Minggu, 19 Juni 2011

Theory of Deixis; First person, Second person, and the Third person

Here are some kinds of person deixis.
1. First Person Deixis
First person deixis is the grammaticalization of the speaker’s reference to himself (Levinson, 1992: 62). First person deixis is a deictic reference which refers to the speakers, or both the speaker and referents grouped with the speaker.
An interesting phenomenon in this regard takes place with the deixis of the first person plural "we". This word can mean the group as a whole: (Renkema,1993: 78).
1) Do we have time for that? (When the utterance is being directed at the group in general)
2) Do we have time for that? (When you are asking someone else for advice)
3) Do we have time for that? (Asked by a mother who sees her children taking out a new toy two minutes before bedtime)

2. Second Person Deixis
Levinson (1992:62) states that the second person deixis is the encoding of the speaker’s reference to one or more addressees. In addition, second person deixis is deictic reference to a person identified as addressee, in English, such as you, yourself, yourselves, your and yours. The manner in which the second person is addressed can, in some languages, also provide an insight into the relationship between the first and the second person. (Renkema, 1993: 73) You has a much more general reference. The word you, can be used both deictically, when the context is required to determine the reference and non-deictically, when the reference is general rather than to particular identifiable persons.
"You" is also used in English in a much wider range of social context than would be represented by a single second person reference term in most other language (Grundy, 2000:26). Furthermore, he states that the use of you – all (for example, by teachers when talking to groups of students) suggests that speakers do indeed want to make distinctions that are impossible when there is only a single form available to them.
Buhler in Renkema (1993: 78) asserts that the manner in which the second person is addressed can, in some languages, also provide an insight into the relationship between the first and the second person. This phenomenon is often called social deixis. It is supported by Cummings (2005: 22) who also asserts that in certain social attributes of the addressee, the establishment of an appropriate person referent in this case is facilitated by aspects of social deixis. For example is the following utterance:
"Hey, you stupid ass, put that vase down!”
The vocative expression 'you stupid ass' encodes a number of features of the social relationship between the speaker and the addressee – the speaker's assault on the addressee lacks. Moreover, the speaker's derogatory use of an animal name indicates a lack of social distance between speaker and addressee – a social relationship of greater distance might have prompted the use of the word ‘fool’.
Third Person Deixis
Third person deixis is the encoding of a reference to person and entities which is neither speaker nor addressee of the utterance. (Levinson, 1992: 62). On the other word third person deixis is deictic reference to a referent (s) which is not identified as the speaker or addressee. For examples, he, she, they, and the third person singular verb – s, like he sometimes flies. Meanwhile, Grundy (2000:78) sates that the third person pronouns (he, she, and they) are not usually used deictically but rather anaphorically to objects or persons already mentioned in the discourse.

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