Indexicality

JESSICA M. F. HUGHES and KAREN TRACY

University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Indexicality is the function by which linguistic and nonlinguistic signs point to aspects
of context. It is an umbrella term that encompasses all of the ways communicative acts
are situated in relation to spatiotemporal, historical, discursive, social, interactional, and
other contexts. Indexicality is also an important component of the meaning of signs
in use. Spoken, written, and visual discourse indexes time and place, situation frames,
interactional norms, roles, and other contextual parameters. his pointing to aspects
of context creates indexical meaning, that is, context-dependent meaning that goes
beyond the “timeless” (Grice, 1967/1991) denotative or referential meaning encoded
in words, gestures, or other signs.
Indexicality is the concept that undergirds the pragmatic assumption that in order
to understand the meaning of any communicative act, one must understand how it
functions in context. Meanings change as contexts change. For example, the utterance
“his is my dog, Buddy” can mean a variety of things. he dog in question may be a live
dog, a picture of a dog, or even a person whose friend marks their close relationship by
using a colloquial term found in some contemporary hip-hop registers. Whoever “my
dog” is, they may be named Buddy, or “Buddy” may refer to the person being addressed.
What meaning the utterance has depends on when, where, how, why, and by whom it is
used. It also depends on how the utterance is interpreted. Indexicality accounts for the
ways in which interactants draw in aspects of context to create and interpret particular
meanings for signs in use.

Indexicality theory

heoretical approaches in semiotics, linguistics, and philosophy ofer useful perspec-

tives on interactional and cognitive mechanisms of indexicality. Many of these more
technical approaches start from Charles Sanders Peirce’s (1897/1998) triadic notion of
signs, which is a foundational framework for understanding indexicality as a process
of meaning-making. In Peirce’s theory, indexicality is a property of one of three types
of signs. Icons, the irst class of signs, are characterized by similarity or likeness to the
objects they reference such as photographs, drawings, and imitating gestures. Symbols
are another type of sign; symbols connect to the objects they signify through codes
and conventions, as is seen in diferent languages having not-at-all similar words for
the same referent (e.g., “cat” in English, “billi” in Hindi, “kissa” in Finnish). Indexes
are a kind of sign deined by a relationship between a sign and the referent that is

he International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, First Edition.

Karen Tracy (General Editor), Cornelia Ilie and Todd Sandel (Associate Editors).
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118611463/wbielsi078
2 IN D E X I C A L I T Y

established through experience. Indexical signs are clues, traces, and symptoms of ref-
erential objects. he classic example of this is smoke as an index of ire, but indexes need
not be causal. Seeing a woman holding a baby and taking this as a probable indication
that she is the baby’s mother is an example of indexicality that highlights how associa-
tional relationships between signs and referents can also be indexical. Peirce points out
that anything that calls attention, for example, a rap at the door, a bolt of lightning, is an
indication of something, whether we know what that something is or not. Indexicality
is also central to reasoning in Peirce’s architectonic system. he impressions and mental
objects that signs evoke in the minds of interpreters are themselves indexes, cognitive
symptoms of signs in use.
Indexicality is also a central concept in pragmatics, the branch of linguistics that
investigates the meaning of utterances in context. Pragmatic approaches to indexical-
ity investigate the ways in which semantic meanings of syntactic types intersect with
indexical meanings of tokens in use to produce linguistic meanings in interaction. his
complex interaction between meaning and context is also addressed in sociolinguis-
tic and linguistic anthropological approaches that investigate the mutually constitutive
relationship between language in use and the social settings in which it occurs (see
Duranti & Goodwin, 1992). Indexicality is also taken up in philosophical approaches
to the nature of meaning and the philosophy of mind (Dokic, 2012). While some of
these technical approaches to indexicality have gained more traction in communica-
tion studies than others, all of these diferent traditions are useful in illuminating the
complexity of the concept at hand.

Deixis

A key contribution of these theoretical approaches has been the study of deixis, that
is, linguistic aspects of indexicality like the terms “this” and “my” in the irst example
above. Deixis is the feature of discourse most closely associated with indexicality, so
much so that “deixis” and “indexicality” are sometimes used interchangeably. We follow
others in deining deixis as a particular type of indexicality in which linguistic pointers
help frame (spoken and written) utterances from particular perspectives. Deictics are
pronouns (e.g., I, you), demonstratives (e.g., this, that), spatial and temporal adverbs
(e.g., here, now), and tense markers (e.g., going, went) that point to speciic aspects of
context from a speciic point of view. Because perspectives shit depending on which
participant’s point of view one takes, deictics are also called shiters. When speakers
change, move through space, channel others’ voices by using reported speech, or change
topics, footing, or roles in interaction, deictic forms and the objects they reference
shit. For example, multiple deictic frames of reference may come into play in a single
utterance such as “I was on my way out this door when he called and told me to come
back right away.” Here, “I” introduces a moving framework in a prior time (“I was on my
way out this door”) but this framework shits with the introduction of indirect reported
speech in which “he” deines a diferent spatial perspective to which “I” is expected to
“come back.” Like the gestures that oten accompany them (e.g., the speaker’s embodied
 IN D E X I C A L I T Y 3

