Deixis and Textual Cohesion Mechanisms in Discourse Analysis

Posted on Oct 7, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Deixis

Definition

Deixis is a procedure that allows us to locate people, objects, events, and time-space circumstances within a text. There are three main types: personal, spatial, and temporal.

5.4.1 Personal Deixis

Personal deixis designates the different voices or persons involved in the speech:

  • Individual issuer (I) or group (we/us)
  • Individual recipient (you) or group (you/you all)
  • Third individual (he/she) or collective (they/them)

This designation can be explicit (through personal pronouns) or implicit (through verb endings).

5.4.2 Spatial Deixis

Spatial deixis points to places or areas occupied by people and objects in the text. This function is performed by:

  • Demonstratives (this/that/these/those) and adverbs of place (here/there), which show the degree of proximity or remoteness of people and objects with respect to the speaker.
  • Spatial locations (in/out, over/under, up/down, front/rear, near/far, right/left), which place objects and people more precisely in relation to the speaker.
  • Verbs of motion (go/come and take/bring), which indicate the movement of people and objects from any point in space towards the speaker (come/bring) or away from the speaker (go/take).

5.4.3 Temporal Deixis

Temporal deixis places people and events in time. This representation is achieved through relevant temporal markers and verb tenses.

Temporal markers have a twofold role:

  1. Locate verbal action in time, either with respect to the moment of utterance (today, yesterday, tomorrow, next week, etc.) or in relation to another reference point (then, at that time, before, after, later, etc.).
  2. Indicate the nature of the verbal action, which may be:
    • Instantaneous or point (suddenly, immediately, etc.)
    • Regular (often, from time to time, always, etc.)
    • Continuous (one week, two years, during the summer, life, etc.)
    • Inchoative (since childhood, since then, from that moment, four years ago, has been five weeks, etc.)
    • Terminative (until the birth of his brother, until he died, etc.)

Verb tenses indicate the time (past, present, or future) in which the action unfolds.

Repetition/Recurrence

This mechanism involves the repetition of an element throughout the text. Various forms exist:

5.1.1 Phonic Repetition (Phonic Isotopy)

Contributes to textual cohesion through the repetition of phonemes, accentual, and tonal patterns.

  • Phonemes: The most striking case is found in rhyme, which involves the repetition of phonemes from the last accented vowel of a verse.
  • Accentual schemes: Another cohesive mechanism, particularly in poetry, is the periodic repetition of accents in intensity.
  • Tonal schemes: Tone can also achieve a high degree of cohesion.

5.1.2 Syntactic Repetition (Grammatical Isotopy)

Parallelism is a clear case, occurring when the same grammatical construction is repeated throughout the speech.

5.1.3 Lexical Repetition

Consists of repeating the same word in successive sentences.

5.1.4 Semantic Repetition

Consists of replacing a word or phrase with another semantically related term, making them generally interchangeable in discourse. This procedure is found in the following cases:

  • Synonyms: Occurs when two or more terms have the same meaning.
  • Antonyms: Builds a relationship of opposition between two terms.
  • Hypernymy: Builds an inclusive relationship between two words, where the meaning of the first is included in the meaning of the second.
  • Hyponymy: Builds an inclusive relationship between two elements where the meaning of the second is included in the meaning of the first.
  • Paraphrase: Avoids the direct expression of an idea by making it broader, taking a detour.
  • Nominative Strings: The presence of words belonging to the same conceptual field also contributes to text cohesion.

Referential Identity

This procedure refers to something already mentioned in the text. This role is played by pronouns, determiners, adverbs, and lexical proformas (wildcard words). We can distinguish three types:

  • Anaphora: Reproduces the meaning of an element that has previously appeared.
  • Cataphora: Anticipates, usually through the use of pronouns, what will be said later.
  • Use of Wildcard Words: These are words with such broad meanings that they can replace many other words, resulting in minimal accuracy. They are essentially super-hypernyms (universal substitutes). Examples include nouns like thing, stuff, person and verbs like do, have, go, happen.