Introduction

Previous chapters have alluded to the indexical properties of epistemic modals, discourse markers, and performative verbs. In these domains the indexicality is the encoded link between the world of the conceptualized described event (CDE) and the world of the conceptualized speech event (CSE). We now turn to another class of linguistic items that provide such a link: social deictics (SDs). We define SDs as directly encoding within their semantic structures the conceptualized relative social standing (superiority/inferiority, (non)intimacy, in-group versus outgroup status, etc.) of a participant either in the CDE or in the CSE by “pointing” to that social standing from the deictic ground (perspective) of SP/W relative to AD/R and other elements of the CSE.

SDs include contrasting second person singular tu/vous(T-V) pronouns in European languages like French and German; parentheticals such as I pray (you), sentence adverbials such as please; and, in a few languages such as Japanese and Korean, large systems of lexical items, derivational formulae, and affixes that are often termed “referent” and “addressee” honorifics. Referent SDs index the social status of one or more participants in the CDE (here termed “referents”) relative to a deictic ground in the CSE. Addressee SDs, by contrast, index the relative social status of the speech event participants conceptualized independently of their possible roles in the CDE. Although most SDs are politeness markers, SDs also include a much smaller subset of linguistic items that directly encode an attitude of denigration.