8
without some pragmatic knowledge of context we would never be able to know who is being referred to.
10
Deixis concerns the ways in which languages express features of the context of utterance or speech event in a different way. It concerns ways in
which the interpretation of utterance depends on the analysis of that context of utterance. Deictic information is important for the interpretation of utterance.
Deixis helps semantics to better analyze the context of an utterance. If semantics is taken to include all conventional aspects of meaning, then
perhaps most deictic phenomena are probably considered semantic in Levinson‘s point of view.
11
Accoridng to explanation above, it can be conclude that deixis belongs to the domain of pragmatics, because it directly concerns the relationship
between the structure of languages and the contexts in which they are used.
B. Context
The term context is defined by Mey as the surrounding, in the widest sense, that enable the participants in the communication process to interact,
and that make the linguistic expressions of their interaction intelligible.
12
Pragmatics which uses context, can describe the phenomenon of the language such as, deixis, implicatures, presupposition, and speech act. Context
10
Siobhan Chapman, Pragmatics New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, p. 40
11
Levinson, 1995, op.cit, p. 34
12
F.X. Nadar. Pragmatik dan Penelitian Pragmatik. Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu, 2009 p. 3
9
in here is a kind of language development which adds meaning into the pronunciation and the speaker‘s environment.
13
The importance of context in pragmatic emphasized by Wijana that examines pragmatic context-bound meanings,
14
this is confirmed by the explanation Levinson that Pragmatic is the study of those relations between
language and context that are grammaticalized, or encoded in the structure of language.
15
Context includes only some of the basic parameters of the context of utterance, including participants, identity, role and location, assumptions about
what participants know or take for granted, the place of an utterance within a sequence of turns at talking, and so on.
C. Deixis
Deictic word derived from the Greek word ―deiktikos‖ designation it
directly.
16
Levinson explain that the word deixis comes from Greek which means pointing or indicating.
17
The means of pointing or indicating has close relation with how words put into the context. In other words, deixis is based
on the context depending on the time and place of his spoken word. If the hearer or the reader does not know it, then it will be difficult for them to
understand.
13
Gabrielle Kasper Shosana Blum-Kulka, Interlanguage Pragmatics, New York: Oxford, 1978. p. 51
14
Nadar, 2009, op.cit, p.4
15
Levinson, 1983, op.cit, p. 9
16
Nadar, 2009, op.cit, p. 54
17
Levinson, 1983, op.cit, p. 54
