РЕАЛИЗАЦИЯ ДЕЙКСИСА ЛИЧНОСТИ В РАЗГОВОРНОМ АЛБАНСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ

Introduction

Person deixis, together with temporal and locative deixis, constitute three traditional deictic categories. To these three types, scholars such as Fillmore [3, P. 39-40], Levinson [5, P. 62], Lyons [7, P. 259-264], etc., add text or discourse deixis and social deixis. Social deixis is closely related to person deixis. Such close relation between them will also be evident when analyzing corpus examples.

Some linguistic expressions can be interpreted properly only if the sentences they are part of are put within a social context that is defined in such a way as to identify the participants in the communication act, the location of the communication participants in space, and the time when this act of communication occurs [3, P. 38], [4, P. 1451]. Such phenomenon when linguistic expressions are interpreted with reference to the contextual features of the utterance-act is known as deixis and the expressions concerned are known as deictic expressions.

Every linguistic expression takes place in a specific place and at a specific time. It is made by a particular person (the speaker) and addressed to another person (the addressee). Such expressions, which have as their primary reference the communication participants, the speaker and the addressee, belong to the group of person deixis. Thus, the roles of participants in communication, as speaker or as addressee, are identified through person deixis. In addition to the speaker and the addressee, Charles Fillmore [3, P. 40] treats as a third category of person deixis the intended audience, which implies people who may be considered part of the communication group but who are neither in the role of the speaker nor of the addressee.

The speaker and the addressee express themselves linguistically through the category of person. The first person refers to the speaker (or speakers), whereas the second person refers to the addressee (or addresses). Unlike the first person and the second person, the third person is not a deictic category because it does not refer to the communication participants but only to those who are spoken of and who are not present in the communication situation. According to Lyons [7, P. 262], the third person, singular or plural, as opposed to the first and second person, not only is missing in the communication situation, but may also remain unidentified. On the relation between three persons, Benveniste (in L. Tahiri) [10, P. 89] states that the meaning of the person belongs only to the first and second: the pragmatic aspect distinguishes them from other words: “I” and “you” are products of the reality of discourse and can only be identified by the discourse that contains them, whereas he/she are outside the discourse; it is as a “non-person” whom is spoken of. The relation between the third person as compared to the first two, David Kaplan (in Sarah Zobel [13, P. 1] views from a different perspective. According to him the third person is freer with respect to its possible referents.

1. A to B: I like sushi – A likes shushi.
2. A to B: You like sushi – B likes sushi.
3. A to B: He/ she likes sushi- X (whoever A intends to refer to) likes sushi.

Scheme according to David Kaplan (Ibid).

Given that person is the typical marker of person deixis, communication participants can be identified through personal pronouns, possessive pronouns (when referring to the speaker or the addressee), and through personal endings of verbs. Also, other markers that refer to the addressee are vocatives and the titles of address assigned for this function.

Certain expressions are interpreted from a ground zero or origo otherwise known as a deictic center. The deictic center is usually speaker-oriented, that is, interpretation is seen from the speaker’s perspective. Deictic expressions are, according to Levinson [6, P. 64], generally organized in an egocentric way. He states that the central person refers to the speaker; the central time is the time at which the speaker speaks or acts; the central place is the location where the utterance takes place; the discourse center is the point at which the speaker is located; and the social center is the speaker’s social status to which the status of addresse is relative.

Egocentricity is also apparent in the exchange of roles in communication. Once the speaker's role in a conversation switches from one participant to another, so does the center of the deictic system (where I is used by each speaker to refer to himself, and you to signify the addressee). Benveniste [1, P. 226], describing this report says that I has only momentary reference, since anyone can say I, and that the reality to which it refers is the reality of discourse, and as such it can be identified only by the instance of discourse that contains it. The speaker is always at the center, as it were, of the situation of utterance, states Lyons [7, P. 259].

E.g: 1.    Nuk mund të shkoj në qytet, sepse është shumë larg.

