TYPOLOGY OF DEIXIS IN UKRAINIAN EPISTOLARY TEXTS

Abstract

In the proposed study the attempt to establish the typology of deixis in epistolary discourse was made. The study of deixis as a category of communicative linguistics and pragmatics ensures the finding of its functions in the organization of the speech interaction of communicators, which consist in the coordination of personal, spatial, temporal, etc. characteristics of the components of the language process. Deixis in epistolary texts is entered through universal categories – a sender and an addressee (a speaker, an addressee), space, time. Within the proposed study, the following types of epistolary deixis are characterized: personal (role), spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal. Personal deixis in correspondence is an indication of a sender and an addressee that are direct participants in communication, as well as persons who do not participate but are mentioned in the statement. Spatial deixis indicates the location of the sender, the addressee, and other persons or objects that interact in the speech process or are discussed in the letter. This type of deixis is considered based on the localization of the event in space, the indication of its reference point in the spatial context and the place of the observer who has a certain position in space. Temporal deixis indicates the chronological orientations of the components of communication, in particular, it refers to the time of speech, the time of the event, and the point of readout. The analysis of the epistolary discourse proves the opinion that temporal and spatial deixis closely interact in one context, which is reflected in the coordination of deictic signs used by the author. The close relationship of deictic units to denote space and time made it possible to distinguish another type of deixis – spatio-temporal. The corpus of deictic signs of the analyzed epistolary is formed by units with indicative semantics, and the leading place belongs to separate categories of pronouns (personal, indicative, indefinite), pronominal adverbs of place (spatial deixis) and time (temporal deixis). In addition, the deictic field of the letter can be expanded due to adjectives with temporal semantics, verbs with the meaning of movement, prepositions of spatiality. Deictic units are pragmatically marked, i.e. related to language situation, communicative intention, etc.