deixis

plural deixes

1. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe use of a word, such as a particle or pronoun, to refer to something that must be identified from the immediate physical, temporal, or grammatical context; a word used in such a way.

   Deixis allows for economy of speech but may introduce ambiguity in recorded speech when referring to something physical.

   2 more examples

   Deixis is a technical term (from Greek) for one of the most basic things we do with utterances. It means 'pointing' via language. Any linguistic form used to accomplish this 'pointing' is called a deictic expression. When you notice a strange object and ask, 'What's that?', you are using a deictic expression ('that') to indicate something in the immediate context. Deictic expressions are also sometimes called indexicals. They are among the first forms to be spoken by very young children and […]

   [1996, George Yule, Pragmatics, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 9

   For those who treat language as a generative system for objectively describing the world, deixis is a big black fly in the ointment. Deixis introduces subjective, attentional, intentional and, of course, context-dependent properties into natural languages.

   2006, Stephen C. Levinson, “Dexis”, in Laurence R. Horn, Gregory Ward, editors, The Handbook of Pragmatics, Wiley-Blackwell, →ISBN, page 97

   Synonyms: indexicality