CASE STUDY 2: DEICTIC SHIFT THROUGH TEXTING CONVENTIONS

The text-message to be analysed in this section was sent by a female grad-uate student to her friend who was supposed to join the sender and her other friend at their hairdresser’s that evening. The recipient was unable to make it but had not let the other two girls know. At the time of send-ing the text-message, the sender and her other friend were already at the hairdresser’s and were waiting to be seen. Both the sender of the text-message and the recipient were frequent texters, and a large part of their communication throughout the day was conducted in this way. They had a number of things in common, studying at the same university and being involved in a number of projects together. They also shared familiarity with digital communication and both used the Polish instant messenger Gadu-Gadu.

In example (2), there is no mention of change of location or motion, in which it differs from example (1), but there is a clear reference to a number of locations, both having their equivalents in the real world and constructed solely in the virtual domain.

(2) Slyszalam ze mialas byc u naszego fryzjera a I’ve heard that you were supposed to be at our hairdresser’s and jakos Cie tu nie widzimy! Gdzies jest babo?!

somehow you here not we see! Where in the world are you hag?!

<wali patelnia po fryzurze> ;)

<hit-3.SG with frying pan over hairstyle> ;)

“I heard that you were supposed to be at our hairdresser’s but we can’t see you here somehow! Where are you, woman?! <hits the hair-style with a frying pan> ;)”

Here again, a series of sequentially organised events can be identified and, just like in example (1), participants maintain their identity throughout the text. The complexity of the storyworld in example (2) is related to the presence of additional participants and of a particular case of deictic shift.

The sequence of events in (2) is represented in Figure 7.2.

Similar to the previous case study, the time of sending the text-message marks the temporal deictic centre (NOW), and the use of past tense helps identify past events. There is also, however, a clearly specified spatial deictic centre (tu “here”), and it is possible to spatially place other locations with reference to it. Before discussing mental spaces in the analysed text-message (see Figure 7.2), I provide a closer account of the narrative sequence in (2) in Table 7.2. In addition to the abbreviations used in Table 7.1, reference is made to another individual (AI), who is different from the recipient and who accompanies the sender to the hairdresser’s. Reference is also made to an unspecified informant (UI), who can but does not have to be the recipi-ent (R) or the individual who is physically co-located with the sender (AI).

The table includes information about the narrative phases represented in the text-message in question, participants, and actions taken by them. Discur-sive evidence from the analysed text-message is provided.

Similar to example (1), this text-message carries information about the existence of narrative events in a sequential order. The sender refers to having been given information which, verified at the time of composing the message, does not prove correct. Rather than stated explicitly, the event that consti-tutes the first phase is implied in the content of the text-message. The context suggests that the sender had received information about the recipient’s plan to join her (the sender) at the hairdresser’s. The second phase is temporarily anchored in the sender’s temporal deictic centre, i.e., the time when the text-message was sent. It is clear that the recipient is not present at the physical location where the sender expected her to be (her hairdresser’s). The final phase is more difficult to temporally locate in the unfolding narrative. As linear, the text-message has a clear reading path, which follows the order of Figure 7.2 Event sequence in (2).

S = sender R = recipient

AI = another individual UI = unspecified informant DC = S’s deictic centre

JCS = joint communicative space

/completed/

NOW

S receives information from UI S at DC with AI mental space 1

R at unknown location R not at DC

mental space 2 S’ hits R’ at JCS

(imagined)

Table 7.2 Narrative structure in (2)

As established earlier, the sender and the recipient were not co-present in the same physical space at the time the text-message was sent. It is therefore unlikely that the first two phases discussed in Table 2 and the action of hit-ting in the third phase constitute a sequence of events in the same unfolding words in the text (Kress 2003). If we were to take Labov’s sequential narra-tive structure as a model, it would follow that the order of words determines the reading of the text and meaning-making with reference to the sequential order of events. Following on from this, the final phase of the narrative in (2) would be seen as taking place in a sequential order after the preceding one. The employment of angle brackets to delimit the third narrative phase (cf. Nunberg 1990; Lyons 2014) and the grammatical shift from first-person narration to third-person narration lead to the need to consider other pos-sibilities in the temporal and spatial interpretation of the text-message (2).

narrative. It is logically impossible for the interactants to be explicitly not co-present (jakos Cie tu nie widzimy) and physically co-present to allow for the act of hitting (wali “hit-3.SG”), which requires physical proximity.

