18.

Deixis in the discourse

A deictic expression or deixis is a word or phrase (such as this, that, these, those,
now, then, here) that points to the time, place, or situation in which a speaker is
speaking. Deixis is expressed in English by way of personal pronouns, demonstratives,
adverbs, and tense.
For example, if you would ask a visiting exchange student, "Have you been in this
country long?" the words this country and you are the deictic expressions, as they refer
to the country where the conversation happens and the person being addressed in the
conversation, respectively.
We use deixis to point to things (it, this, these boxes) and people (him, them,
those), sometimes called personal deixis. Personal deixis refers to the way language
points to the participants in a conversation. It involves the use of words and expressions
that refer to the speaker (first person), the listener (second person), and others (third
person). Personal deixis is essential in communication as it helps to identify who is
speaking, who is being addressed, and who is being referred to.
Words and phrases used to point to a location (here, there, near that) are examples
of spatial deixis, and those used to point to a time (now, then, last week) are examples
of temporal deixis. All these deictic expressions have to be interpreted in terms of
which person, place or time the speaker has in mind. We make a broad distinction
between what is marked as close to the speaker (this, here, now) and what is distant
(that, there, then).
Some deictic examples include "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'.