“I can’t get to town because it’s too far.”  – larg “far” is interpreted as being far from the speaker (I)

2. Këtë libër e kam filluar para pesë vjetësh.

“I started writing this book five years ago.” – para pesë vjetësh “five years ago” is calculated as the time interval from the time the book started to be written to the time this sentence was written, which is the speaker’s time, namely the time when the speaker was writing. The addressee’s time, that is, the time when this message is read, is irrelevant in this case. The deictic center, however, may switch from one speaker to another in conversation:

A: Mua po më pëlqen kjo këmishë. B. Mua më shumë po më pëlqen kjo këmishë.

A: “I like this shirt.” B. “I like this shirt more.”

Kjo “this” in the first sentence is interpreted in relation to speaker A and his/her closeness, whereas kjo “this” in the second sentence is interpreted in relation to speaker B and his/her closeness. Kjo “this” of A is ajo “that” for B, and vice versa.

In addition to the deictic center being speaker-oriented, there are cases where the deictic center is addressee-oriented, for example, in a note: Tani laji duart “Now wash your hands” (as a written message) – tani “now” does not mean the time the message was written, but the time it is read, which is the time when the addressee sees the message.

Results

In order to analyze the expression of person deixis in Albanian, a corpus was selected, which consists of a television interview on Adriatik Kelmendi’s Rubicon show, in which Albin Kurti was invited. The interview conducted on 19 and 20 November 2014 (in two parts) contains a total of 14,796 words. Of this total number of words, 917 words, or 6.19%, mark person deixis. Only two interlocutors were present in the interview and in general there is no switch of roles from speaker to addressee, since even when the reporter is the speaker, the sentences are directed/addressed towards the addressee, in this case the interviewee. Thus, in such cases it is not the speaker who constitutes the deictic center but the addressee.

Forms of expressing person deixis in the selected corpus

1. First person

1.1 Singular

a. Por, kur unë insistova nja dy tri herë, atëherë e panë se askush nuk e thotë një datë të tillë nëse njëmend nuk e ka dhe në këtë rast më kishte rastisur mua.

“But when I insisted a couple of times, then they realized that no one would say such a date unless it was true and in this case it had happened to me.”

b. Natyrisht se zemërimi i tyre vazhdoi, por ky ishte ai mini-episodi i parë, i cili e bëri të rëndësishme datëlindjen time.

“Of course their anger continued, but this was the first mini-episode that made my birthday important.”

In both of the above sentences, the first person directly refers to the speaker of utterance. In the first sentence the speaker is expressed through the personal pronoun (unë “I”, mua “me”, dative clitic “më”) and the personal endings of verbs (insistova “insisted”), whereas in the second sentence the speaker is identified through the possessive pronoun (time “my”). The deictic center is speaker-oriented because all data is interpreted from the speaker’s perspective.

But in the example below, the first-person singular does not signify the speaker of utterance (which is Albin Kurti), but the words of a third person at an earlier time:

1. …Ejup Statovci … dhe ka qenë një nga madhështitë e tij, i cili ishte gjyshi ynë dhe jo prindi dhe thotë se unë dal i fundit dhe jo të dal para dikujt tjetër.

“… Ejup Statovci… and it was one of his great acts, who was our grandfather not our parent and says that I come out last and not come before anyone else.”

Here we have the direct speech mixed up with the reported speech. The verb thotë “says” is followed by the subordinator se “that”, after which the speaker is expected to use the reported speech, namely to make the shift in person and time, but in the present case that does not occur. The speaker directly quotes the words as said by a third person (the source) at an earlier time, but does not use the typical structural elements of a direct speech.

1.2 First-person plural – Ne “we”

The first-person plural refers to a set of two or more people, including the speaker. Therefore, it means I and one or more other people. Other people may or may not include the addressee. Depending on whether or not the addressee is included in the first-person plural, there are two distinct uses of the first-person plural: inclusive and exclusive use [7, P. 261], [4, P. 1465], etc.

1. Arsyeja pse ne vazhdonim të punonim edhe pse ata kishin shkuar në Rambouillet, ishte për shkak se pikërisht Thaçi i thoshte bacës Adem se nuk do ta nënshkruajë.

“The reason why we continued to work despite their going to Rambouillet was because Thaçi himself kept telling baca Adem that he would not sign it.”

The first-person plural in this case includes the speaker and others. It is exclusive in relation to the hearer (the addressee).

