’ Why do we have these ’ : When reconstructing the indexical ground is disfavored

Within the wider framework of investigating deixis in Hong Kong English, this paper considers the way that speakers handle deictic reference and indexical ground in general description and particular practice talk. The analysis takes as a starting point Hanks’s formulation that “a single deictic word stands for minimally two objects: the referent is the thing, individual event, spatial or temporal location denoted; and the indexical framework is the origo (’pivot’ or zero point) relevant to which the referent is identified (the speech event in which the act of reference is performed, or some part of the event)“ ([Hanks, 1992]:51). A fundamental feature of the indexical frame is that the origo and, consequently, the nature of the relation of origo to referent are in frequent flux in the dynamics of an interaction. This feature of constant change reflects the way in which referential and indexical ’types’ operate on a foreground-background basis. That is to say, the referent is associated with figure and the indexical origo is aligned with ground (ibid:57). This paper contributes to a description of deixis in use by considering the way in which indexical centering is constructed in naturally-occurring interaction. The data consist of a broadcast interview from a Hong Kong English-medium radio program in which the interviewer is a native speaker of English and the interviewee is a representative of the predominately Chinese community of Hong Kong who is being asked to describe a cultural event. Both interviewer and interviewee invoke normative strategies to reflect their expected roles and the aim of the activity as an institutional event (cf. [Greatbatch, 1992], [Schegloff 92]). However, the nature of the topics discussed and the assumed knowledge of the audience are seen as significant in determining the participants’ deictic orientation. In this way, the social structural features of the activity described affect the extent to which common ground is assumed between the interviewer, the interviewee and the presumed audience (or illocutionary target) of the speech event. Considering these observations in view of Hank’s distinction between ’denotatum type’ (referent) and ’indexical type’ (origo), it is hypothesized that the indexical function of the deictic cues is suspended in culturally marked descriptions where the audience is purposevely excluded from affiliation with the speaker. That is, because the participants in this interview are emphasizing cultural difference, they arrange their talk in such a way as not to require the hearer to reconstruct the origo. Thus they do not claim the common ground required for demonstrative to have an indexical function and so use these forms non-deictically. At the same time, the participants’ cultural affiliations may be expressed through deictic elements invoked with exclusive orientation. Thus, while exclusive ’we’ deictics overtly mark an index associated with cultural membership, the use of non-deictic ’we’ and ’you’ indicates that the index cannot be constructed by the addresse due to the assumed lack of common ground. Both phenomena illustrate how the indexical framework shifts to accomodate the speaker’s perspective of figure and ground in relation to the adresse. The analysis is also shown to raise questions about the adequacy of Hank’s formulation in discriminating between the use of ’demonstrative’ in general descriptions and in accounts of particular practice and to invite speculation as to the relationship of indexical centering and sequentiality. 1This work has been possible by Hong Kong Polytechnic University Research Grant 350/061 to investigate Deixis in Hong Kong English. We are also very grateful to our colleague, Philip Bolt, for making available his transcription of the data which has been prepared for inclusion in the International Corpus of English.