indication of “this door”) deictics direct attention to particular points in time, place, and
other layers of context.
he meaning of deictic terms is tied so closely to context that they are “semantically
insuicient” (Levinson, 2004, p. 103), that is, they can’t reference speciic objects out
of context. he example above is only fully understandable if we know who’s speaking,
when, where, and to which door they’re referring. Deictics thus map contexts from a
particular point of reference called the origo, the deictic center from which an utterance
is framed. Oten but not always deined around the speaker (in the last example, ori-
gos are situated around both “I” and “he”), the origo is a spatiotemporal and cognitive
center around which referential objects (e.g., material objects, people, places, times, or
practices) are organized. When deictics point to aspects of context they position these
objects in relation to the origo along spatial, temporal, social, and ideological axes. Said
another way, the origo helps to deine the background against which referential objects
are foregrounded.
Diferent kinds of deixis are classiied in terms of the objects they reference. Person
deixis indexes speakers, addressees, and others, positioning social actors in a number of
participant roles in interaction. Such person-referencing moves well beyond the classic
categories of speaker and hearer. Take, for instance, the following line from the movie
he Matrix (1999), in which Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, tells Neo, played by
Keanu Reeves, “As you can see, we’ve had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Ander-
son.” Here, “you” positions Neo as addressee, but this deictic could also be interpreted
as referring to movie-viewers (or in this particular instance, encyclopedia-readers),
the observers and overhearers of this interactional exchange. Further, “we” indexes the
agents of the Matrix, of which Agent Smith is one, but this pronoun might also index the
sentient robots that control the Matrix, since all agents are simply programs in its simu-
lated reality. his person deixis is further complicated by social deixis in the utterance.
Social deixis is a form of indexicality that points to social relationships and participants’
status vis à vis one another through the use of (in)formal pronouns, titles, and forms of
address. By calling Neo “Mr. Anderson,” Agent Smith indexes their formal relationship
along with his alignment with the world of the Matrix where Neo goes by the nonhacker
moniker homas Anderson. In the Spanish language version of the ilm, Smith’s use of
Usted rather than tú in this scene is another example of social deixis that reinforces the
formal relationship between Neo and himself. Time deixis is evident in the utterance
as well. Both tense markers (“have had”) and the prepositional phrase “for some time
now” index particular temporal spans, thereby situating the utterance in a particular
moment in time. Interestingly, in this example the duration of time during which Neo
has been observed and the present in which the interlocutors are speaking are both
spans in an imagined time on imagined simulated and nonsimulated worlds.
Other types of deixis position actors and other objects in similar ways. Spatial
deixis indexes places in relation to the origo, positioning objects and interlocutors
in proximity to here or there, as in the phrase “on my way out this door.” Discourse
deixis refers to previous or upcoming segments of discourse in a stretch of text or talk.
Sign posts in academic literature are good examples of this kind of metadiscursive
indexicality, as in references to “this example.”
4 IN D E X I C A L I T Y

Indexicality in communication studies

Indexicality is a central concern in communication scholarship that investigates the

ways in which aspects of identity are indexed by communicative styles. In particular,
scholarship on registers and linguistic variation (e.g., Blommaert, 2007) examine the
ways in which stylistic variables index membership categories, thereby activating
inferences that position speakers in relation to particular personas and places. Other
studies focus on how features of style, speech acts, and stances index gender (e.g.,
Ochs, 1992). Both of these areas of study examine indirect indexicality, that is, the ways
in which features of discourse point to social meanings that come to be associated with
social groups.
Indexicality itself is indirectly addressed in communication studies that examine
other concepts. Many authors focus on contextual parameters in interaction—for
example, stance indicators or language or interpersonal ideologies—without explicitly
referring to indexicality. Erving Gofman’s work on footing and frame analysis can be
characterized as key contributions to a communicative understanding of the concept,
although his investigations of participation frameworks only briely address deictics
and do not explicitly mention indexicality. Similarly, while it is not explained in terms
of indexicality, Dell Hymes’s (1972) SPEAKING mnemonic is a useful heuristic for
mapping contextual parameters and relating indexical features of text and talk to
broader systems of cultural meaning.
Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1979/1986) perspective on the dialogic nature of utterances ofers
another useful perspective on the relationship between language in use and the con-
texts in which it occurs. According to Bakhtin, all texts and talk are in dialogue with
preceding (spoken and written) utterances that they presuppose, respond to, and enter
into relationships with. Any instance of discourse is thus temporally, socially, and inter-
discursively situated, indexing prior utterances while laying a foundation for future text
and talk. Genre serves a primary indexical function in this dialogic view. Speakers shape
the content, style, and structure of utterances in order to achieve particular goals while
anticipating others’ presupposed values, knowledge, beliefs, and potential responses.
Generic features thus index norms, prior discourse, and addressees, whether imme-
diately present, temporally or spatially distant, real or imagined. Bakhtin’s notion of
heteroglossia can also be understood as a kind of indexicality. Language users employ
discursive features that they orient to as neutral (belonging to no one), belonging to
others, or belonging to themselves. hese multiple voices evident in discourse index
participant roles and social relationships.
Scholarship drawing on John J. Gumperz’s (1992) notion of contextualization cues
is a key area of study in communication that highlights the mutually constitutive
relationship between discourse and context within interactions themselves. Contextu-
alization cues are the linguistic and nonlinguistic pointers that speakers and addressees
use to make inferences about “what’s going on” in any given interaction. Prosody, into-
nation, tempo, and the use of diferent codes and lexical forms are all cues that signal
turns in interaction, highlight some points over others, introduce new information and
signal whether something is already known, and set up future utterances by structuring
interactional sequences. For exchanges to run smoothly, interlocutors must interpret
 IN D E X I C A L I T Y 5

