THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY

ENGLISH FACULTY

GROUP DISCUSSION

COURSE: PRAGMATICS

TOPIC: DEIXIS

LECTURER: Pham Thi Tuan

GROUP: Group 1
SUBJECT CODE: 231_ENTH2931_02

Hanoi, 2023
MEMBER PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

No Name Grade Responsibility Score

1 Nguyễn Thị Thuý An K57N4 Leader, Create Word, Fix 10

Word and PPT

2 Lê Thị Phương Anh K57N3 Create PPT 9

3 Nguyễn Hà Trang Anh K57N5 Presentation part I, II 8.5

4 Nguyễn Ngọc Trâm K57N1 Create word 9

Anh

5 Nguyễn Thị Vân Anh K57N3 Leading GAME 9

I. DEFINITION
Deixis is a technical term (from Greek) which means “pointing” via language.

Any linguistic form used to “point” is a deictic expression. Deictic expressions are also
called indexicals. They can be used to indicate people via person deixis (me, you), or
location via spatial deixis (here, there), or time via temporal deixis (now, then).

In deixis, the speaker constitutes the deictic center, and then there are ‘near speaker’ or
proximal terms (this, here, now) and ‘away from speaker’ or distal terms (that, there,
then).

Deictic center: the time of the utterance’s time; the place of the utterance’s place, the
person just giving the utterance.
- “Near speaker” —“away from speaker”
︱ ︱
Proximal Distal
︱ ︱
this, here, now that, there, then

There are three traditional types of deixis:

● Person deixis relates to the speaker, or the person spoken to: the 'who', clearly
operates on a basic three-part division, exemplified by the pronouns for first
person ‘I’, second person ‘ you ’, and third person ‘he, she, it, they’ ,
corresponding to three deictic categories of speaker, addressee and other(s).
● Temporal deixis relates to time: the 'when', Location from speaker’s perspective
does not always mean physical location. Sometimes it refers to mental location.
This is called deictic projection. Deictic projection = speakers being able to project
themselves into other locations, time or shift person reference. In some contexts,
spatial deixis is used metaphorically rather than physically, i.e. the speaker is not
speaking as the deictic centre.
● Spatial deixis relates to place: the 'where'. In English, the choice of verb tense is a
basic type of temporal deixis. The present tense is the proximal form and the past
tense is the distal form. - Something that is treated as extremely unlikely or
impossible from the speaker’s current situation is also marked via the distal (past
tense) form. - So the distal form is used to communicate not only distance from
current time, but also distance from current reality or facts.

Deixis usually requires a speaker and a hearer sharing the same context and it is an
application of a general pragmatic principle which says that the more two speakers have
in common, the less language they will need to identify familiar things.

Indeed, deictic expressions have their most basic uses in face to face spoken interaction
where utterances are easily understood by the people present.

II. Example
- "I wish you'd been here yesterday."
In this sentence, the words 'I,' 'you', 'here', and 'yesterday' all function as deixis
They reference a speaker and an addressee, a location and a time. As we are outside of
the context, we cannot know who 'I' is, where 'here' is, nor can we be entirely sure when
'yesterday' was; this information is known to the speaker instead and is therefore termed
'deictic'.

- "Last week I flew over there for a quick visit."

In this sentence, 'last week', 'I' and 'there' are the deixis - referencing time, speaker
and place.
We do not have enough context to completely understand the whole sentence, whereas
the speaker and the addressee do; they don't need to repeat or state the precise context.
Instead, they use words and phrases that refer to people, time and place and these
function deictically.

III. Exercise
1. "I will meet you there tomorrow."
- Spatial deixis: "there"
- Temporal deixis: "tomorrow"
- Person deixis: "I," "you"

2. "Please give this book to her."

- Spatial deixis: None
- Temporal deixis: None
- Person deixis: "her"

3. "Put my phone on the table."

- Spatial deixis: None
- Temporal deixis: None
- Person deixis: "my"

4. "He came here yesterday."

- Spatial deixis: "here"
- Temporal deixis: "yesterday"
- Person deixis: "He"

5. "We reached an agreement on this last week."

- Spatial deixis: “This”
- Temporal deixis: "last week"
- Person deixis: "We”

6. "She lives in that house across the street."

- Spatial deixis: "that”
- Temporal deixis: None
- Person deixis: "she"

7. "We should finish this project by next week."

- Spatial deixis: None
- Temporal deixis: "next week"
- Person deixis: "we"
8. "Please pass me that pen on the table."
- Spatial deixis: "that”
- Temporal deixis: None
- Person deixis: "me"

9. "He is going to the store later today."

- Spatial deixis: None
- Temporal deixis: "today"
- Person deixis: "he"

10. "Can you give me your phone number?"

- Spatial deixis: None
- Temporal deixis: None
- Person deixis: "you," "me," "your"