Explanation
Discourse deixis is deictic reference to a location, passage, or emerging part of the current discourse. Expressions such as “as shown above,” “I shall return to that,” or “that was unclear” treat speech and text as navigable space. Unlike ordinary anaphora, the reference need not retrieve a nominal referent; it may indicate an entire utterance, argument, or speech act. Interpretation depends on utterance time, medium, and shared discourse state, since “here” differs in a lecture, chat, and book. The concept reveals how language maps its own temporal and spatial unfolding and enables participants jointly to reach backward and forward, repair formulations, and coordinate complex textual movement.
Movement of thought
1. A discourse first unfolds as a temporal or spatially written sequence whose parts may be differently accessible to participants. 2. A deictic expression establishes the present utterance location as an origo and points from it toward an earlier or later discourse segment. 3. Addressees use medium, structure, and shared history to determine whether wording, argument, passage, or speech act is intended. 4. A counter-test separates this indexical orientation from anaphoric coreference, ordinary spatial deixis, quotation, and metalinguistic naming. 5. Discourse gains a map of itself: past and future parts become reachable and revisable from each successive present.
Scientific use case
Pragmatics, text linguistics, and human-computer interaction annotate target span, direction, medium, and repair function in discourse-deictic expressions. Comparisons of speech, hypertext, and chat reveal shifting orientation centres.
Example
A lecturer says, “By ‘boundary’ here I do not mean a national border; I shall return to this distinction in the final section.”
Counterexample
In “Anna took the book. She opened it,” the pronouns refer to previously introduced entities. Without reference to a discourse location or utterance, this is ordinary anaphora.
Distinction
Distinguish it from anaphora and coreference, spatial and temporal deixis aimed outside discourse, metalanguage, quotation, chapter references as conventional document navigation, and discourse markers.
Effect on thought and perception
Discourse deixis creates navigation within unfolding text, supports cohesion and repair, and makes complex arguments manageable as jointly accessible sequences of locations.
Resonance
Discourse points toward its own trace; a present word touches what has passed or is still to come and keeps distant passages within shared attention.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Discourse deixis“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-METZ2-0009. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-METZ2-0009The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
The Deixis II page of Fillmore’s lectures explains discourse deixis as reference to parts of ongoing discourse. Spatial and temporal orientation extends to earlier and later portions, while encoding and decoding time can differ. Expressions such as in the last paragraph make text an orientable domain. The selected scan page was read directly; its edition year and German reception have not been established from that cropped witness.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
The diagnostic is reference to discourse portions, not merely a pronoun for a mentioned object.
References for the historical section
- B-FILLMORE · Lectures on Deixis, DeixisII opening p.103 / PDF14 right half; scan visually read