CHAPTER FIVE:

DEICTIC SUBJECTIVITY: THE DEMONSTRATIVES

In addition to the categories of person, space and time, deixis also, and perhaps more
markedly, invokes the idea of pointing. Indeed, ostension and indexical reference are its prime
characteristics. However, ostention could never be separated from somebody's perception (Parret,
1980:109):
deixis and ostension are never pure representations of the world; they are praxes. Language
acquires argumentative, transformational and interactional force, and as such acquires practical (and
not only truth) value, once the deictic and ostensive workings in language use are realised. Reality
and the intersubjective environment are both changed by these workings.
The pointing act is necessarily mediated by the perceiver's spatio-temporal egocentricity (deictic
mediation), his ideological egocentricity (the mediation of the collective world views of his culture
normally enshrined into the language he natively speaks, hence ideological mediation) and his own
affective egocentricity (affective mediation). The implication of such mediation is that the
occurrence of these categories in discourse serves as a set of clues pregnant with information on the
speaker and his presuppositions. The recovery of these presuppositions from demonstratives as
clues is the task of a pragmatics of demonstratives. In Parret's words (1980:109):
Pragmatics concerns the role of the I-sayer in an interactional situation and an intersubjective
community. The I-sayer (and by extension: the "you-sayer", the "this/that-sayer", the "we-sayer"),
signifying I by his utterance, is guided by strategies making communication, interaction and
intersubjectivity possible: thus, the I-sayer is "constrained" but he has at the same time powerful
rights.
Three main features can be detected in demonstratives, namely that they have strong
affinities with definite expressions, that they have a shifting reference, and that their reference can
be opaque. It will be argued that these three features are instrumental in the identification of the
speaking voice in narrative.

V.1 Demonstratives as definite expressions:

The element of definiteness is the common denominator between demonstratives and other
definite expressions (Lyons, 1977:648). The implication of this feature is that the use of a
demonstrative pronoun enables the speaker to refer to a given person or entity and in the process
locate it with respect to a deictic centre. The relationship between the speaker and the referent
involves a multiplicity of degrees of epistemic certitude on the spatio-temporal distance of the
object with respect to ego (in terms of proximity vs distance). Affectively, it also involves various
possible subtle shades of attitudes towards the referent (in terms of emotional proximity versus
distance). The interrelationship between deictic and affective parameters will be examined.
It is believed, together with Fraser and Joly (1979), that the speaker's mediating subjectivity
along both deictic and affective parameters necessarily crops up on the surface of the utterance as it
determines which demonstrative pronoun is selected. From the use of demonstrative pronouns, it is
possible, as will be illustrated below, to reconstruct both the speaker's spatio-temporal location with
respect to the object described and especially his latent attitude(s) towards that referent.

V.2. Demonstratives as shifters:

The second point about demonstratives is that they belong to the class of shifters, as Parret
(1980:103) has forcefully argued:
Demonstratives are evidently indexical symbols: language entities with, on the one hand, a fixed
conventional or symbolic meaning, and on the other hand, a changing indexical meaning
corresponding to the particular circumstances of the utterance.
As is the case with all shifters, their interest lies in the compulsory reference they make to the
speech event and its participants (Jakobson, 1956). In other words, the occurrence in an utterance
[broadly understood here as any speech token in whichever form] of a demonstrative pronoun
should in principle be taken as a clue prompting the reader to infer the presence of a speaker.
However, public notices such as "this way please", "this park is dog-free" might seem to pose a
problem as they apparently have lost their spatio-temporal egocentricity with respect to their
original writers. Two points could made in answer. First, at the spatio-temporal level, because of
the public destination of these signs [and thus the speaker's disengaging strategy] what is relevant is
not the original writers' here/now but the location of the sign at the expected point of contact with
the intended perceivers. Being located where they are read they speak with a voice that is defined,
upon each user's look at them, with respect to the rest of the spatio-temporal coordinates present
here and now at this looking time. Second, at the ideological level, these signs could not be said to
have lost their egocentricity as they tend to bear the signatures of their originators especially where
private property is concerned. As such, demonstratives are presence-indicators and are thus
extremely instrumental in the identification of the speaking voice.

