Post by mdnoyon on Jan 14, 2024 23:58:50 GMT -5
When I discovered the “problem” with deictics , I realized that I had almost always used them in the wrong way in my stories, a bad habit that is part of colloquial language. Deictic – which derives from deixis , a figure of speech – in its first meaning is said of something that is indicated precisely, with evidence. But in linguistics it takes on another meaning. A deictic indicates any reference to a place or a temporal event and to the speaker/writer or listener/reader. It is therefore something so explicit that it requires a context to be correctly interpreted by those who read or listen.
The main deictic elements are 3: Possessive Phone Number List pronoun Demonstrative adjectives Adverbs of place and time Deixis is a matter of relativity The man was already here when his wife arrived with her lover. Here where? The adverb of place “here” belongs to the context of the narrator and the reader, certainly not of the man who is waiting for the couple. That adverb gives no reference to readers, because it indicates a place in relative and not absolute terms. If a teacher said to a student in class, “Come here,” the student would know where that “here” is. But if in the incipit of a story I wrote "Yesterday he was fired and wandered around the city aimlessly all day", I wouldn't give readers any time reference, because they can't recognize a specific day. Their time does not coincide with that of the character.
The teacher's case is very real life, where all students take for granted where the action will take place, because they are in the same environment. But the readers are not in the same place where the man is waiting for his wife nor in the same time event in which the other man was fired. Possessive pronoun Let's take some examples: The policeman removed his gun from his holster and prepared to shoot. The woman adjusted the collar of her raincoat and waited in the shadows. The twins often disobeyed their mother. We have stumbled upon deictics.
The main deictic elements are 3: Possessive Phone Number List pronoun Demonstrative adjectives Adverbs of place and time Deixis is a matter of relativity The man was already here when his wife arrived with her lover. Here where? The adverb of place “here” belongs to the context of the narrator and the reader, certainly not of the man who is waiting for the couple. That adverb gives no reference to readers, because it indicates a place in relative and not absolute terms. If a teacher said to a student in class, “Come here,” the student would know where that “here” is. But if in the incipit of a story I wrote "Yesterday he was fired and wandered around the city aimlessly all day", I wouldn't give readers any time reference, because they can't recognize a specific day. Their time does not coincide with that of the character.
The teacher's case is very real life, where all students take for granted where the action will take place, because they are in the same environment. But the readers are not in the same place where the man is waiting for his wife nor in the same time event in which the other man was fired. Possessive pronoun Let's take some examples: The policeman removed his gun from his holster and prepared to shoot. The woman adjusted the collar of her raincoat and waited in the shadows. The twins often disobeyed their mother. We have stumbled upon deictics.