cues by inferring speakers’ intentions and anticipating implicit expectations. In this

way, contextualization cues index levels of context that speakers see as appropriate to
a given situation, but they also work to create the immediate interactional context by
setting up future turns and creating coherence in interaction.

Complexities in context

Indexicality is not only a process of signiication, it is a social process that works to posi-
tion actors within interactional and ideological frameworks in which some enjoy more
access to resources than others. Interpreting indexical meanings depends on tacit, cul-
tural knowledge about what’s appropriate and efective in any given situation that not all
interlocutors may share. Similarly, not all actors have equal access to all communicative
competencies, registers, and styles, and so they may be limited in their ability to index
privileged identities.
Indexicality is also fundamentally ambiguous and open to reinterpretation. Contex-
tualization is a process that is cued by signs in use, but it is also a creative, cognitive pro-
cess that speakers do not have complete control over. How addressees and other listeners
interpret indexical meanings is not based solely on what communicators intend to con-
vey. In interpreting indexicality, one might frame an utterance against any number of
layers of context from a potentially ininite array. To interpret he Matrix example, for
instance, one might take into account microcontextual parameters, like Agent Smith’s
stance or prior or following utterances in his conversation with Neo. One could also
see this line of talk as a piece of action in a chain of practices in the context of the
movie world, as a component of a movie belonging to a particular genre of movies,
or as a line of social commentary that points to real-world surveillance. Taking any of
these diferent contexts into account complicates the utterance’s meaning as diferent
interpretations come into contact, mix, supplant, amplify, and challenge one another.
Indexicality thus situates signs in use within a shiting constellation of contextual frame-
works, a complex and dynamic indexical order in which diferent contextual parameters
are mapped onto one another and actors, places, practices, and moments in time are
imbued with meaning.

SEE ALSO: Context; Footing; Frame(Ing); Gender in Interaction; Gesture; Heteroglos-

sia; Interdiscursivity; Membership Categorization Analysis; Pronoun Functions;
Stance-Taking

References

Bakhtin, M. M. (1979/1986). Speech genres and other late essays (V. W. McGee, Trans.). Austin,
TX: University of Texas Press.
Blommaert, J. (2007). Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis: Orders of indexicality and poly-
centricity. Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 2(2), 115–130. doi: 10.2167/md089.0
6 IN D E X I C A L I T Y

Dokic, J. (2012). Indexicality. In A. Newen & R. van Riel (Eds.), Identity, language, & mind: An
introduction to the philosophy of John Perry (pp. 13–31). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Duranti, A., & Goodwin, C. (Eds.). (1992). Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phe-
nomenon. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Grice, H. P. (1967/1991). Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gumperz, J. J. (1992). Contextualization and understanding. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.),
Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 229–252). New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press.
Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. B. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.), Sociolin-
guistics: Selected readings (pp. 269–293). New York, NY: Penguin Books Limited.
Levinson, S. C. (2004). Deixis. In L. R. Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), he handbook of pragmatics (pp.
97–121). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Ochs, E. (1992). Indexing gender. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context: Lan-
guage as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 335–358). New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1897/1998). he essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings. Vol. 2 (1893–1913).
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Further reading

Hanks, W. F. (2005). Explorations in the deictic ield. Current Anthropology, 46(2), 191–220. doi:
10.1086/427120
Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and
Communication, 23, 193–229. doi: 10.1016/S0271-5309(03)00013-2

Jessica M. F. Hughes is a graduate candidate in the Department of Communication

at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA. Her research interests include discourse
analysis and disability studies.

Karen Tracy is professor and chair of the department of communication at the Uni-
versity of Colorado, Boulder, USA. She is a fellow in the International Communication
Association and a distinguished scholar in the National Communication Association.
Tracy is a discourse analyst who studies and teaches about institutional talk, particularly
in justice, academic, and governance sites; recent book publications include Challenges
of Ordinary Democracy: A Case Study of Deliberation and Dissent (2012) and Everyday
Talk: Building and Relecting Identities (2013; with Jessica Robles). She is editor-in-chief
of he International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, a former editor
of Research on Language and Social Interaction, and former chair of ICA’s and NCA’s
Language and Social Interaction Divisions.