V.3. Opacity of reference of demonstratives:

A multiplicity of factors contribute to make ostensive reference potentially ambiguous.
Firstly, depending on what axis of reference is chosen as a defining deictic centre (the speaker's or
some other centre's), the terms of distance or closeness can vary considerably, causing thus a deictic
ambiguity. Secondly, affective factors often override deictic considerations, either by distancing
what is deictically near or drawing near what is deictically distant, leading thus to an affective
ambiguity. Thirdly, in the case of embedding (mediating other people's uses of demonstratives,
allowing for different degrees of speaker intervention in these forms), it is often unclear which
forms originate in the mediator's discourse and which forms originate in the mediated discourse
(and in the latter case to what extent the original reported forms have been changed during the
process of mediation). This causes a mediatory ambiguity.
With these three kinds of ambiguity in mind, it becomes clear that demonstratives are not
transparent straightforward presence-indicators. They need to be contextualised and attributed to
their respective centres. It should be made clear what kind of ambiguity is involved and what kind
of inference can be made from the finding for the identification of the speaking voice in a text. The
different stages of the process of heterogenisation of the demonstrative pronoun should be clearly
spelled out through the reader's reconstruction of this trajectory starting from the available clues.

V.4. Canonical vs Displaced uses of Demonstratives:

In their underlying structure, this/these tend to be associated with the first person and all that
comes into its sphere. They effect a centripetal movement drawing near to the spatio-temporal
present of "I". That/those, on the other hand, tend to be associated with the "other" (second and
third persons) and constitute thus a centrifugal movement drawing away from the speaker's spatio-
temporal present of consciousness (Fraser and Joly, 1979). The point is that this basically deictic
underlying mechanism of proximity [this/these] versus distance [that/those] will be shown to have
wide pragmatic applications serving a variety of affective purposes which are still explainable in its
terms (see chapter three for the affinities with the opposition here vs there and chapter four for now
vs then)
The use of demonstratives can be extended to cover "non-deictic" or at least borderline cases
(Lyons, 1977:656):
As we shall see, the basically deictic distinction of "this":"that" and "here":"there" is extended to a
variety of non-deictic dimensions.
The study of anaphora, cataphora and the various grades of textual deixis below will clarify the
point. However, whether the use of a demonstrative pronoun is clearly deictic or whether textual
demonstratives have affinities with deictic ones [as Lyons has demonstrated] it still has the same
relevance for the present argument in that it inevitably presupposes an act of locating the referent
somewhere (either in the physical world or in the universe of discourse). An act of locating
presupposes an axis of reference, a set of criteria (or measurement units) for locating and a special
motivation for so doing. The aggregate of these three presuppositions is indicative of the identity of
the speaking voice.
As has been argued above, affective factors do influence the use of demonstratives and can
cause thus an affective ambiguity overriding basic deictic considerations. Deictics can take on
affective values (charleston, 1960). However, as Lyons (1977:668) has pointed out:
The conditions which govern the selection of "this" and "that" with reference to events immediately
preceding and immediately following the utterance, or the part of the utterance in which "this" and
"that" occur, are quite complex. They include a number of subjective factors (such as the speaker's
dissociation of himself from the event he is referring to), which are intuitively relatable to the
deictic notion of proximity/non-proximity, but are difficult to specify precisely. What does seem
clear, however, is that the use of the demonstratives in both temporal and textual deixis, and also in
anaphora, is connected with their use in spatial deixis.
