A Study on the Anti-preemptive Usages of Person Deixis—Taking Instances from Cyber Language

Abstract

Although numerous researches have been conducted to probe into the anti-preemptive usages of person deixis, few researches have been carried out on that of cyber languages. Therefore, this paper mainly investigates the anti-preemptive usages of person deixis in cyber language, collects the linguistic data of buyers and sellers on Taobao and the discursive practices posted on Weibo, and analyses the pragmatic functions of the anti-preemptive usages of person deixis with relevant pragmatic theories. The study applies the egocentricity of deixis as theoretical framework and makes a comprehensive analysis of the data, aiming to provide a new perspective for the study of deixis. The study yields four influencing factors of anti-preemptive usages of person deixis: lack of deictic context, pragmatic intention of the speaker, social factors and register factors. This paper bears both theoretical and practical values. Theoretically, it is an empirical attempt to the study on anti-preemptive usages of person deixis in the field of computer-mediated communication. From a practical point of view, the findings of the study are conductive to provide interlocutors with guidance on the use of person deixis whether in virtual context or real life communication.