The Standard Linguistic Framework of Grammar and Lexis: the Social Aspects of Language Use - Essay Example

 Introduction Within the field of pragmatics, which looks at how language functions in daily spoken usage and in all kinds of written or otherwise recorded text, the concept of “deixis” is used to explain some of the complexities which arise in the process of linking the language used with the real world in which that usage takes place. This paper defines key terms related to deixis and then compares it with the broader linguistic terminology of “reference.” After this there is a detailed discussion of the “deictic centre”, showing with examples what this is and the role it plays in creating a particular point of view in spoken and written texts. This is followed by more examples, showing how the deictic centre can undergo a subtle kind of shift, and what effects this can have on the addressee, or reader. Finally the conclusion explains why deixis is so important, and what the implications are of its potential for subtle manipulation in a variety of different human contexts. Definition of key terms A language has various means of making it clear, or at times making it deliberately ambiguous, which parts of an utterance or written sentence refer to exactly which animate or inanimate objects in the world and this broad category is called reference. Linguists have studied the ways that proper names are used to refer to individual people or specific places such as cities or rivers, for example, and personal pronouns such as “he,” relative pronouns such as “who” refer back to earlier names. Cohesion in a spoken conversation or in a narrative text is achieved by making sure that these references link back and forwards in a consistent way, so that the listener or reader understands at any one point who or what is being mentioned (Halliday and Hasan, 1976). Without such an efficient system, human language would be hopelessly vague, and people would have great difficulty in communicating complex ideas. Body language such as eye contact and gesture can help to make references clear in a face-to-face situation. Indeed young children learn basic referencing rules through looking, pointing, listening and repeating in a face-to-face context and they find it hard to think or talk about things which are not in the immediate field of vision. This kind extra assistance is not available in a written text, however, and it helps little in discussing abstract concepts, or talking about the past or the future. The rules of syntax are very helpful in explaining the mechanisms which are available for creating such a consistent referencing system. Some languages, such as French for example, have both masculine and feminine third person plural pronouns ils and elles while others, such as English, only have a generic third person plural they which does not identify the gender of the individuals referred to. This variation shows that each language makes its own categories and constructs its own referential system from them. This means that each linguistic community has, a slightly different way of conceptualising the relationships that can exist between animate and inanimate objects in the world. The rules of syntax only take us so far, however, in understanding the connections between items referred to in any utterance or text. One of the key insights of the field of pragmatics has been that the context in which any statement is made will have a very great impact on what it means. In other words, some words used to refer to things and people in the world are open to multiple interpretations, and it is only when the surrounding context is understood, that the statement makes sense. The term “deixis” is derived from the Greek verb meaning “to show” or “to point out” (Yule, 1996, p. 9) and its use in linguistics helps to clarify those references which might remain ambiguous without an understanding of the context of a statement. The term is used to denote a whole system made up of a number of elements working together. It can be defined as “those ‘orientational’ features of language which function to locate utterances in relation to speakers’ viewpoints” (Simpson, 1993, p. 13). A much simpler definition of deixis is suggested by Yule (1996, p. 9), namely “a form of referring that is tied to the speaker’s context.” The most obvious example of deixis is in action is perhaps the use of demonstratives such as this and that which define what is close and what is distant from the speaker. This helps to orient the speaker in the world, so that the listener or reader can work out that person’s perspective, which may of course be very different from that of the listener or reader. There are many more subtle examples of deixis which people tend to take for granted, because they are not clearly articulated in the syntax of the language. The pronoun you, for example, can be used to refer to a singular or plural addressee, or even to a vague collection of people in general, as in the phrase you have to know about pragmatics before you can explain the meaning of deixis. Some languages encode variations in number, or even in politeness, as for example in the German Du and Sie forms, while others do not. These distinctions reflect the social reality of German society which places a considerable value on hierarchy and makes a clear distinction between intimate family and friends on the one hand, and formal acquaintances on the other. This presents obvious problems for translators, who have to find ways of conveying these dimensions of meaning in Modern English, which no longer makes these distinctions syntactically through pronoun use, and reflects a more relaxed attitude towards relationships in society at large. The only way that a listener or reader can work out whether a singular, plural, polite, specific or general meaning of the word you is appropriate or not in modern English is to know more about the context in which the word is used. An early explanation of this problem was given by Grice (1957, p. 381) who makes a distinction between “statements about the standard meaning, or the meaning in general of a ‘sign’” and “statements about what a particular speaker or writer means by a sign on a particular occasion (which may well diverge from the standard meaning of the sign).” Later, the discipline of pragmatics evolved to theorise exactly these slippery areas of meaning which are context-dependent. This relatively new field of pragmatics