Abstract or emotional attitudes are cast in spatial terms. The point is that, according to the localist
hypothesis, it is necessary for a speaker to conceptualise the affective by borrowing the
terminology of the material. The affective centre has first and foremost to go through the basic
stage of being spatio-temporally anchored. In other words, the affective centre is manifested in
language through the guise of a deictic centre that, whilst transcending the material (spatio-
temporal) into the realm of attitudes and world views, cannot totally dispense with its materiality.
The underlying mechanism capitalises on the two fundamental movements towards or away
from the sphere of the speaker. Various effects could be created by the manipulation of these
movements. As will be exemplified below, affective effects may indicate disdain, mockery,
scepticism, humour, anger, annoyance, etc. on the part of the speaker in connection with the person
spoken to, or the person or object spoken about. But even if the speaker is not consciously
manipulating the linguistic devices available to him (he is not explicitly conscious, that is, of the
functioning of these devices in the system), he will still instinctively include people, actions, states
or qualities in his sphere and exclude others from this sphere depending on the nature and intensity
of his emotional involvement in the utterance.
Every speaker has a set of attitudes towards the very message he is uttering and towards the
addressee or d‚locut‚. His utterance surely bears the marks of his subjectivity, in brief, the degrees
of his active and subjective involvement. This affective component in the selection of the
demonstratives is a useful clue in the identification of the speaking voice. By detecting the
subjective charge grafted onto the form the reader is likely to be better equipped to attribute it to a
particular likely affective centre especially when knowledge of the relationships obtaining between
characters in the novel is brought to bear on the text.
As an illustration, the following passages contrast the uses of this and that in the same
context and indeed, co-text. The opposition can only be explained in terms of the affective
exploitation of these contrasting latent mechanisms as in the following passage:
He felt the devil twisting his tail, and pretended it was the angels smiling on him. This state of
falsity had now brought on that crisis of falsity and dislocation, hysteria, which is a form of
insanity. (LCL:304)
Although the referent is in the same "state of falsity", we have what is canonically considered a
proximal-distal opposition of this vs that. The only way to account for such use is to attribute the
this to the speaker's foregrounding (see below) of this state of affairs as particularly preoccupying or
salient. Once this is done, the feelings of rejection and distancing crop up and take priority, hence
the subsequent use of that. The hostile attitude latent both in the use of the demonstratives and in
other lexical items (see chapter seven) is likely to have emanated from Connie's consciousness
making it very probable that the speaking voice is hers.
On the other hand, the contrasting uses of this and that could be a source of confusion
because there are many candidates for responsibility for the affective charge, as in the following
passage:
They were so close, he and she, apart from that. And Connie exulted in this intimacy which was
beyond sex, and beyond a man's "satisfaction". Clifford anyhow was not just keen on his
"satisfaction", as so many men seemed to be. No, the intimacy was deeper, more personal than that.
(LCL:13)
There is a clear commitment on the part of the speaker to this sexless intimacy signalled by the use
of this [a sign of nearness to the speaker] (see below). Similarly, the use of that, especially the
second one, is clearly dismissive of the real sexual contact as something unworthy of the higher
relationship. However, it is not clear who the speaker might be. Is he Clifford seeking to justify his
impotence? Or Connie deluding herself at this early stage of her relationship with Clifford? Or
simply the narrator viewing Connie's delusions from a knowing position and thus satirising this
relationship that he knows is bound to collapse?

