Spheres of interest: Space and social cognition in Phola deixis

Abstract

Abstract After a period of space-centred description of demonstratives, recent research has highlighted the role of attention, psychological proximity and shared knowledge in determining deictic choice. While convincing evidence has been presented that mental states may define deictic reference (e.g. in Turkish, Jahai or Kogi), there is also neuroscientific data suggesting that spatial cognition is often drawn upon in the process and that spatial and attentional perspectives may interact with each other. Pragmatic analysis of deictic usage in some languages (e.g. Yucatec or Lao) suggests that demonstrative systems may respond to multidimensional search spaces that include not only spatial but also embodied, perceptual and social access to referents. On the basis of observational data from Phola, a Tibeto-Burman language of Southwest China, the present article contributes to these research endeavours by explicitly exploring how speaker and addressee demonstratives may independently respond to both spatial and sociocognitive modes of access to a referent. Advancing the notion of spheres of interest as a descriptive heuristics to capture this fluidity, it is shown how deictic choice not only passively reflects aspects of context but also actively projects intersubjective appraisals and expectations onto material and social reality.