DEIXIS AS A STRATEGY FOR EXCLUSION IN INFORMAL INTERACTIONS

Abstract

Deictic expressions are those linguistic forms employed to realize 'pointing' vialanguage. They depend for their interpretation on the speaker and hearer sharingthe same context. They have their most basic uses in face to face inter- actionswhere utterances are more easily understood by the people present. In languageuse there are issues that are private to people and so in the course of verbalinteractions between individuals, other people could eavesdrop and shareinformation not intended for them. The need therefore arises for a means ofmaintaining secrecy in informal interactions apart from whispering or speaking inlow tones. To carry out this research, an unobtrusive participant observationmethod was adopted using the tape recorder. Findings revealed that apart fromperforming the functions of pointing, deictic forms were used by participants inthe discourse in the various informal situations as a means of exclusion to personswho were not party to the discourse. Most expressions used to maintain secrecy inthe informal interactions therefore were deictic in nature.