Social Deixis

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics grade: 17 University of Potsdam (Institut für Anglistik / Amerikanistik) course: Proseminar Deixis language: English abstract: The word deixis is of Greek origin and means pointing or indicating. In linguistics this term denotes a word or phrase that directly and categorically refers to temporal locational or personal characteristics of a communicative event and its participants.Deixis lies in between the fields of semantics and pragmatics. Linguists differentiate 5 categories of deixis: person place time discourse and social deixis.This paper will be concerned with the category of social deixis which encodes the features of the communicative event which mark the social identity of the speaker or addressee and the social relationship that holds between them.In particular the study of pronouns has a high degree of relevance in our everyday lives as their appropriate use has ever been the concern of (socio-)linguists and average users alike. In this paper I will explain the dimensions of power and solidarity and analyse the development that 2nd person pronouns have undergone from Old English until today. Furthermore my paper is concerned with non- verbal communication and cultural differences and it includes a discussion on the question When is it likely that there is a change of address and who has the right to propose a change?.