The document presents an overview of deixis, which refers to linguistic expressions whose meaning depends on the context of the utterance. It discusses the main categories of deixis, including person deixis (pronouns like I, you), place deixis (demonstratives like this, that), time deixis (temporal adverbs like now, then), discourse deixis (words referring to parts of the discourse), and social deixis (expressions encoding social relationships). Key points are that deictic expressions cannot be understood without context and indicate something relative to the speaker.

1. Presentation
on
deixis
Presented by
Md. Atik Ullah
ID:1163054
INTAKE: 08
Jahangirnagar university,Dhaka

2. WELCOME TO MY PRESENTAIN

3. What is deixis?
Means: The function or use of deictic words, forms
or expressions.
One of the way through which the relationship
between language and context is reflected is the
phenomenon of deixis.
The Deixis term is borrowed from the Greek word for
pointing or indicating.
One of the most basic things we do through
utterances. Any linguistic form that we use to
accomplish the task of pointing out is called deixis.

4. DIECTIC EXPRESSION
The deictic words such as I, we, you, he,
she, this, that, it, now, then, here, there,
tomorrow, yesterday, etc., are different
linguistic forms and are called deictic
expressions.
Expressions used to ‘pointing’ or ‘indicating’
is diectic expression.
It means pointing via language.
Deictic expressions are used to indicate
something in the immediate context.

5. Deixis words and phrases cannot be
understood without any contextual
information.
The use of demonstratives, first and second
person pronouns, tense, specific time and place
adverbs like now, and here, and a variety of
other grammatical features are directly used as
deictics.

6. • Deictic expressions are also
sometimes called indexicals.
• They are among the first forms to be
spoken by very young children.
• What is that?
• How…?
• When…?

7. Deictic expression example:
 The meanings of deictic expressions can be
understood only in terms of speakers intended
meanings.
For example:
‘What is that?’, ‘This is our department.’, etc.
Or,
 Speaker A: Have you brought the book?
 Speaker B: Yes
 The word the is obviously a deictic expression
whose exact meaning can only be understood in
terms of speaker A’s intended meaning.

8. In this short sentence, you is an example of personal
deixis, here is an example of spatial deixis, and last week is an
example of temporal deixis.

9. CoU
Deixis concerns
Context of
utterance(CoU)
Or
Speech event
Deixis also concerns ways in which the interpretation
of utterances depend on the analysis of that context of
utterance

10. Proximal term
• Deixis is clearly a form of referring that is
tied to the speaker’s context.
• The most basic distinction between deictic
expressions is ‘near speaker’ versus ‘away
from speaker’.
• In English, the ‘near speaker’, or proximal
terms are ‘this’, ‘here’, ‘now’.
• Proximal terms are typically interpreted in
terms of the speaker’s location, or the
deictic center.

12. Deictic
center
Central
person
(speaker)
Central time
(time when
speaker
speak)
Central place
(speaker’s
location)
Discourse
center (point
of speaker is
currently at)
Social center
(speaker’s
social status
and rank)

13. Categories of deixis
• The traditional categories of deixis are:
– Person deixis
– Place deixis
– Time deixis
• In addition discourse deixis and social deixis
are offered by Lyons 1968, and Fillmore 1975.

15. Person deixis
• Person Deixis: Any expression that is used to point to a
person( me, you, him, her) is an example of PERSON
DEIXIS.
• a speech event includes at least two persons:
• – first person = speaker
• – second person = addressee
• If the two persons do not only refer to themselves while
talking, there is a third person ( = the person they are
talking about), that does not have to take part in the
conversation.
• Usually the third person is not grammatically marked,
because the only two persons of importance are the first
person (speaker = most important) and the second person
(addressee = less important).

17. Time deixis or temporal deixis
• Time deixis concerns the encoding of temporal
points and spans relative to the time at which an
utterance was spoken (or a written message
inscribed).
• Actually, time deixis includes time adverbs like now,
then, soon and so forth, and also different tenses.
• makes ultimate reference to participant-role
• => ex.: now = the time at which the speaker is
producing the utterance containing “now”.

18. Time deixis or temporal deixis
• Time deixis is commonly grammaticalized in
deictic adverbs of time (like English ‘now’ and
‘then’, ‘yesterday’ and ‘this year’)
 The deictic time adverbs in English refers to
words and phrases like now, then, today,
yesterday, tomorrow, next week, last year, in
three days, etc.
 Now is a proximal term, as it indicates the
time at which the speaker is producing the
utterance, as in ,
 Then is a distal expression which applies to
both past and future time relative to the time
of speaking, as in.

19. Continue.
.
(o1) Pull the trigger now!
(02) I’m now working on a PhD
(03) I was just a kid then
Time deixis is relevant to various other deictic
elements in a language. Thus greetings are usually
time-restricted, so that
(64) Good morning
Can only be used in the morning.
(65) Good night
Can only be used as a parting

20. Continue..
 The deictic words yesterday,today, and
tomorrow pre-emptive the calendrical. Thus
the following said on Thursday, can only be
referring to next Thrusday, otherwise the
speaker should have said today:
(58) I’ll see you on Thursday
The same holds if it is said on Wednesday, due
to pre-emptive tomorrow.

21. tense
• Tenses represents the time relations in
connection to a given point in time
• Present= an event/action simultaneously to
the speech act (work)
• Past= an event/action before the speech act
(worked)
• Future= an event/action after the speech act
(you will work)

22. Discourse Deixis
• also called text deixis. concerns the use of
expressions referring to apart of the discourse.
• while within time deixis: next week, last week,
discourse deixis: in the next chapter, in the last
paragraph.
• in discourse deixis, there are many words and phrases
in English that indicate the relationship between
utterance and the prior discourse:
• – but, therefore, in conclusion, to the contrary, still,
however, anyway, well, besides, actually, all in all, so,
after all
• – all these words make reference to a statement,
sentence etc. that was said before some languages
have morphemes that mark such discourse notions

23. Social
Deixis
• concerns those aspects of language structure that
encode the social identities of participants, or the
social relationship between them, but these usages
are only relevant to the topic of social deixis in so far
as they are grammaticalized:
• – polite pronouns e.g.“Vous”, address titles.
• social relations concern in all those examples the
relation between the speaker and the addressee,
especially the countries.
• in East Asia are known for having several levels of
politeness, based on the social difference between
the persons concerned.

24. conclusion
• Deixis plays a vital role when repetitive
situations occur. If one cannot understand it
the situation will become funny as well as
difficult for the speaker, listener and for
reader too.

25. Any question?