V.5. Sample affective effects in the use of demonstratives:

In essence, the following account is mostly inspired by Fraser and Joly (1979-80). All these
effects conform to the latent mechanism discussed above. It has been argued that speakers use the
deictic notions of proximity versus distance to express affective attitudes. Sometimes there is an
overlap between the two dimensions (physical proximity matching affective interest); sometimes
the two levels clash where affective considerations become the chief criteria (either physical
proximity but affective distancing or physical distance but affective drawing near to the speaker).
V.5.1 Foregrounding/interest vs backgrounding/coldness:
It has been argued in the underlying structure of demonstratives that if speakers are
interested in something, they will tend to draw it near to themselves. If on the other hand, there is a
lack of interest on their part, they will use distancing devices in order to keep it away from
themselves. Likewise, they will foreground certain issues or features (because they are trying to
make a point, because they think such features are important...) or else relegate them to the
background. The following are sample combinations of deictic and affective parameters being
used.
V.5.1.1 Physical proximity and affective interest:
The speaker's interest in a referent can be either positive (likings, desires, friendly feelings,
and various degrees of appreciation) or negative (dislikes, anathemas, hostility, and various degrees
of rejection). But whether the interest is positive or negative, its strength is not at all diminished.
First, to illustrate positive interest, consider the following excerpt where Birkin is featured in
full touching contact with nature:
and then to feel the light whip of the hazel on one's shoulders, stinging, and then to clasp the silvery
birch-trunk against one's breast, its smoothness, its hardness, its vital knots and ridges - this was
good, this was all very good, very satisfying. Nothing else would do, nothing else would satisfy,
except this coolness and subtlety of vegetation travelling into one's blood. (WIL:119-20)
The use of this is both deictic [this equals what I ego as deictic centre am touching here and now]
and affective [this equals what I ego as affective centre am presently enjoying]. Both deictically
and affectively, the speaking voice is that of an experiential centre, namely, Birkin's.
On the other hand, exasperation can warrant a speaker's negative interest in a referent. Thus
when Birkin is brooding over Hermione's house, the following passage ensues:
Even Alexander was rather authoritative where Hermione was cool. He took his tone from her,
inevitably. Birkin sat down and looked at the table. He was so used to this house, to this room, to
this atmosphere, through years of intimacy, and now he felt in complete opposition to it all, it had
nothing to do with him. (WIL:109-10)
The use of this, in concert with now prompts the reader to infer the deictic presence of an
experiential centre who, in view the reported state of affairs, can only be Birkin himself. The
narrator's intervention besides the direct report in "Birkin sat down and looked at the table" is at the
levels of person [shift from first to third person] and time [shift from Birkin's present of perception
to the story's past with respect to the narrator's present].
In addition, this can reveal the speaker's set and firm purpose besides physical proximity.
Thus, when Gerald throttles Gudrun, the following passage ensues:
He took the throat of Gudrun between his hands, that were hard and indomitably powerful. And her
throat was beautifully, so beautifully soft, save that, within, he could feel the slippery chords of her
life. And this he crushed, this he could crush. (WIL:531)
In the context of the narrator's third-person report, the occurrence of the demonstrative pronoun
signals a shift in consciousness as it carries with it all the emotional involvement of the perceptual
centre, namely Gerald.
V.5.1.2 Physical proximity but psychological distance:
Despite physical proximity, subjective factors can cause the speaker to use distal deictics. In
that case, distance could reveal a lack of interest or simply be a purely mechanical abstract distance.
Thus, a speaker can hold an item in his own hand and still use the distal that to refer to it. In
chapter three a passage has been discussed where Connie holds a chick in her hands and refers to it
as being there.
V.5.1.3 Physical distance but affective interest:
On the other hand, despite physical distance, the speaker can use proximal deictics. Thus, in
the following passage:
Gudrun, new from her life in Chelsea and Sussex, shrank cruelly from this amorphous ugliness of a
small colliery town in the Midlands...It was strange that she should have chosen to come back and
test the full effect of this shapeless, barren ugliness upon herself. Why had she wanted to submit
herself to it, did she still want to submit herself to it, the insufferable torture of these ugly,
meaningless people, this defaced countryside? (WIL:11)
despite the presence of many other subjectivity indices, the profusion of the proximal deictics is the
major clue in the identification of the speaking voice. The distal that/those are normally expected
both deictically [since the referents are arguably "there"] and especially emotionally [dismissed
outside ego as "the other"]. However, the use of the proximal deictics instead signals a heightened
speaker involvement [the speaker is primarily concerned]. Only an aesthetically fastidious artist or
person of that inclination is likely to be so sensitive about the presumed "ugliness". Thus Gudrun is
the only probable experiential centre whose voice we are having access to in this text.
V.5.2 Availability vs non-availability to speaker:
Another parameter that uses the apparatus of proximity versus distance is the speaker's
appraisal of the chances of access to the referent (or any other epistemic attitude such as the chances