2. E para është ajo e 2 korrikut 1990 si politikë për rezistencë, për shkak të këtij pushteti që kishim pas pavarësisë, republika e dytë doli si republikë për shitje, qoftë për privatizim, qoftë për negociata dhe tash po na nevojitet një republikë për zhvillim.

The first is that of July 2, 1990 as a policy of resistance, because of this power we had after the independence, the second republic came as a republic for sale, either for privatization or for negotiations, and now we needed a republic for development.

In this case, the first person, in addition to including the speaker and others, also includes the hearer (addressee). Therefore, in this case we have: I + you + others.

3. Ju e përsëritni se nuk duhet të bëni fare parti politike për disa pasoja, por për këtë do të flasim më vonë.

You keep saying that you should not establish political parties at all due to some consequences, but we will talk about that later.

In this case we ne (do të flasim) “we (will talk)” includes the speaker and the hearer (the addressee), but not others, because in an interview where only one person is invited, he can only talk to him, and not others. Whereas in the case: Mos të harrojmë se gjatë kohës sa ju nuk donit të dilnit në zgjedhje, thoshit se gjithë ata që nuk kanë dalë në zgjedhje mund të jenë përkrahësit tuaj., “Let us not forget that while you refused to vote in the elections, you said that all those who refused to vote could be your supporters”, first person can, in addition to the speaker and the herarer, include others, inviting them to be witnesses or some sort of support for what was said by the speaker.

The first-person plural can often be interpreted in two ways simultaneously: as deictic and as anaphoric. The difference between deixis and anaphora is that deixis refers to the communication participants, in the role of the speaker or the addressee, whereas anaphora refers to the antecedent mentioned earlier in the text (anaphora) or later, as cataphora [4, P. 1455].

 d. U takuat atëherë me Ibrahim Rugovën? Po, u patëm takuar dy herë.. “Did you then meet with Ibrahim Rugova? Yes, we met twice..” – u patëm takuar (ne) “(we) met” includes a set of two people, the speaker and Ibrahim Rugova, and may also be interpreted as deictic, including the speaker in this group (I) and as anaphoric, referring to an antecedent previously mentioned in the text - Ibrahim Rugova.

The following case can be interpreted both as deixis and cataphora: e. Mirë jena. Arën po e punoj me fëmijët. “We are fine. I am working the field with my children.” – where the verb jena “are”, the first-peron plural is interpreted as deictic, since it includes the speaker in that group, and as cataphoric, as it refers to fëmijët “children”.

2.2. Second person

2.2.1. Second-person singular

The second person singular refers to or signifies the addressee in the utterance-act.

1. … si e arrite këtë vendim?

… how did you reach that decision?

The second-person singular is addressed to the recipient, or the addressee. In this text, this is the only case where the journalist addresses the guest with ti “you”. Since in all other cases he uses the pronoun ju “you” to address the guest, making the conversation more formal and at the same time expressing respect for the guest, we do not think that through a single occasion the journalist wanted to change attitudes; therefore, it might have simply been a mistake.

On the other hand, the guest often uses the second-person singular as non-referential pronoun, thus marking a general reference, rather than a single recipient.

b. …njerëzit që kanë qenë aty e dinë se prej torturave nuk të hahet buka, por të pihet uji dhe ne nuk kishim ujë aty. “… people who have been there know that torture does not make you hungry, it makes you thirsty, and we had no water there.” – dative clitic të (ty, të) is not a reference to a single recipient, in this case the journalist present in the conversation, but it is a general reference to all those who would be in such a situation.

