Temporal Deixis

Deixis is the method of relating to the spatio-temporal context of an utterance. Deictic expressions or indexicals are among the first forms to be spoken by very young children, and are thus very fundamental to our notion. Deictic concepts are most easily understood by people. Among the various types of deixis, this paper focuses on application of Temporal and Spatial deixis concepts in solving mathematical word problems. A deictic expression is anchored to a deictic center, such that the evaluation of the meaning of the expression leads one to the relevant point. As deictic expressions are frequently egocentric, the center often consists of the speaker at the time and place of the utterance. Also, the deictic center may be transferred to other participants in the exchange, or to persons / places / etc. being described in a narrative. In language, we talk about time in terms of space. From the perspective of conceptual grounding, abstract temporal cognition is grounded in a more concrete spatial cognition. On a similar ground, this paper aims to apply these fundamental concepts of temporal deixis and deictic temporal elements, and project them to a spatial structure, and use the concept of deictic center shifting for solution of mathematical word problems which involve equations based on time-dependent variables. The projection of the temporal problem into a spatial structure simplifies the comprehension process for the student. This deictic approach improves the student's understanding of the problem at hand and increases the student's accuracy in solving such numericals of the same genre.

This paper explores the way time is lexically expressed in Setswana. Using data from a Setswana corpus, the study isolated instances of temporal reference for linguistic analysis. The paper demonstrates that Setswana uses varied devices such as temporal adverbs (e.g. maabane 'yesterday' and phakela 'in the morning') and spatial metaphors (e.g. pele 'ahead, before, in front, first' and morago 'behind, after, at [the] back') to express time. Even though Setswana has adapted metric ways of showing time such as calendar months and days, the discussion shows that temporal reference in traditional Setswana was event-based (e.g. based on movements of the sun and seasonal change). The study shows that Setswana lexical expressions of time are bound up with the ways in which Setswana speakers conceptualise time.

The aim of this paper is to formulate a method for solving mathematical word problems by using the concept of deixis in language. The main focus is to understand the pattern of the question presented and thereby correlating the deictic aspects in the problem formulation with the solution strategy. This paper particularly focuses on school-level mathematics problems, particularly those involving the concept of time.

本稿では、発話時を表す「今」とさまざまな領域においてその対応物を同定する「今ごろ」の解釈方略を考察する。まず「明日の今ごろ」のような相対的時間名詞と共に用いられる用法を観察し、「今ごろ」の解釈には「今」が設定する発話時を時間スケールで評価して、その時間的性質を抽出する必要があることを見る。さらに、モーダルの助動詞「だろう」「かもしれない」のように「話し手の現実」と離れた領域の設定を必要とする場合や、「条件的仮想」のような現実と異なる領域の設定を必要とする場合にも「今ごろ」が用いられることから、これらの場合にも「今」が評価される時間スケールが関わっていることを提案する。この提案によりモーダルを含む文における「今ごろ」と「今」のニュアンスの違い、譲歩文の後件に「今ごろ」が使いにくいことを説明する。In this paper I attempt to give a discourse management account of a deictic time noun 'imagoro ('now'+'time identifier')'. It is claimed that 'imagoro' serves to identify the counterpart of 'ima (now)' in a parallel mental space. We first examine the uses of 'imagoro' in cases where it combines with periodic deictic time nouns such as 'asita (tomorrow about this time),' 'rainen no imagoro (next year about this time)'. We argue that the use of 'imagoro' in these cases are licensed by the presence of a parallel temporal structure definable on a periodic time scale. For imagoro to get the value corresponding to the utterance time in the counterpart space. The counterpart space must contain a temporal structure parallel to the base space, accounting for the restriction of imagoro to periodic time nouns. It will further be demonstrated that the licensing conditions based on the parallel structure can be extended to the cases of imagoro in modal structure and conditionals, suggesting the possibility that they also involve a parallel temporal structure.

The article reviews the introductory scene of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus in search of deictic reference. The analysis of some uses of  the local, temporal and personal deixis as well as its social and emotional aspects reaffirms the main function of the prologue in the context of the whole tragedy.

