Deixis, Buhler and the Problem of Ambiguity

[Salinas17 at aol.com]

(First, my deep appreciation to this forum for an opportunity to try out 
these ideas and to those kind enough to consider them.)

It’s striking how the term "deixis" has shrunk in meaning since it was 
first coined in linguistics. 

It's common these days to say that deictic words are a special class of 
words or utterances that "need external context", or "require contextual 
information" or "depend on an external frame of reference."   And to use 
demonstratives (this, that) as examples.   And to make a comparison to anaphora, 
another "special class" of expressions.

But in reading Karl Buhler, whom I think first used deixis as a formal 
linguistic term, you don't find those kind of limitations.   It seems that 
originally deixis was not just a class of expressions but the “fundamental” base 
of all "linguistic messages" or all "intercourse using language."

This is from Buhler's The Theory of Language (the English translation from 
1991):
"...in linguistic messages there are two closely interlocked fundamental 
processes which we can and must distinguish in order to understand what is 
going on.   In intercourse using language there is first pointing: things and 
processes are indicated.   That is demonstratio; I prefer the Greek word 
deixis.   Second, there is also representing... Objects and states of affairs 
are given a formulation in language and are symbolized by words that designate 
them in the symbolic field of language."

It's not easy to read the segment above and think that Buhler was writing 
about a "special class" of expression.   And it's also difficult to think 
that Buhler meant "pointing" literally.   (The Greek word deixis in its most 
basic sense meant the act of bringing something to light, un-hiding, 
revealing; more abstractly showing proof, demonstrating, or more concretely an 
imaging.)

How deixis got linguistically limited to where the pointing has to be 
almost explicit, I'm not sure.   But that contraction in definition might perhaps 
have been unfortunate, as it perhaps made deixis a bit more difficult to 
explain.

The authors of the Handbook of Pragmatics (2006) in introducing the subject 
write: 
“One persistent complication for any theory of reference is the ubiquity of 
deictic or indexical expressions.   Deixis characterizes the properties of 
expressions like I, you, here, there, now, hereby, tense/aspect markers, 
etc., whose meanings are constant but whose referents vary...”

Now, there's a peculiar linguistic beast -- meaning stays constant, but 
referent varies!   Some would say that a different referent equals a different 
meaning.   How is “meaning” defined here, if it doesn’t include reference?  
 How do we separate the two ideas for the sake of defining deixis?

Here’s an example of the difficulty. Recently, I've met different persons, 
each one introduced with the phrase, "This is John."   The referents 
definitely varied. Does "John" have the same meaning but varying referents – more 
than one John?   So therefore is “John” a deictic?

Stephen Levinson, in the same volume, goes on to explore in detail the many 
paradoxes and ambiguities of this narrowly defined linguistic “deixis” 
(along with the akin philosophical “indexicality,” using Charles Pierce’s 
terminology.)

Levinson, points to the many ambiguities that deixis can create in 
describing time, place, space, person, etc.   And they CAN be confusing!   Like: 
today referred to today yesterday. But, today, today refers to a different day. 
  Or, of course, I is I if I say I, but if you say I, you mean you, not I.
There are many more, needless to say.

And because of this, we learn from Levinson that “semantic deficiency” is 
a defining characteristic of deixis (or “indexicality”.) 

Now, this might seem contrary to our more common understanding – deixis 
would seem in fact to remove ambiguity, not add it.   Even definite articles 
are not as definite as some deictics.   "The car is mine" could refer to any 
one of millions of cars.   But "THAT car is mine" suddenly becomes more 
specific, less ambiguous.   "Truths" can refer to millions of different truths, 
but "we hold THESE truths to be self evident" tells us that all the truths 
are going to be narrowed down.   “I’ll get it to you today,” promises a more 
specific time than “I’ll get it to you.”

Even when the deictic must be ambiguous to be accurate -- “Somewhere out 
there.” -- it still contributes to a greater specificity by the most elemental 
logic, being unambiguously ambiguous – “Not here, but somewhere out there.”
   The absence of the object, not “being here,” is quite definite.

How can this be?   How is that this special class of expressions can 
linguistically increase ambiguity, when we seem to use it for the exact opposite 
purpose? Is it that deictic language, in promising to be specific, is held to 
a higher standard than language that doesn’t make reference to “external 
context”?

The answer, according to Levinson, seems to have something to do with what 
linguists traditionally study and some kind of a conclusion from somewhat 
dubious animal psychology: 
“Students of linguistic systems tend to treat language as a disembodied 
representational system which is essentially independent of current 
circumstances, that is, a system for describing states of affairs in which we 
individually may have no involvement… It is these properties of language that have 
been the prime target of formal semantics and many philosophical approaches to 
language – and not without good reason, as they appear to be the exclusive 
province of human communication. The communication systems of other primates 
have none of this “displacement” as Hockett (1958: 579) called it.”

So, compared to “language as a disembodied representational system” – one 
with no or at least relatively few ambiguities – deixis seems replete with 
them. Here we are using “this” and “that”, “I” and “you”, “today” or “
next week” to be more specific, and it ends up we are being more “
semantically deficient,” according to this point of view.

Obviously, one way to find deictic expression guilty of ambiguity is to 
assume away the ambiguity in non-deictic expression.   Say “Socrates is a man” 
and you are fine, but say “Socrates is that man” and you are in trouble.
 
Of course, these ambiguities just get an awful lot worse if we literally 
follow what Buhler seems to be saying and consider that all "linguistic 
messages" as grounded in deixis – not just a special class of expressions.   (cf., 
Lyons (1972) “Deixis as the Source of Reference”)

It should also be pointed out that Buhler makes deixis just part one in a 
two part “interlocking” process.   The second part is “representing... 
Objects and states of affairs are given a formulation in language and are 
symbolized…”

So that in Buhler’s system, deixis is not even a class of expressions at 
all, but what happens before something – whatever it is, an object, a process, 
an idea or even another word – can be translated into a representation, a 
symbol or a “linguistic message.”   If that’s the case, then deixis is 
pretty much an individual event, even a private one, since it occurs before 
language can be used to share it.

There are a number of interesting ways to look at ambiguity in language – 
even ambiguity in syntax.   But one way of looking at it is a problem created 
by a hundred million personal deictic events becoming representations, 
symbols that can be in some way and to some degree unambiguously shared by a 
hundred million speakers of the same language.   How is that accomplished?

Thus our focus shifts from ambiguity as a problem -- the common approach -- 
to how language solves that problem.
 
steve long 












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