Proximal and distal deictics and the construal of narrative time

Abstract

This paper proposes an approach to narrative deixis which offers a coherent analysis of the respective roles of proximal and distal deictic expressions (demonstratives as well as temporal and locative adverbs). The paper starts by arguing that fictional narratives require an approach to deixis which modifies a number of broadly held assumptions, especially as regards the interaction between tense and other deictic forms. It then considers the widely discussed instance of the temporal adverb now in the context of Past Tense. The second part of the paper gives special focus to demonstratives in narrative fiction, showing their role in temporal construals. It argues that both temporal and demonstrative expressions are primarily used to serve narrative viewpoint construction (which includes but is not limited to temporal viewpoint). Examples from several novels are then used to show how the proximal and distal choices of demonstratives, temporal adverbs and locative adverbs structure narrative viewpoint, including narrative representation of character experience. The paper concludes by proposing that in the context of fictional narratives the proximal/distal contrast is more relevant to meaning emergence than individual aspects of deixis, and that the construal of time can be achieved through the whole spectrum of deictic forms, not just tense and temporal adverbs such as now and then.

Fictive Deixis, Direct Discourse, and Viewpoint Networks

“…Deictic Ground is the site of a conversational exchange, in which the participants alternate taking the deictic role of speaker (I) and hearer (you), in the here and now. The interlocutors' shared understanding of what is or is not accessible is reflected in the use of proximal or distal indexical expressions such as this/that (Diessel, 2006;Dancygier, 2019).…”

Cognitive Explanations for Deixis in Narrative Fictions

“…With such a real-life experience, readers have the opportunity to simulate this communication method so as to enter the current narrative situation and imagine a dialogue with the narrator. As Dancygier has proposed that the use of various temporal adverbs, spatial adverbs, and demonstrative pronouns serve the interpretation of narrative rather than directly construing events in terms of readers' current deictic center (Dancygier, 2019).…”

“…In this sense, deixis primarily involves face-to-face communication, and ambiguity or indeterminacy in discourse can arise when the discourse is in a written form and participants are separated in space and time or unable to see each other (Lyons, 1977). The use of deixis in narrative discourse is different from that in spoken discourse, since its communicative behavior is not spoken, the participants are not fully delineated, or the spatial situation is the default; therefore, it is unreasonable to comprehend deixis in fictional situations with the rules of deixis in the actual context (Dancygier, 2019).…”

Backwards time: Causal catachresis and its influence on viewpoint flow

“…A speaker/SoC typically utilizes a joint or shared access knowledge base which provides the epistemic foundations upon which to construct causality. For this reason, the authors explain, Epistemic and speech act spaces share presence of the Speaker as a SoC, but in the epistemic space the Speaker-SoC is only a participant in reasoning processes; by contrast, in the speech-act space she is an interactive agent in a communicative exchange, which 6 For more on epistemic distance in relation to deixis, see the discussion of demonstratives in Dancygier (2019). takes place in the shared setting with the addressee and links both to a Deictic Communicative Center.…”

“…Dancygier (2019) notes that the narrator-observer need not be construed anthropomorphically. It may, however, be useful to think of it this way since a number of cognitive abilities, or at least their simulation, are presupposed by the concept of viewpoint (viz.…”