of success of the proposed action, speaker's responsibility vs addressee's responsibility in vouching
for such probability, etc.). This suggests that the speaker has confidence in his or the addressee's or
the délocuté's ability to have access to the referent, or that he accepts part of the responsibility with
respect to the referent:
Gudrun went on her way half dazed. If this were human life, if these were human beings, living in
a complete world, then what was her own world, outside? (WIL:12)
The speaker seems to have had an overdoze of or overexposure to the overwhelming presence of
people that he would have willingly dismissed away from his self. It is this acute sensitivity to the
people's presence here in contrast to the world nurtured in the speaker's mind there which accounts
for the use of the proximal deictics. Thus, the presence of a cognitive centre (GrŠmas and CourtŠs,
1982) as expressed in deictic terms is inferred from the use of deixis, this being Gudrun.
 That on the other hand suggests that the speaker disclaims any responsibility toward the
referent and discharges it unto the addressee or has slim hopes of access to the referent. Thus in the
following passage:
That powerful, athletic chest hid a strange, snowy sort of anger. (V&G:223)
Yvette's attraction to the general is frustrated by his unavailability. It is the admiration of a virgin
for the male attributes in the d‚locut‚ which she cannot reasonably hope to have access to; hence the
use of the distal that.
V.5.3 Degrees of affective distancing:
There are various degrees of affective distancing ranging from cold reserve (somewhere at
the least end of the cline) towards a heightened speaker involvement (with a high emotional
intensity). The following taxonomy illustrates a few samples in an ascending order of intensity.
V.5.3.1 Reserved curiosity:
In narrative, this tends to take place when characters are first introduced to each other. Thus
when Gudrun is observing Mrs Crich the following passage ensues:
But her skin was clear and fine, her hands, as she sat with them forgotten and folded, were quite
beautiful, full of potential energy. A great mass of energy seemed decaying up in that silent,
hulking form. (WIL:368)
The use of the distal that can be attributed both to a physical distance [not included into what I
speaker define as my own sphere] or, more plausibly, to the speaker's cold reserve. If so, this
deictic device can be construed as an indicator of the presence of an affective centre whose voice
we are having access to, namely, Gudrun's.
V.5.3.2 Distancing (speaker's condescension):
A slightly more involved speaker's attitude can be found in the next passage where the
comment that:
The question, coming from that darkly eastern face, couched in that Oxford accent, struck Dasein as
supremely amusing. (SRB:194)
reveals both a sensitivity to an auditory stimulus and especially a distancing operation with respect
to it through the repetition of the distal that. Dasein, an investigative psychologist, seems to be the
probable candidate to be the speaking voice. However, the past tense and the reference to Dasein in
the third person are the narrator's.
V.5.3.3 Mild offense:
Distancing is normally associated with a given measure of anger. Anger can be just a mild
offense as in this extract:
Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not communicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth
was all the echo she could win. (DG:95)
The relatively hostile reaction to the mouth [signalled by the distal that, the lexical item "sullen"
and the negative "only" (see chapter seven)] is likely to emanate from an experiential centre as a
protagonist in the story, namely, Sybil.
V.5.3.4 Undesirability of the referent:
The speaker could find the referent, or at least certain aspects of it undesirable. A mild form
of this undesirability is featured in this passage:
"Jenny?"#"I heard you." Still that casual...distance in her tone. (SRB:111)
where the distal that contributes to make Dasein's annoyance unmistakable. However, in a stronger
form, as in the next extract:
"I suppose they're your sort!" he sneered.#"Well, they are, really," she said, with that blithe
vagueness. (V&G:231)
the rector's sneering, together with the mixture of familiarity (in the sense of prior knowledge) and
distancing grafted on the distal deictic device paves the way for our expectation of this attitude to
Yvette to emanate from him.
V.5.3.5 Emotional rejection/hatred of the referent:
Distancing can amount to emotional rejection of the referent, as in Yvette's reaction to the
following environment:
Exactly as if a distaste for Granny and for that horrible house of relatives was in itself a proof of
lunacy, dangerous lunacy. (V&G:235)
where the deictic device highlights the overall negative attitude of the speaker. Similarly, hatred
can be a likely motivation for a strong emotional charge invested in the distal deictic device:
Meanwhile she heard the hoarse deep roaring of that old fool, Rover, punctuated by the yapping of
that young idiot, Trixie. (V&G:204)
The combination of that and other lexical items "old fool", "yapping" and "young idiot" (see chapter
seven) signals Yvette's heightened feelings.
V.5.3.6 Revulsion from the referent:
A stronger motivation can be the speaker's disgust with the referent. Thus in the following
passage:
But in her great age, it had gone like a toad's, lipless, the jaw pressing up like the lower jaw of a
trap. The look Yvette most hated was the look of that lower jaw pressing relentlessly up, with an
ancient prognathous thrust. (V&G:235)
the use of the distal that can only be attributed to the speaker's [here Yvette's] revulsion from and
hatred of her granny's mouth.
What the previous illustrations have shown is firstly that various affective charges make use
of the underlying deictic mechanism of proximity versus distance, and secondly that the detection
and measurement of these charges do help in the identification of the speaking voice.

