Indicare, rappresentare e dislocare. La Deixis am Phantasma di Karl Bühler e i modi del Discorso Riportato

Abstract

‘Deixis am phantasma’ or imagination-oriented deixis is a mode of reference, originally described by KarlBühler, that directly brings into play one of the distinctive properties of human language, namely the unlimitedcapacity to dislocate in space and time the referents and situations that are the object of discourse. Sincerepresenting and reporting other people's speech is a discourse situation in which speakers must represent,transpose and dislocate referents, situations, and other people's words, reported speech is a very suitable areain which to observe this particular type of deixis. In this paper, after briefly restating the main points of Bühler'stheory of language, i.e., the two-field theory and the different modes of reference within the deictic field, Idiscuss the three different types of imagination-oriented deixis (as identified by Bühler). I then try to point outwhat I consider to be their systematic correlations with the two main deictic modes of reporting speech (directvs. indirect), while, conversely, noting the unsystematic correlations with that intermediate or hybrid form ofreporting that is free indirect speech.