Deictic Elements as Means of Text Cohesion and Coherence in Academic Discourse

Abstract

The article presents the results of the research aimed at analyzing some functions and features of deictic elements in academic discourse in English. The material under analysis covers 20 academic texts written by English-speaking linguists. In the article it is proved that in academic discourse deictic elements can operate only within the fixed scheme of deictic coordinates, which has got three main elements: deictic center, deictic element, and antecedent/subsequent element. Out of this scheme deictic elements fail to fulfill referential procedure. All deictic elements in academic discourse are divided into two big groups: conventional deictic elements and endemic ones. The result of the research shows that conventional deictic elements in most cases provide text cohesion (within small text units, such as adjoining sentences); whereas endemic deictic elements tend to serve for text coherence (in larger text units, such as paragraphs, chapters, etc.). Thus, deictic elements can be considered important units providing text-building.

Keywords

• deictic element,theory of deixis; academic discourse; text cohesion; text coherence