innovation (Hansen
and Visconti 2009:5). Moreover, when the speaker says something, It is important to the
listener respect to make redefinition what the speakers meant by the utterance. Because there
is some interpretation by the listeners or readers, it needs to be aware what the speaker means
exactly.

Literature Review

Deixis

According to Yule (1996:9), deictic means pointing via language. When someone
notice a strange object and he said “what is that?”, we can say that he is using deictic
expression “that” to indicate something in immediate context. Deixis is clearly a form of
referring that is tied to the speaker’s context.

Moreover, with the most basic distinction between deictic expressions being
‘near’ speaker versus ‘away from’ speaker, Yule (1996) also states that there are three types
of deixis, which are person deixis, spatial deixis, and temporal deixis. Those three types of
deixis will be explained more below.

1. Person Deixis
Person deixis clearly operates on a basic three-part division, exemplified by
the pronouns for first person (‘I’), second person (‘you’), and third person (‘he’,
‘she’ or ‘it’). In many languages these deictic categories of speaker, addressee,
and other(s) area elaborated with markers of relative social status.
2. Spatial Deixis
Spatial deixis signifies where the relative location of people and things is
being indicated. Contemporary English makes use of only two adverbs ‘here’ and
‘there’, for the basic distinction. Some verbs indicated a movement also can be
identified as a spatial deixis, such as come and go, for example when they are
used to mark movement toward the speaker (Come to my house next time!) or
away from the speaker (Go to my house!).
3. Temporal Deixis
This kind of deixis indicates the time conciding with the speaker’s utterance
and the time of the speaker’s voice being heard (the hearer’s ‘now’). In contrast to
‘now’, the distal expression ‘then’ applies to both past and future time relative to
the speaker’s present time. The expressions commonly used are now, today,
tonight, etc. (proximal form) and then, yesterday, last week, etc. (distal
expression). Beside the temporal deictic expressions, people also tend to use non-
temporal deictic expressions such as calendar time (dates and clock time).

Methodology

The data were collected from a voice record of a conversation, some step were done
in collecting the data. First the researcher listens to the record and then transcribes it into a
script, after that the researcher gives the transcript symbols and the last, the researcher mark
the sentence that contains deixis in the conversation.

In this research the researcher applied descriptive qualitative method. According to

Heigham and Crocker (2009:5) qualitative research entails collecting primarily contextual
data and examining it using interpretative analysis. It means that, this method gives clear
description about the problem that is being researched.

Findings

In this research, the collected data from the conversation classified according to the
category of deixis word, and then the researcher analyzed the utterances on the data which
contain the three types of deixis. Furthermore, the research analysis presented as descriptive
explanation according to Yule’s theory as follows:

Personal Deixis

First Person Deixis

Datum 1

Bayu : Yang ambo ngecringe nian

(mine is so cringe)

This utterance refers to the speaker’s ridiculous experience when he expressed his feeling to a
girl in Senior High School, he felt that his experience is something that he should not done.

Datum 2

Jani : Yang nyanyi ambo↑ kcek

(I’m who sing, say)

In here the speaker act as bayu when the girl gives statement about bayu’s song, so the
speaker don’t care about the girl’s statement.

Second Person Deixis

Datum 3

Aprian : Dak tu kau be yang nyanyi↑

(you sing it then)

From this utterance, the speaker also act like he was the one that told by bayu’s friend about
the unappropriated song bayu sang when bayu expressed his feelings to a girl, he said that
because he won’t accept the girl’s statement and she should sing it by herself.

Datum 4

Annas : (heh)anjay(1.2) kau cak mno kau?

(damn, what about you?)

The speaker asks to the addressee which is Jani, what about his ridiculous experience when
he was in love with someone. In this act ‘kau’ contain of second singular deixis and referred
of subject of this utterance.

Third Person Deixis

Datum 5

Aprian : Yang ambo heran tu nyo nanyo pulo↑ lah tau ujan tu kan dere kan↓ basah dak,
id(h)ak bas(h)ah

(To my surprise, she still asked even though she already knowing the rain was
heavy, not wet? not wet

In this utterance, the speaker refers to the girl in his past, when he takes the girl to her house
in the heavy rainy days, but the girl still ask if the speaker is wet or not, surely this makes the
speaker kind of upset as he already wet all over his body

Spatial Deixis

Datum 6

Bayu : Rumah ambo kek mete ambo tu, iko rumah ambo siko rumah nyo, maksudnyo
lewat rumah ambo tu, jadi ngantar nyo tu dulu↓, balik lagi kerumah ambo

(My house, my girlfriend house is, here is my house, there is her house, I mean I
pass my house, so take her first, and then back to my house again)

In this context, the speaker takes his girlfriend to her house even though the speaker already
pass, the word “here” indexes the speaker house location, and the word “there” indexes the
speaker’s girlfriend’s house location.

Temporal Deixis

Datum 7

Bayu : Dah itu pas lah putus, alangke goblok ambo dulu ya Allah↑, cringe nian
ngingatnyo

(After that when we broke up, oh my God how stupid I was before, it was so cringe
as I remembered)

In this utterance, the word “before” refers when the speaker in the past time when he broke
up with his girlfriend, that time he wasn’t felt that he was stupid, but now he thinks that he
was so stupid before.

Datum 8

Jani : Tunggu ambo setahun lagi

 (wait for me another year)

This utterance is a pretended comment, the speakers act as the girl that respond to someone
who expressing his feeling to her, as the girl sometimes ask the boy to wait for her after her
expressing his felling, and she want him to wait for a year.

Datum 9

Bayu : Tadi ketemu pak alam ambo, ambo kan kek ejon pertamo sore tadi pai ngantar nyo.
Kecek ejon tu “ weh pak alam” woi iyo pak alam, kuek nian ambo ngecek pak alam.
Nyo nengok nyo noleh.

(Earlier, I met Pak Alamsyah, I went with Ejon this afternoon to deliver him. Said
Ejon "weh sir alam" “woi iyo pak alam”, I say “pak alam” too loud. he looked, he
turned)

Datum 10

Jani : Bukan, bukan alam apo (heh) bang mintak file course design abang. Padahal
kemarin tu pernah ado yang mintak kato ku Ipik.

(no, not sir alam, bro can I ask your course design’s file. even though yesterday
someone had asked for it I said Ipik)

In this utterance, the speaker said that someone who had asked for course design’s file, but
the word “yesterday” doesn’t refers to a day before, it refers to days before, but the speaker
can not specify the exact time when the event happened.

Conclusion

In the recorded conversation contain of deixis in some utterances. Therefore,

researchers assume that every language has deictic words which points to person, place, and
time. However, it is relation of deixis reference in a language point to the speaker and the
addressed.

Three types of deixis are happened in the conversation. Furthermore, mostly occurred
deixis in this conversation is personal deixis. It means that the communications have the
speaker to make interactions with each other. As the dominant deixis, kind of personal deixis
that appear most is the first person deixis. It also the researcher found that temporal, persona
and spatial deixis have different functions in each of their participant. This function can help
us as a reader to seen participant role on this utterance.
References

Griffths, P. (2006). An Introduction to English Semantic and Pragmatics. Palmer, F.R. 1981.

Purwo, Bambang Kaswanti. 1984. Deiksis dalam bahasa Indonesia. Jakarta: Department
Pendidikan Dan Kebudayaan.

Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. New York: Oxford University Press.