Demonstrative Noun Phrases in English Narrative Fiction

The aim of this article is to propose a general scheme that gives an idea of text deixis in narrative fiction from the discursive and cognitive points of view. The involvement of corpus-based and comparative methods is intended to ensure the accuracy of the results presented in the study. Considering text deixis as a metaphorical process combining both deixis and anaphora, the author assumes that demonstratives having an antecedent in the text should be perceived as a referential device of text deixis. Their function, along with anaphora, is to maintain discourse reference. The material for the analysis was Nicholas Evans’s novel The Horse Whisperer. To characterize text deixis in the narrative corpus, the author singled out 417 demonstrative noun phrases (DemNPs). For the versatile characteristics of text deixis, she analyzed some linguistic and discursive variables associated with the index of noun phrases and demonstratives. These variables allowed: distinguishing the prototypical text deixis, namely, DemNPs with abstract nouns referring to non-nominal text objects; characterizing text deixis from the textual and cognitive points of view; measuring the degree of certainty of DemNPs referents, i.e. identifying the main topic of the statement, and the activation degree of the referent. The analysis of the degree of structural complexity of DemNPs shows their tendency either to create new referents or to maintain or update the reference to these objects of discourse. DemNPs with text antecedents imply a complex reference device, since the lexical anaphora, which the nucleus of DemNPs establishes with the antecedent, is associated with text deixis. Thus, text deixis and lexical anaphora act as a single unit to fit several different procedures of lexical cohesion. A separate section is devoted to the definition and characteristics of the reference device “text deixis + general noun” as a prototypical procedure of text deixis. Text deixis and general nouns are textually and cognitively twisted to conceptualize complex non-nominal parts of discursive information, simultaneously subcategorizing these complex units as nouns. Moreover, the whole mechanism acts as a reference cohesive link. The decisive factor in choosing reference devices is the cognitive status of the referent, which is represented by the opposition “to be in the focus of attention” and “to be activated in the short-term memory of the addressee”. In this article, the author analyzed the DemNPs in English narrative fiction. She demonstrated that DemNPs are related to text deixis. Text deixis is considered as a metaphorical device of reference, which maps a statement to a text, thus combining the reference properties of deixis and anaphora. The conclusion is made that this reference device is usually combined with abstract nouns capable of classifying non-nominal complex discursive entities as nouns, while performing a referential cohesive function by combining text deixis with general nouns. The author sees the prospects of the research in a detailed comparison between narrative non-fiction and non-narative fiction.

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