This paper proposes a partial linguistic analysis of Anne Bradstreet's poem. We examine it from the pragmastylistic point of view, not in an interpretative or evaluative fashion, but rather with a view to contributing to a certain level of its interpretation. The linguist's contribution, as we see it, is to start from an evaluation or a specific level of interpretation of the poem or text and work her way through the means in an effort to enhance appreciation and  understanding. The analysis will primarily address the issue of the logomachia between the two sisters and the issue of the substantiality of the Spirit's claims. It will consider the impact of the lexical choices made as constituting the coordinates of the text which determine the response of the reader.

This paper explores the way time is lexically expressed in Setswana. Using data from a Setswana corpus, the study isolated instances of temporal reference for linguistic analysis. The paper demonstrates that Setswana uses varied devices such as temporal adverbs (e.g. maabane ‘yesterday’ and phakela ‘in the morning’) and spatial metaphors (e.g. pele ‘ahead, before, in front, first’ and morago ‘behind, after, at [the] back’) to express time. Even though Setswana has adapted metric ways of showing time such as calendar months and days, the discussion shows that temporal reference in traditional Setswana was event-based (e.g. based on movements of the sun and seasonal change). The study shows that Setswana lexical expressions of time are bound up with the ways in which Setswana speakers conceptualise time.

The aim of the article is to incorporate the deixis theory into the study of the Castilian epic. Given the oral performance of the Cantar de Mio Cid, the very act of its communication can be analysed by pragmatic tools. Moreover, the spatial and temporal references included in the text, in many occasions, seem to match the ‘here and now’ of the performer and his audience. In the main part of the paper we state that there is a strongcorrelation between the space and time dimensions of the CMC, which is already im-plied by the plot consisting of constant movements (in space and time) of the characters. Firstly, we explore the references to the ‘dynamized’ space, stressing some signifcant manipulations of the deictic phenomenon. In the second part of the article, we argue that the temporal dimension of the poem seems to be dominated by its spatial conceptualization. As a conclusion we suggest to complement the linguistic analysis of the CMC with the pragmatic aspects of the text in order to reinterpret certain passages or to shed some light on the performative character of the Epic genre.

Статья посвящена обзору проблематики эгоцентричности временного указания в языке: уже с Древности исследователи указывали на зависимость временной системы от момента речи, и до настоящего времени это ключевой вопрос для исследований темпоральности.

The paper considers the problem of egocentricity of the temporal deixis in the language. The dependence of the temporal system on the moment of speech was firstly noted by the Ancient grammarians, and it is a crucial problem for the temporality studies till now.

This paper documents the empirical use of the Turkish temporal-deictic expression o zaman ‘then, in that case, at that time’ in narrative discourses by Turkish-German bilingual children, contrasting it against monolingual usages. The main hypothesis is that the procedural micro-structure of functional elements changes under the influence of language contact and that such changes can be observed in discourse varieties of Turkish spoken in Germany. The study conducts a functional-pragmatic comparison of some exemplary uses of o zaman by analysing its communicative potential in the constellations in which it occurs.

A narrative is a means through which people can experience the world
which Mona Baker (2006) defines as the stories people tell themselves about
the world to construct reality and guide people’s behaviors. There are various
forms of narratives, and the genre of autobiography in which the writer decides
to share his/her experience with others is just an example of the ontological
narrative where the writer narrates his/her story. The significance of
autobiographies as an ontological narrative coincides with the rise of female
autobiographers who chronicle their lives to guide other women towards
leading a better life. Autobiographers give themselves a certain position in the
narrative world which can be subjected to change and alteration when the
autobiography is translated into another language. Retaining the
autobiographer’s position is one of the challenges facing translators,
especially, if the autobiography and its translation do not belong to the same
culture. Baker’s (2006) Narrative Theory is one of the theories which can
account for the changes occurring to the autobiographer’s position when
translated. The paper uses Baker’s (re)framing scheme to examine the
repositioning of the autobiographer, Elizabeth Gilbert, in the Arabic
translation of Eat, pray, love: One woman’s search for everything across Italy,
India and Indonesia. The study attempts to identify the (re)framing techniques
capable of changing the autobiographer’s. It also highlights the importance of
the integration between the Narrative Theory (Baker, 2006) and the
Positioning Theory (Davies & Harre, 1990), especially, that the narrative type
can change in the translation