2.2.2. Second-person plural

The second-person plural denotes a set of people (two or more) with whom we speak, namely interlocutors. But not all people who can be referred to as you are present in the utterance-act. Thus, in this respect, Lyons [7, P. 261] distinguishes the inclusive and exclusive uses of the second-person plural. In the inclusive use he includes hearers present, while the pronoun you, he says, has exclusive use if it relates to one or more hearers, or to one or more other persons. Since in the analyzed text the guest is only one guest, there is no inclusive use of the plural pronoun. However, we have encountered two other uses of this pronoun: as exclusive and as a form of respect or formality:

1. I fusnin edhe ata në dhoma me ju?

“Did they bring them in rooms with you?” (+ addressee, + others)

2. Zakonisht, bisedat i nisim nga aktivitetet, por me ju zotëri Kurti, dua ta nis nga data juaj e lindjes…

“Usually, we start conversations with activities, but with you Mr. Kurti, I want to start with your date of birth ...” (+ addressee, - others)

In the first case, ju “you” is used to refer not only to one hearer but to a hearer present and to others who have been together in the situation being discussed. In this case, ju “you” refers to Mr. Kurti, but also to other Albanian prisoners, while in the second sentence the pronoun ju “you” refers only to Mr. Kurti, who is a participant in the conversation. In the latter case, ju “you”is no longer about the role of the participants in the language situation but about social status. Through this reference, the speaker expresses the social relation with the recipient, a relation of respect.

The linguistic expressions through which the social relation between the interlocutors can be expressed fall within the framework of social deixis. According to Levinson [6, P. 119], this report can be expressed as a direct or indirect reference to the social status of participants in communication. L. Rugova [9, P. 5], referring to the division made by Levinson, says that there are two types of social deixis that can be distinguished in the Albanian language: absolute social deixis and relative social deixis. The former refers to some social characteristics of the referent, irrespective of the relation between the speakers; it may be a reference to an absolute social status of the addressee, such as Mr. Chairman, etc. Relative social deixis, on the other hand, refers to the social relation between the speaker and the addressee, the audience, the referent, etc., in an extralinguistic context. In these terms, in the above case, we are dealing with a case of relative social deixis. Throughout the conversation the speaker addresses the addressee with ju “you”, expressing respect and at the same time making the situation formal. Only once does the speaker address the addressee with Mr. Kurti, which constitutes an expression of relative social deixis, since by choosing this way of addressing the interlocutor (and not any other, such as Albin), the speaker also determines the social relation between them and the formality of the situation.

Frequency of person deixis use in interview

Table 1: Forms of expression of person deixis and their frequency of use

Conclusion

This paper describes and analyzes the category of person deixis in the corpus consisting of a television interview. According to the findings from the corpus we have seen that it is through person deictic expressions that the participants’ role in communication is identified as speaker or as addressee, as well as the social relation between them. The speaker and the addressee express linguistically through the category of person. The first person refers to the speaker (or speakers), whereas the second person refers to the addressee (or addresses). Unlike the first person and the second person, the third person is not a deictic category because it does not refer to the communication participants, but to those who are spoken of and who are not present in the communication situation. Since person is the typical marker for person deixis, participants in communication in the Albanian language are identified through personal pronouns, possessive pronouns (when referring to the speaker or addressee) and through the personal endings of verbs. Furthermore, as we have seen from the analyzed corpus, other markers referring to the addressee are vocatives and the titles of address assigned for this function.

In the analyzed corpus, 6.19% of the text consists of deictic expressions that mark the participants’ role in the communication situation. The participants in the communication situation, in the role of the speaker or the addressee, are most often identified through the personal endings of verbs, since due to the verb inflection, the subject may be left unexpressed in Albanian. Therefore, Albanian, just like Italian, Spanish, etc., is part of the pro-drop language group.

In the interview, where we deal with a formal communication situation, we find that the interlocutors use the plural number more, either when dealing with speaker-oriented deictic expressions or when the addressee constitutes the deictic center. The interviewee, in the role of the speaker, in 35.98% of the cases uses the first-person plural. This can also be interpreted as an attempt to avoid subjectivity, thus including in ne “we” himself+others, but it may also be that the inclusion of others in this group is done to avoid any personal responsibility by making it group responsibility.

On the other hand, the interviewer, when using ne “we”, does so in an inclusive sense, including the addressee. The second person plural, (courtesy ju “you”, respect) used only by the interviewer is indicative of the formal situation and the avoidance of subjectivity. Only once does the interviewer address the interviewee with ti “you”, which may be interpreted as a mistake rather than a change of approach. Consequently, the formal situation in which the interview is conducted, implicates certain deictic references and eliminates some others. It is also observed that the deictic center is also determined by the situation of utterance and the relationship between participants in communication.