V.6. Anaphoric uses of demonstratives:

As defined by Lyons (1977:670):
Anaphora involves the transference of what are basically spatial notions to the temporal dimension
of the context-of-utterance and the reinterpretation of deictic location in terms of what may be
called location in the universe of discourse.
The main point of the following discussion is that deixis is more basic than anaphora. In other
words, the deictic spatio-temporal space provides a useful framework which encompasses reference
within the universe of discourse (Lyons, 1979:88):
I will argue that deixis is both ontogenetically and logically prior to anaphora... anaphora, as a
grammatical and semantic process, is inexplicable except in terms of its having originated in deixis.
Both acts of reference (whether deictic or anaphoric) presuppose an act of selection of items to
locate, an act of locating things and a specific motivation for so doing by a given centre. In deictic
reference, the axis of reference is a deictic centre functioning along the parameters of person, space
and time. In anaphoric reference, the axis of reference is a cognitive centre [using the deictic
apparatus] arranging things in his mind in their order of salience.
V.6.1 The deictic component in anaphora:
Adopting a localist stance, Lyons (1977:95) has perceived affinities between anaphora,
textual deixis and temporal deixis. The relevant quote is in Lyons (1979:97):
It is the notion of relative proximity in time to the zero-point of utterance that connects anaphora
and textual deixis with deictic temporal reference. Proximity in space is re-interpreted as proximity
in time: and proximity in text or co-text is based upon proximity in time.
Here focus is laid on the deictic component in anaphora. The reference to a zero-point seems to
originate in deixis. That is why the proximal this can have a temporal value meaning "now". Thus,
the person behind "this time" in:
But should she? he would fight to death, this time, first. (V&G:230)
has to be the rector as a protagonist in the story (see also chapter seven for the subjective effects of
questions and modals).
V.6.1.1 Textual deixis:
In certain uses of the demonstratives, the affinities between deixis and anaphora are so
strong as to warrant the term of textual deixis, defined by Lyons (1977:667) as:
The link between the deictic and the anaphoric function of pronouns is seen in what may be called
textual deixis. Demonstrative pronouns and other deictic expressions may be used to refer to
linguistic entities of various kinds (forms, parts of forms, lexemes, expressions, text-sentences, and
so on) in the co-text of the utterance.
Lyons complains that textual deixis is frequently confused with anaphora, attributing this confusion
to people's failure to distinguish linguistic from non-linguistic entities. However, as the samples
discussed below will illustrate, the borderlines between textual deixis and anaphora are not always
clear-cut. Besides, what is gained from insisting on their distinction since in the final analysis both
go back to the same deictic mechanism (that he rightly makes a point of acknowledging)?
V.6.1.2 Textual Cohesion:
The alternative view offered against this distinction has been put forward by Brown and
Yule (1983) in their discussion of Halliday and Hasan's (1976) notion of textual cohesion:
We shall suggest that it seems more likely that the processor establishes a referent in his mental
representation of the discourse and relates subsequent references to that referent back to his mental
representation, rather than to the original verbal expression in the text. If this view is correct, the
distinction between endophoric and exophoric co-reference becomes much harder to draw. (pp.200-
1)
The implications of this critique are vital for the present argument since the most important
dimension has been inserted [namely the mediation of the speaker's mental representation]. As
Chatelin (1987) has well perceived, the act of locating a referent either in the deictic space or in the
universe of discourse is not a transparent "objective" [in the sense of totally unmediated] rendering
of reality as it is out there in the world [or in the text]. Rather, what we have in an utterance [and
narratives are utterances] is somebody's perception of this act of reference. In the process of this
mediation, "purely deictic or textual coordinates" get permeated throughout with the speakers'
world views, their emotional states of affairs, their memories of previous experiences, their personal
motivations etc.. Thus affective parameters do enter into play.
V.6.2 The affective component in anaphora: Salience and speaker involvement:
The most important component in anaphora is the notion of salience in the speaker's mind,
well argued in Lyons (1979:95):
Furthermore, they are ordered hierarchically in the universe-of-discourse in terms of salience. By
this I mean that, at any one time and for any one person, certain entities are more probable
candidates for reference than others are; and the intensional objects in correspondence with these
entities in the universe-of-discourse are correspondingly more salient.
Salience presupposes an act of selection, a set of criteria for selecting and some motivation for so
doing. However, there are degrees of salience in mind whether or not salience corresponds with
deictic proximity.
V.6.2.1 Salience in mind coupled with physical proximity: physico-affective
involvement:
 In the first instance, a clearly deictic act of presupposing the existence of the referent is
coupled by an affective act of pointing:
Then at the end another bedroom - one soft breathing. This was she. (WIL:385)
The ensuing events reveal that this presupposition of existence turned out to be false. In other