acknowledges that a great deal of human communication is implied, rather than stated outright, and that it is difficult to pin down unstated meanings, but nevertheless it aims to do just that in a consistent way. It is necessary to include the contribution that both sides of the communication process makes, since the language used to make references to things in the world is not absolute, nor constant, and there is no one-to-one correspondence between a word, and a person or an object. Reference can be made to an unpleasant neighbour using her name Mrs Johnson, or a generic noun phrase my neighbour, or a description that busybody next door, or any number of creative appellations ranging from ironic complicity with the listener our friendly neighbourhood spy to outright hostility that awful woman. Each of these different epithets contains a number of connotations that reveal how close the speaker is to the neighbour, the emotional tone of her relationship with the neighbour, and the amount of knowledge that the listener has about the past history between the speaker and her neighbour. The listener has to infer these implied meanings from the choice of words used to refer to the neighbour. A more precise definition of the system of deixis is given by Grundy (2008, p. 26) who refers to “deictics” as “a limited set of indeterminate lexical items (such as you) whose references are determined in the context of face-to-face interaction and which act as a shorthand for a potentially infinite number of referents.” According to Grundy there are three fundamental criteria that together make up any context, namely person, place and time (Grundy, 2008, p. 26). Person deixis has been discussed above in relation to different ways of using the pronoun you or of referring to the unpleasant neighbour. Place deixis most commonly is seen in the use of demonstratives such as this, that, those and various adverbs and verbs which indicate location or movement towards a location. A key feature of place deixis is that it depends on the location of the speaker and of the listener, so that for example the statement I am coming home and I am going home refers to exactly the same physical movement of person A to place B, but the variation in the verb indicates whether the person wants the listener to interpret this movement as being towards the destination, or away from the starting point. All kinds of inferences can be made out of the choice of one or other verb. If the statement is uttered as part of a stream of consciousness novel, as the character in question sits on a train, for example, the reader might imply a more positive attitude towards the destination in the phrase I am coming home. If the utterance is overheard by a person sitting in an actual train, as the speaker talks into a mobile phone, then listener might infer that the person is talking to a parent or other member of her family. The same utterance carries these different meanings depending on the context of both speaker and listener. An old person listening to a son or daughter say on the telephone I am coming home might interpret this as a piece of good news, because it brings his or her child closer and this closeness is much desired, or indeed it may cause the parent to worry, because it may indicate that there is something amiss in the younger person’s life at the current location. In this latter case, the speaker has no option but to use coming rather than going because the location of the addressee dictates that the former verb must be used. Time deixis operates in a similar way, with the perspective of the speaker determining, for example, exactly which date in the calendar, or day in the week the phrase I will see him tomorrow actually refers to. Temporal point of view can be defined as “any kind of manipulation of time sequence in narrative, explaining how certain events might be relayed as remote or distant, others as immediate or imminent” (Simpson, 2004, p. 79). The subtlety of all of these distinctions can cause problems for learners of English because other languages may not share all of the same rules and conventions in indicating person, place or time deixis. Deixis and reference compared From the definitions and examples outlined above it is clear that deixis is a part of the larger phenomenon of reference in human language. Reference is the whole system that ties objects together in various kinds of overt or assumed connection, while deixis specifies some even more subtle distinctions within that wider frame of reference. In particular, deixis is concerned with the way that the utterance or text links up with the real world, and the particular slant or perspective that is given during that linking process. Context dictates the meaning of deictic utterances, and crucially, both the utterer and the addressee are important in the encoding and decoding of the subtle deictic meanings that are contained in context-specific utterances. The deictic centre and how it creates a particular point of view An important feature of deixis is the establishing of a “deictic centre” which is usually “the speaker’s location at the time of utterance” (Grundy, 2008, p. 33). The speaker can, however, indicate a location at some distance from themselves in time or space by giving deictic clues. There are many situations in which it is absolutely vital that the deictic centre should be clear, as for example when a surgeon instructs a colleague to make an incision on the right side. Right and left in this situation are conventionally interpreted as being on the right or left from the point of view of the patient because doctors can stand in front of, behind, or at either side of a patient, and consequently their personal view of what is right and left can change. All hospital procedures are based on this fundamental rule that the patient’s perspective dictates right and left on the body and this has obvious advantages for the safety and success of all concerned. In daily speech, however, the deictic centre is not always so crystal clear. One typical example of a piece of text where the deictic centre is rather ambiguous, would be a note pinned to a shopkeeper’s door saying Back in five minutes. It is not absolutely clear whether the note is intended from the point of the writer, in which case he will logically return in less than five minutes, since he is nowhere to be seen, or from the point of view of the reader, in which case he will logically return exactly