What is empathetic deixis?

Empathetic deixis is the metaphorical use of deictic forms to indicate emotional or other psychological “distance” or “proximity” between a speaker and a referent.

• The use of this to indicate the speaker’s empathy
• The use of that to indicate the speaker’s emotional distance

• What is deixis?

Levinson 1983 81

Lyons 1977b 677

Context for this page:

• Concept module: empathetic deixis
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): E
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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