words, the agent responsible for this presupposition must be limited in his knowledge of
circumstances within the story; hence the speaker has to be a cognitive centre at the story level,
namely Gerald (see chapter seven for modality).
In the second illustrative example, the physical proximity of the referent is not the most
salient feature in the speaker's mind. Rather, it is the very fact of ever having such a referent which
is highlighted:
So this woman knew! How much did the rest of the servants know or suspect? (LCL:308)
The pointing implied here is of the reckoning kind [what next? who else knows?]. The emotional
charge in the proximal deictic device, together with the mentioning of the social status of the
délocutés (see chapter two) serve as clues indicating that the speaking voice here belongs to Connie,
a protagonist within the story.
Finally, in the next excerpt, the physical proximity loses its deictic force and sets into relief
the affective evaluative force of the description:
He looked at the bright, reddish face of the other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes,
and at the rather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the black cropped moustache.
How curious it was that this was a human being! (WIL:288)
The exclamation mark and the lexical item "curious" (chapter seven) set into relief the subjectivity
of the portrayal, clearly emanating from an affective centre within the story, namely Birkin.
V.6.2.2 Experiential deixis [that I feel now]: heightened affective involvement:
Affective involvement can emanate from the speaker's present and unique experience:
A thousand lives, a thousand deaths mattered nothing now, only the fulfillment of this perfect
ecstasy. (WIL:118-9)
Thus the proximal deictic pronoun this is a clue revealing the presence of an experiential centre,
namely Hermione as she is hitting Birkin's head.
It could also come as a response on the part of the speaker to some external stimulus:
"But I can't believe it," said her low voice, amazed, trembling. She was trembling with doubt and
exultance. This was the thing she wanted to hear, only this. (WIL:372)
The use of the demonstrative pronoun here indicates that there has to be somebody who is presently
responding to some stimulus, this experiential centre being Ursula, a character in the story.
At a more abstract level, somebody's experience does not have to be instantaneous and
shortlived. It could be the aggregate of a long experienced state of affairs that is also, and
necessarily, true now:
Ursula often wondered what else she waited for, and the beginning and end of the holidays. This
was a whole life! Sometimes she had periods of tight horror, when it seemed to her that her life
would pass away and be gone, without having been more than this. (WIL:57)
In the context of the narrator's report, the occurrence of the deictic this serves as indicator of a shift
in consciousness so that the exclamation emanates from Ursula and indicates that it is her voice we
are having access to (see exclamations in chapter seven).
V.6.2.3 Subjective classificatory generalisations:
Any act of classification presupposes the presence of a classifier, a set of criteria for
classifying and some motivation for so doing. Certain uses of deictics imply an act of classification,
as in the following extract:
And it [Granny's mouth] made one [Yvette] feel that Granny would never die. She would live on
like these higher reptiles, in a state of semi-coma, for ever. (V&G:235)
This act of classification is enhanced by the comparison (chapter seven) to produce a heightened
subjective effect stemming from an involved speaker, namely Yvette as a character in the story.
Salience can be negatively marked by the speaker's distancing himself from the referent:
"To be free," he said. "To be free, in a free place, with a few other people!"#"Yes," she said
wistfully. Those "few other people" depressed her. (WIL:356)
The distancing here is double, first through the use of the distal those [as opposed to a potential
these] and secondly the use of quotation marks expressing the speaker's reservations about the
reported message (chapter seven). Evidently, the person so involved must be somebody directly
affected by or responding to the quoted phrase. Here this person is Ursula.
Sometimes, anaphoric reference would seem to be a purely mechanical "textual" co-
reference, having nothing to do with emotions. The answer to this is that even then the act of
reference must be justified by the relevance to the speaker of selecting the referent. Relevance
evokes some motivated selection, hence some latent subjectivity that can be reconstructed from
available textual clues. To illustrate this, consider the following passage:
There had been a split in the Cabinet; the Minister for Education had resigned owing to adverse
criticism. This started a conversation on education. (WIL:94)
On the face of it, the proximal this seems to be "purely anaphoric". However, knowing Birkin's
exasperation with philosophical debates dragging in Hermione [which information is supplied from
the overall perusal of the novel and is brought here to bear on the text], the reader is forced to
reconsider the alleged "purity" of anaphoric reference under the light of this new information. It is
then that the deictic pronoun this takes on a new affective significance. It comes to express another
degree of salience in mind [Birkin's], and a negative one for that.
 It could be concluded then that anaphoric uses of the demonstratives do involve often deictic
and always affective components. These components are pragmatically reconstructed. Their
inseparability from the demonstratives turns the latter into very convenient clues helping in the
identification of the speaking voice.

