Radwa Ayman
Pragmatics by George Yule
Chapter 2: Deixis and Distance
Introduction
Deixis is a technical term that means "pointing" through language. A deictic expression is any
word that helps us point to something in a situation. For example, if someone says, “What’s
that?”, the word that is a deictic expression. These expressions are also called indexicals. They
help indicate people (person deixis), places (spatial deixis), or time (temporal deixis). Their
meaning depends on the speaker, the hearer, and the shared context. Deictic expressions are
used most naturally in face-to-face interaction, where their meaning is clear to people present.
For example, when Jim says, “I’ll put this here,” both this and here depend on his location and
what he is pointing to.
There is a basic distinction between proximal terms (near the speaker) like this, here, now, and
distal terms (away from the speaker) like that, there, then. The speaker’s location is the deictic
center. In some languages, like Japanese, even more specific distinctions are made—such as
sore (near addressee) and are (far from both speaker and addressee).
Person deixis
Person deixis refers to who is involved in the conversation. It includes first person (I), second
person (you), and third person (he, she, it). Even though these seem simple, their use can be
complex. Young children often struggle with switching between I and you, saying things like
“Read you a story” instead of me.
Person deixis also includes social meaning. In many languages, there are special forms called
honorifics that mark social status. This is called social deixis. A common example is the T/V
distinction, like tu/vous in French or tu/Usted in Spanish. Using tu shows familiarity, while
vous shows respect or distance. The choice tells us something about the speaker’s view of the
relationship. For example, an older cleaning lady in Spain might use tu to a younger
businesswoman, who replies with Usted, showing that age may be more important than
economic status.
Using third person forms instead of second person can also show distance, politeness, or irony.
For example: “Would his highness like some coffee?” sounds sarcastic. Third person is also
used to avoid direct accusations (Somebody didn’t clean up) or to express general rules (Each
person has to clean up after him or herself). The first person plural (we) may be exclusive
(excluding the hearer) or inclusive (including the hearer), but English does not mark this
difference clearly.
Spatial deixis
Spatial deixis deals with location. Words like here (near speaker) and there (away from
speaker) are used in modern English. Older forms like hither (to this place) and thence (from
that place) show motion, but are now mostly outdated. Verbs like come and go also carry a
deictic meaning—come means toward the speaker, and go means away from the speaker.
Children usually learn this and here first because they match things that are visible. That and
there are used for things that are not visible. Spatial deixis can also be mental. People often use
here to refer to their home, even if they are not there. Or, they may use come to refer to the
hearer’s place: “I’ll come later.” This is called deictic projection, where the speaker imagines a
future or distant location as the deictic center.
Sometimes, deixis expresses psychological distance. Something near may feel distant
emotionally. For example, a speaker might say, “I don’t like that,” even when the object is
physically close. In this case, the word that is being used not just for distance in space, but for
emotional distance too.
Temporal deixis
Temporal deixis refers to time. Deictic expressions like now (proximal) and then (distal) help
show when something happens in relation to the speaker’s moment of speaking. The word now
can refer to the time when the speaker says the utterance, or to the time when the utterance is
heard by the hearer. In contrast, then is a distal term that can refer to both past and future time.
For example: “I was in Scotland then” refers to a past event, and “I’ll see you then” refers to a
future time.
We also use non-deictic expressions like calendar dates and clock times (e.g., “November 22nd”
or “8:30 PM”), but these are learned later than deictic expressions like yesterday, today,
tomorrow, tonight, next week, or last week. These depend on knowing the utterance time. A
note saying “Back in an hour” only makes sense if we know when it was written. Similarly, a
sign that says “Free Beer Tomorrow” always puts the event one day ahead—so if you come
back the next day, it’s still “tomorrow.”
Temporal deixis also has a psychological side. We often imagine time as moving: future events
come toward us, and past events move away. For example, we say “the coming week” or “the
past year.” We also use proximal terms like this Thursday or this weekend to talk about the near
future. Even grammar shows temporal deixis—English has two main tenses: present (proximal),
like “I live here now,” and past (distal), like “I lived there then.”
The past tense can also show distance from reality, not just from time. For example, “If I had a
yacht...” does not describe real past time, but an unreal or unlikely situation. These uses of past
tense are common in conditional sentences to mark events as distant from the speaker’s current
reality.
Deixis and grammar
Deixis is also important in grammar, especially in the difference between direct and indirect
speech. In direct speech, we use proximal terms like you, here, and this evening. But when we
report what someone said, these become distal: she, there, and that evening. This shift shows
that the speaker is reporting from a different context, and it marks the original speech as more
distant.
Deictic expressions—person, place, and time—are all tied to context, intention, and perspective.
They often mean much more than the actual words.
