c ontent of the writing “I will be back in an hour”. This message does not
have a contextual background because he or she does not know when the message was written, so the message does not informative.
23
2. Types of Deixis
There are five types of deixis, they are person deixis, place deixis, time deixis, discourse deixis, and social deixis:
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1. Person Deixis
Deixis with the role of participants in the conversation, such as: speaker, spoken, and addressee. Person deixis consists of three
division. They are fir st person, ‘I’ singular and ‘we’ plural; second
person ‘you’; and third person ‘heshe’ singular, and ‘they’ plural. 2.
Place deixis Deixis which indicates the location of some spaces between the speaker
and the listener. Place deixis is also known as space deixis. It concerns with the spatial locations relevant to the utterance. For example: here
is where we will place the statue; she was sitting over there. 3.
Time deixis Deixis which shows the unit of time in the speech. It distinguishes
between the moment of the utterance coding time and the moment of the reception receiving time. The markers of time in deixis of time
23
Stephen C. Levinson, Pragmatics, Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1983, p.54
24
Ibid
are now, tomorrow, today, yesterday. For example: It is raining out now, but I hope when you read the letter, it will be sunny.
4. Discourse deixis
Deixis which indicates the reference marker in a section of discourse. Discourse deixis is also known as ‘text deixis’. For example: I am
hungry - that is what i said. From the example, the word of “that”
refers to “I am hungry” which is mentioned before. 5.
Social deixis Deixis which indicates social relationships and social levels. It involves
mark of social relationships with direct or oblique reference to the social status or role of participants in the speech event. For example:
honorifics word homage; Mr. President, Your Honor. Deixis is clearly tied to the speakers context, with the most basic
distinction between deictic expressions both ‘near speaker’ and ‘away
from speaker ’. Proximal term is typically interpreted as the speaker’s
location, or the deictic centre. The proximal
terms are ‘this, here and now
’ near speaker. Distal term is indicate ‘away from speaker’ such as
that, there and then.
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Near speaker
proximal terms this, here, now Away from speaker
distal terms that, there, then
25
George Yule, Pragmatics, p.9.
3. Person Deixis
