Proximal and distal deictics and the construal of narrative time
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Barbara Dancygier
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.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Guest Editors for their inspiring ideas, for their guidance, and for bringing many diverse approaches together in one issue. I also want to thank my anonymous reviewers for alerting me to slippery points in my argument and helping me improve the paper.
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Linguistic and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint in narrative discourse
- Shared spaces, shared mind: Connecting past and present viewpoints in American Sign Language narratives
- Traveling through narrative time: How tense and temporal deixis guide the representation of time and viewpoint in news narratives
- Genre as a factor determining the viewpoint-marking quality of verb tenses
- Bridging the gap between the near and the far: Displacement and representation
- Shifting tenses, viewpoints, and the nature of narrative communication
- Time, tense and viewpoint shift across languages: A Multiple-Parallel-Text approach to “tense shifting” in a tenseless language
- Proximal and distal deictics and the construal of narrative time
- Backwards time: Causal catachresis and its influence on viewpoint flow
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Linguistic and cognitive representation of time and viewpoint in narrative discourse
- Shared spaces, shared mind: Connecting past and present viewpoints in American Sign Language narratives
- Traveling through narrative time: How tense and temporal deixis guide the representation of time and viewpoint in news narratives
- Genre as a factor determining the viewpoint-marking quality of verb tenses
- Bridging the gap between the near and the far: Displacement and representation
- Shifting tenses, viewpoints, and the nature of narrative communication
- Time, tense and viewpoint shift across languages: A Multiple-Parallel-Text approach to “tense shifting” in a tenseless language
- Proximal and distal deictics and the construal of narrative time
- Backwards time: Causal catachresis and its influence on viewpoint flow
