A Critical Analysis Of Deictic Referencing: A Case Study Of Selected Editorials In The Namibian Newspaper

ABSTRACT

The focus of this study was to analyse deictic referencing in editorials, and particularly,

the way in which the editor employed five types of deixis in 30 selected editorials

published between June 2016 and June 2017 in The Namibian newspaper. Additionally,

the study pursued to identify the predominant deictic referencing and its contribution to

cohesion and coherence in the text.

This was a qualitative, desktop research in which the process of data analysis involved

organising the editorials as raw data for categorisation, based on the types of deixis,

namely person, place or spatial, time or temporal, discourse and social. The data analysis

was informed by the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) theoretical framework. The CDA

seeks to understand how and why certain texts affect readers and hearers. Therefore, this

theory was found appropriate for this study as it sought an understanding of the use of

language in communication by means of deictic referencing. The non-random sampling

technique was employed purposively to select 30 of 50 editorials, while textual analysis

was considered the appropriate method for this study.

The findings revealed that the five types of deixis were employed in all the sampled

editorials. The study found that person deixis in the editorials was achieved through the

first, second and third person pronouns. On the other hand, time or temporal deixis was

achieved by means of deictic words. However, place or spatial deixis, achieved by means

of adverbs and demonstrative pronouns, stood out as being frequently employed in order

to locate both writer and addressee in space and identify the direction of motion towards

or away from the place of the inscription event. It was also discovered that discourse deixis

was achieved by means of this, these and that, whereas, social deixis was achieved by

means of relational and absolute social deixis.

The study concludes that the editor’s employment of deictic referencing intended to

facilitate the reader’s understanding of phrases or words that could not be fully understood

without additional, textual information. This study provides readers with an idea of the

way in which the communication of editorials can be understood more clearly by means

of deixis. This suggests that writers should strongly consider the audience whenever they

employ deictic referencing.