five minutes from the moment that the notice is read. In it seems that the usual intention of such a note is to blur the deictic centre and give a deliberately vague indication that the shopkeeper will not be long, and this intended to encourage the customer should hang around until he returns. The time involved is short, and exactness is not necessary. It is a general principle that deictic clues need to be less precise when utterer and addressee share a great deal of knowledge about the context. It is clear, then, that there is a fundamental distinction within deixis between terms indicating nearness to the speaker, often called “proximal” such as this, here and now and terms which indicate distance away from the speaker, often called “distal” such as that, there and then (Yule, 1996, p. 9). Deictic expressions are often so small that they are easily overlooked, and they have a very wide range of possible uses, making them carriers of much more than is actually said (Yule, 1996, p. 16). Speakers and writers who want to create a particular emphasis, and particularly those who want to change the perspective of the listener or reader, can create and manipulate the deictic centre in order to bring the thinking of the listener into line with the desired point of view. This persuasive potential of deixis is explored in the next section. Examples of deictic shift and the manipulation of point of view Grice begins to explore this problem without making direct use of the terminology of deixis by considering the difficulties which arise when a person makes an utterance which is open to various interpretations by other people. He concludes that “an utterer is held to convey what is normally conveyed (or normally intended to be conveyed) and we require a good reason for accepting that a particular use diverges from the general usage” (Grice, 1957, p. 387). Unfortunately, however, people do not normally reveal all their internal motivations and intentions in daily life, and sometimes they are not even consciously aware of them. In situations where there is doubt about the intentions of the utterer, or the most appropriate meaning which can be interpreted from the utterance, the listener looks to the context surrounding the utterance. A common example of shifts in the deictic centre can be seen in the way that authors construct fictional narratives. What has happened before, or even in a novel what happens later in the story, will often provide for clues regarding the extent to which it conforms to the usual meaning, or alternatively conveys a different, and perhaps even opposite meaning. Part of the joy of reading and then re-reading classic novels by skilled writers of dialogue such as Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, for example, lies in decoding the statements that people make in the light of information that has been provided before and after the event. The more a person knows about a particular context, the more likely it is that subtleties of meaning will be grasped. Conversely, of course, the less a person knows about a particular context, the more puzzling and ambiguous an utterance will be. Writers of detective stories make very good use of this feature of language by deliberately withholding specific items of information from the reader, so that the meaning of utterances can be temporarily obscured, only to be revealed with a flourish at the end of the book, when all the links and references finally are shown to make sense. “At every level, every element in the communication process has a double orientation towards production and reception, in a social production of meaning that is always co-authored by many participants, and is ‘read’ (monitored, inflected towards actual and imagined readers) by many more” (Hodge and Kress, 1993, p. 175). These subtle inflections, or shifts, in the use of deictic terms can make the reader of a novel feel more or less involved in a story and they can draw the reader in towards seeing the plot from the perspective of one or other of the characters (Galbraith, 1995). Telling a story, or making a speech in the present tense with a deictic centre which is close to that of the reader reveals the power of deictic expressions to capture the imagination of readers or listeners. Temporal distances can be minimised, creating a blend that is neither fully past nor fully present (Dancygier, 2012, p. 111). These are powerful tools which skilled speakers and writers can use to engage with their listeners and readers in deliberate and targeted ways. . Conclusion: why deixis is so important Deixis is important because it provides a framework for understanding some of the subtleties of human language that the standard linguistic framework of grammar and lexis is ill equipped to provide. Deixis allows the ever-shifting variables of context to be mapped and compared, and it is possible to consider both intentional and unintentional directives and subtle clues that are contained in spoken and written utterances. This consideration of all the contextual aspects means that linguists are able to gain a deeper understanding of the social aspects of language use. Deictic shifts can be used to add interest to a text, and to set up subtle undercurrents which give added emotional tone, or create special effects such as humour, unease or expectancy in the reader or listener. These refinements are extremely useful in all aspects of daily life and that is why professional writers and linguists pay such close attention to deixis. References Dancygier, B. 2012. The Language of Stories: A Cognitive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galbraith, M. (1995) Deictic Shift Theory and the Poetics of Involvement in Narrative. In J. F. Duchan, G. A. Bruder and L. E. Hewitt (Eds.), Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 19-59. Grice, H.P. (1957) Meaning. The Philosophical Review 66 (3), pp. 377-388. Grundy, P. (2008 ) Deixis – the relation of reference to the point of origin of the utterance. In Doing Pragmatics, third edition. London: Hodder Education, pp. 22-47. Halliday, M. and Hasan, R. (1976) Cohesion in English. Harlow: Pearson/Longman. Hodge, R. and Kress, G. (1993) Language As Ideology. Second edition. London: Routledge. Simpson, P. (1993). Language, Ideology and Point of View. London: Routledge. Simpson, P. (2004) Stylistics: A Resource Book for Students. London: Routledge. Yule, G. (1996) Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Read More