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Text Deixis in Narrative Sequences

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Text Deixis in Narrative Sequences International Journal IJES of English Studies UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA www.um.es/ijes Text Deixis in Narrative Sequences JOSEP RIBERA * Universitat de València ABSTRACT This study looks at demonstrative descriptions, regarding them as text-deictic procedures which contribute to weave discourse reference. Text deixis is thought of as a metaphorical referential device which maps the ground of utterance onto the text itself. Demonstrative expressions with textual antecedent-triggers, considered as the most important text-deictic units, are identified in a narrative corpus consisting of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan and its translation into Catalan. Some linguistic and discourse variables related to DemNPs are analysed to characterise adequately text deixis. It is shown that this referential device is usually combined with abstract nouns, thus categorising and encapsulating (non-nominal) complex discourse entities as nouns, while performing a referential cohesive function by means of the text deixis + general noun type of lexical cohesion. KEYWORDS : reference; text deixis; deixis; anaphora; demonstrative noun phrase; general noun; lexical cohesion. _________________ *Address for correspondence : Josep Ribera; Universitat de València-Departament de Filologia Catalana. Avinguda Blasco Ibáñez, 32. 46010 València. E-mail: [email protected] © Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved. IJES , vol. 7 (1), 2007, pp. 149-168 150 Josep Ribera I. INTRODUCTION Demonstrative descriptions with textual antecedent-triggers have been approached from different perspectives for their classification as either text-deictic or anaphoric devices. Lyons (1977: 667-668) suggests a distinction between pure and impure textual deixis; in the former, a demonstrative description is related to a textual unit, whereas, in the latter, the demonstrative points to an aspect of the interpretation of the textual segment rather than to the segment itself. Webber (1991: 109) accepts this suggestion but proposes to rename Lyon’s impure textual deixis as discourse deixis. On the other hand, Huddleston & Pullum (2002: 1506) consider that examples like (1), i.e. Lyon’s pure textual deixis, in which the demonstrative is clearly matched with a linguistic antecedent, are in fact a case of anaphora 1: (1) There was a glass pane i in the front door, and through this i he could see into a hallway where a plump woman with red hair was arranging flowers Therefore, these authors apply the label “text deixis” only to Lyon’s impure textual deixis (or Webber’s discourse deixis), as in (2). (2) A: You look about fifteen. B: Is that meant to be a compliment? It seems that the most important difference between (1) and (2), at least regarding the linguistic nature of the units referred by means of the demonstrative, is the existence of a noun phrase antecedent in the former (example 1), whereas the latter has a non-nominal antecedent- trigger, namely the illocutionary act itself (example 2). In other words, the referential device observed in (2) does not have an antecedent in the traditional sense. This paper attempts to offer a general idea of what text deixis in narrative sequences consists in from a discourse and cognitive perspective. Considering text deixis to be a metaphorical process which combines both deixis and anaphora, it is argued that demonstrative descriptions with textual antecedent-triggers may be analysed as text-deictic referential devices which contribute to maintain discourse reference together with anaphora. A narrative corpus consisting of the first ten chapters of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan , both in the original English text and in its translation into Catalan, has been analysed in order to identify the demonstrative noun phrases (DemNPs) with textual antecedent-triggers, as in (3). 2 (3) Usually when she began to tell this story [ he left the room or put his hands over his ears ]i; and possibly if he had done either of those things i this time they might all still be on the island (10, 112) Example (3) shows that the DemNP those things is referentially dependent on the previous clauses he left the room or put his hands over his ears , which act as its textual antecedent- trigger. In other words, the DemNP reference is acquired by being textually matched up with those clauses. © Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved. IJES , vol. 7 (1), 2007, pp. 149-168 Text Deixis in Narrative Sequences 151 These DemNPs have been characterised as text-deictic expressions cross- linguistically. On the other hand, DemNPs which occur in conversational sequences were not taken into account in order to avoid the interference of situational deictic uses (4). (4) They could hear [ Nana barking ]i, and John whimpered, "It is because he is chaining her up in the yard," but Wendy was wiser. "That Ø i is not Nana's unhappy bark," she said, little