Referential Indexicality

It is possible for signs to have two kinds of meaning, referred to as indexical and referential. Indexical meaning is meaning that is context-dependent. For examples, consider the traditional deictic categories of person, place, and time. Some frequently-used English examples are pronouns, demonstratives, and tense markings. Referential meaning, also called 'semantico-referential function', is when a word functions to describe events or states of affairs in the world independent of the context of the utterance. An example of this could be “Unicorns drink ambrosia” because the meaning that it conveys is independent of who says it, when they say it, etc.

A referential indexical, also called a 'shifter', is a sign which contains both referential and indexical meaning. So for example, the word 'I', as in “I went to the store” is a referential indexical. It has referential content, in that it refers to the singular first person, and indexical content, in that its meaning depends on who uttered the word.

Indexical Presupposition and Performativity

Indexical sign types are defined by rules of use that state that there exists a relationship between mutually implied existence of sign vehicle token (i.e. icon, index or symbol) and certain aspects of the context of discourse. The indexical sign token presupposes the aspect of the speech situation and is referentially uninterpretable without some knowledge of context. In other words, some aspect of the context is spelled out in the rules of use, fixed and presupposed, and must be understood for the referential contribution to be made. In the use of pure indexical tokens the sign can also have a creative or performative aspect in that rather than change the context, it creates boundaries to the structure of the event. For example in the case of English indexical pronouns, I and we (as opposed to he/she/it/they) create parameters that specify the parties to whom one is referring. Indexes, both referential and non-referential, therefore exist on a sliding scale, some more presupposing, some more creative, and some containing clear aspects of both.

References

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