V.7 Cataphoric uses of demonstratives:

Similarly, it will be argued through illustrative examples that cataphoric reference in the use
of demonstratives is not simply a "purely textual" exercise. Often deictic and always affective
considerations enter into play. The following discussion aims at providing some sample deictic
and/or affective effects inherent in the demonstratives that are detected in textually cataphoric
positions.
V.7.1 Spatio-temporal significance:
The demonstrative highlighted in the following passage could be reformulated as [the
seemingly innocent beauty sitting opposite me now]:
In his eyes, she was just brazening out the depravity that underlay her virgin, tender, bird-like face.
She-who-was-Cynthia had been like this: a snow-flower. (V&G:232)
It is this interpretation of the demonstrative this which enables the reader to attribute the utterance
to a deictico-affective centre, namely the rector observing his daughter Yvette (see chapter seven
for lexical choice as an indicator of personality, here the repertoire of a priest).
V.7.2 Experiential statements:
Cataphoric reference can have experiential values. Thus in the following passage:
Gudrun rose sharply and went away. She could not bear it. She wanted to be alone, to know this
strange, sharp inoculation that had changed the whole temper of her blood. (WIL:24)
the speaker responsible for this is the same person experiencing the "strange sharp inoculation"
since the proximal aspect of this demonstrative can be accounted for by the speaker's being directly
(strongly and perhaps positively) affected. This experiential centre is Gudrun herself.
A speaker strongly involved in an affective experience but who feels unable to rationalise it
or at least to understand it will predictably use the distal that:
Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so curious and so exciting to him.
(WIL:71)
The lexical items "curious" and "exciting" (see chapter seven), together with the intensifier so used
twice (see chapter six) compel this affective reading of the demonstrative. The speaker is a
perceptual centre, here Gerald observing Minette.
V.7.3 Epistemic certainty vs confusion:
The opposition of proximal versus distal deixis can underlie the affective opposition of
epistemic certainty versus confusion in the mind of the speaker. This tends to reveal a strong self-
confidence on the part of the speaker:
Hermione watched her with slow, calm eyes. She noted this new expression of vaunting. How she
envied Ursula a certain unconscious positivity! even her vulgarity!" (WIL:330)
In the light of character build-up in the novel, Hermione is expected to be overbearingly assertive
especially in her evaluation of other socially inferior people. The strong definiteness implied in the
deictic device is more akin to her.
Ursula on the other hand is more diffident and less sure about her surroundings. Thus the
distal that in:
Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long, detached scrutinizing gaze that excited the younger
woman... Again Hermione looked down at Yursula with that long scrutiny, as if she were following
some train of thought of her own, and barely attending to the other's speech. (WIL:42)
is likely to reveal her own disconcerted and confused state of mind facing a socially superior and
mysterious character [Hermione].
V.7.4 Familiarity versus estrangement:
The proximal distal opposition also underlies affective familiarity versus estrangement, or
current relevance versus lack of present relevance. Both the following passages presuppose the
speaker's knowledge of the d‚locut‚. Yet there is a difference in focus which accounts for the
difference in the choice of deictics. In the first passage:
The curious thing was that when this child-man, which Clifford was now and which he had been
becoming for years, emerged into the world, it was much sharper and keener than the real man he
used to be. This perverted child-man was now a real business-man. (LCL:305-6)
the proximal deictic device highlights the hereness-nowness relevance (Adamson, in progress) of
the state of affairs. What is salient in the speaker's mind is not so much the d‚locut‚'s history as it is
his present condition. This text comes as a sequel to a series of reflections made by Connie on
Clifford. The heightened present involvement of the speaker makes it very probable that the
speaking voice is hers.
However, in the second passage, it is the past precedence which is highlighted [this is not
new to me], hence the use of that:
"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head back in that odd way that
used to make his friends laugh at him at Oxford. (PDG:24)
The speaker unearthes old information thought to explain a present state of affairs; or rather, the
present stimulus evokes in the speaker's mind old memories. The vis‚e is retrospective. The
assumption is that I as a speaker was one of these friends referred to. Lord Henry seems to be this
kind of person who, at the beginning of the twentieth century had the prestigious privilege of
studying in Oxford. He is the most likely perceptual/cognitive centre.
V.7.5 Generalising classificatory statements:
In generalisations, the speaker embarks on a disengaging shifting out process (see chapter
one) which warrants the use of the distal that/those [ideal for the disjunction of the utterance outside
self onto "the other"]. However, despite these affinities with distal deixis, the generalising tendency
remains highly subjective since we only have the retiring speaker's word to vouch for the truth of
the statement. In the first passage:
On her face was that tender look of sleep, which a nodding flower has when it is full out.
(V&G:216)
the use of the present tense enhances this generalising tendency yet at the same time sharply draws
attention to the presence of somebody making this generalisation in his present of enunciating (see
chapter four). Thus,this generalising statement [signalled both by the deictic tool and the present
tense] is a presence indicator. However, in the second passage:
The rector looked at her [Yvette's] insouciant face with hatred. Somewhere inside him, he was
cowed, he had been born cowed. And those who are born cowed are natural slaves, and deep
instinct makes them fear with poisonous fear those who might suddenly snap the slave's collar
round their necks. (V&G:230)
the two uses of those emanate from two different cognitive centres. The first those emanates from
Yvette judging her father especially in view of the lack of certainty signalled by the use of
somewhere (see chapters three and six). The second those however provides an interesting complex
case of embedding. Originally, Yvette's d‚locut‚s [people like the rector], had they been speakers,
would have referred to their victims [people like Yvette] in the distal those. But their imagined
typical use of the distal deictics has already been distanced by Yvette [author of the first those].
Thus the second those is doubly distanced (the distancing of distal deixis).
SUMMARY:
The aim of this chapter has been to examine through illustrative examples how
demonstratives function as useful clues in the identification of narrative voice. It has been found
that demonstratives indicate the speaker's subjectivity in many respects. On the deictic level,
demonstratives strongly presuppose an axis of reference [either a spatio-temporal centre defining
the coordinates of person, space and time, or, in the context of the universe of discourse, a cognitive
centre functioning in terms of salience]. On the affective level, demonstratives always presuppose
an affective centre experiencing some sort of attitude or response to the referent. Affective
parameters are expressed in basic deictic terms of proximity versus distance. However, when both
deictic and affective considerations are brought to bear in the choice of demonstratives, the
affective considerations take priority. It is by searching for the deictic and especially the affective
components in demonstratives that it becomes possible to attribute them to their respective centres,
and thus to contextualise them. Only then can narrative voice be identified.