guessing what was about to happen; " that Øi is her bark when she smells danger." (2, 21) The demonstratives observed in Wendy’s words in (4) are text-deictic units according to the reader’s point of view, since s/he must match them up with the textual antecedent-trigger Nana barking . However, they are situational from Wendy’s perspective, as they display physical space distance in relation to her location when uttering this words. II.TEXT DEIXIS AS A DISCOURSE METAPHOR From a cognitive perspective both deictic and anaphoric reference can be considered as dynamic joint tasks which involve the addressor’s necessity to asses the epistemic status of the addressee so as to choose a suitable indexical procedure, and the requirement for the addressee to join the addressor’s presuppositions on his/her knowledge (cf. Brisard, 2002). This means that the choice of each referential device at each stage of the communicative process depends on several cognitive, pragmatic and structural factors, such as the degree of activation of the referred entities in both the addressor’s and addressee’s memories, the situational or the emotional distance with which the addressor perceives the referents and the competition in accessibility of the referents concerned at a given point of the discourse, due to their similar cognitive salience, among others. 3 In this sense, the mainstream ‘geographical’ division of the context has been adopted. According to this conception, referents may be activated by means of the situational context, the linguistic one (co-text) or the encyclopaedic knowledge. The degree of accessibility of a referent, which determines the choice of a given referential device, depends on its ‘geographical’ origin (cf. Ariel, 1990). Modern linguistic studies on reference, starting from Bühler (1934), characterise deixis as an indexical procedure which implies direct reference to the ground of utterance. In other words, the deictic origo (or reference origin), using Bühler’s term, is constituted by the act of utterance in a given situational speech context (5), namely the time of utterance in this example: (5) [Mrs Darling speaking of Peter Pan to Wendy] "Besides," [...] "he would be grown up by this time " (1, 8) On the other hand, anaphora is a referential process by means of which the reference origin is located in the text itself (6). (6) All children i, except one, grow up. They i soon know that they will grow up (1, 1) © Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved. IJES , vol. 7 (1), 2007, pp. 149-168 152 Josep Ribera The differences in the referential nature of deixis and anaphora are displayed in figure 1 and figure 2. T T T = text T = text G = ground G = ground at = antecedent- d d = deictic trigger at ap ap = anaphor G G Figure 1. Deixis Figure 2. Anaphora The reference origin of a deictic expression is the situational context, whereas an anaphor obtains its reference from co-text. These two procedures of deixis and anaphora are combined in the referential device known as text deixis. This process implies the metaphor “ TEXT IS A SPACE ” by means of which the spaciotemporal ground of utterance is mapped onto the text itself. T G = ground at tde T = text at = antecedent-trigger tde = text-deictic expression G Figure 3. Text deixis Figure 3. Text deixis Therefore, text deixis can be defined as a reference device which shares the referential properties of both deixis and anaphora. Like anaphora, a text-deictic expression has a textual antecedent-trigger; however, at the same time, it preserves the ability of space deixis to show the addressor’s position in relation to the referent, although this relationship is not physical, but metaphorical. In summary, text-deictic referential devices transform the pragmatic function of demonstratives into textual, allowing these linguistic units to refer to entities in the metaphorical spatial text domain as they would in the situational domain. Demonstrative expressions are the most important linguistic units able to work as text- deictic expressions. In their primary situational uses, they show space and time relations between the addressor and the entities referred. As text-deictic expressions, they highlight both the textual distance in regard to its antecedent-trigger and the emotional distance with which the addressor perceives the referent. As markers of space relations, they can be used to establish space oppositions within the text, as in (7), where the proximal demonstrative refers to the second time that Mrs. Darling screamed, making a contrast with the first one, textually more distant. © Servicio de Publicaciones. Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved. IJES , vol. 7 (1), 2007, pp. 149-168 Text Deixis in Narrative Sequences 153 (7) Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened [...] Again Mrs. Darling screamed , this time in distress for him (2, 12) As markers of emotional distance, they point to the addressor’s subjectivity and have a special importance in argumentative and narrative texts in relation to the notion of point of view (cf.
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