Information AboutIndexicality |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT INDEXICALITY | |
| semantics | |
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The term "index" comes from Charles Peirce 's trichotomy of signs: icon, index and symbol.Peirce, C.S., "Division of Signs" in Collected Papers, 1932 {Link without Title} . Indexicals are closely related to Demonstrative s (''this'', ''that''), in that both vary in meaning depending on context. Indexes are superordinate to the subset of demonstratives and the latter are often accompanied, in ordinary usage, by pointing gestures or other non-verbal expressions of their sense. Many if not all indexicals are also egocentric, which means that in order to successfully interpret them the hearer must know the respective speaker, time, and place of utterance. EXAMPLE An episode of the Simpsons plays off of the popular character Smokey The Bear , whose motto is "Only ''you'' can prevent forest fires": :Robotic Smokey the Bear: Only ''who'' can prevent forest fires? : (Bart has the choice between the buttons "me" and "you," so he presses "you.") :Robotic Smokey the Bear: You pressed ''you'', referring to ''me.'' That is incorrect. The correct answer is ''you''. Bart selected the ''word'' which correctly completes Smokey's usual line. But the word "you" as uttered by Bart refers to a different person than when it is uttered by Smokey, and Smokey interprets Bart's answer as attempting to refer to the same person Smokey would refer to. Bart should use ''me'' to refer to that person, so (he says) Bart is wrong. FURTHER READING David Kaplan 's essay, ''Demonstratives'', is an influential philosophical and logical discussion of indexical terms. Aron Gurwitsch 's essay, 'Outlines of a Theory of "Essentially Occasional Expressions"', appearing in Gurwitsch's posthumous work, Marginal Consciousness (1985), provides the classic statement on "Indexicality" from a Phenomenological standpoint. This paper was utilized by Harold Garfinkel in his formulation of the term, and is a cornerstone of the Ethnomethodological enterprise. Gurwitsch's formulation is a development of the concept as it appears in Edmund Husserl 's Logical Investigations (1900/1901). SEE ALSO REFERENCES |
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