Consequently, a shift into another conceptual location has to be performed to make sense of the event sequence in (2). The notion of mental spaces and reference to the current discussions in the field of unnatural narratology are helpful in explaining this phenomenon.

Mental Spaces

Mental space is a theoretical construct that contains an idealised cognitive model of reality (rather than its faithful representation). Fauconnier (1985, 16) describes mental spaces as “constructs distinct from linguistic structures but built up in any discourse according to guidelines provided by the linguistic expressions.” Mental spaces function as entirely distinct from each other and can be established by space-builders, i.e., certain linguistic expressions, such as prepositional phrases (in John’s mind), adverbs (probably), connectives (if … then …), or subject-verb combinations (Mary hopes …). He notes that space-builders will always establish mental spaces as included in their parent spaces, although this inclusion does not have to be expressed explicitly². Mental spaces, created by space-builders, must be connected to their parent spaces by means of connectors that link triggers and targets in these spaces.

In this scenario element x₁ belonging to mental space M has its counterpart x₂ in mental space M’, and mental space M is a parent space of mental space M’.

x₁ ∈ M x₂ ∈ M’

M’ ⊂ M

Conceptual separation of an entity (x₁) and its counterpart (x₂) and the exis-tence of multiple mental spaces may occur also in electronically mediated Figure 7.3 Connectors and counterparts in mental spaces.

x

x

M’

M

communication, with its use of increasingly complex technologies and, as in the case of texting, remotely located participants. In example (1), for instance, the sender’s home is assumed to exist in reality (mental space M), but in the text-message itself, it constitutes only a textual representation of the image the sender has of his home. The complexity does not end there.

Since meaning-making is a two-stage process that involves encoding and decoding, the meaning of home the recipient constructs is likely to differ from that of the sender. Hence the use of the word home can trigger at least two different representations in two separate mental spaces constructed at two distinct temporal and spatial deictic centres.

Representation can be realised here in one of two main ways: visual and textual. The visual dimension of representations (which falls outside the direct scope of this chapter and therefore will not be analysed in detail) includes 2D- or 3D-avatars in computer games and virtual environments and icons in Internet forums (see discussion in other chapters in this volume and, for a discussion of the employment of autonomous avatars in electronic communication and their expressiveness, Cassell and Vilhjálmsson 1999).

The textual dimension, which is the focus of this chapter, involves repre-sentations of storyworld elements by means of discursive tools, which serve as links through which correspondence between entities in separate mental spaces is achieved.

Language, among other tools, is used to construct an image that cor-responds to its real-life referent. Pragmatic function (Nunberg 1978) serves to establish a link between a referent and a referee, and the use of language, including names, definite descriptions, and pronouns, facilitates shifts between these corresponding entities. Reference applies not only to the link between real-life objects, like in the case of personal pronouns directly refer-ring to people, but also to mental images, the latter being of interest here.

Following on from this, a concrete entity (e.g., person or object) will differ from its corresponding mental representation, as in the case of home in example (1) and interactants’ counterparts in example (2), which I discuss below. Correspondence between a concrete entity and its equivalent is estab-lished based on the Identification Principle (Nunberg 1978): if two objects (A and B) are linked by a pragmatic function (F), a description of one of them, the trigger (A) can be used to identify its counterpart, the target (B).

B = F(A)

The Identification Principle allows the target to be identified through the description of the trigger by means of a connector that maps the image onto reality. The links between these representations therefore become links between two (or more) distinct mental representations located in two or more distinct mental spaces. The mental space delimited by angle brackets in example (2) (<wali patelnia po fryzurze> “hit-3.SG the hair-style with a frying pan”) contains an imagined, discursively constructed, or virtual reality, in which the sender’s and the recipient’s counterparts

are physically co-present and the sender’s counterpart is hitting the recipi-ent’s counterpart.

Despite the fact that the interactants are not located in each other’s imme-diate vicinity, the final part of the message suggests that a physical action of hitting is taking place in real time and space. The action of hitting must therefore be conducted in a space distinct from reality (M), in a separate mental space (M’). It is performed not by the sender (S) and the recipient (R) themselves, but by their counterparts (S’ and R’, respectively) which are constructed in that mental space (M’) (see Figure 7.4). Therefore, the following ensues:

M’ ⊂ M S, R ∈ M S’, R’ ∈ M’

Figure 7.4 Mental spaces in example (2).

S – Sender R – Recipient

S’ – Sender’s counterpart in M’

R’ – Recipient’s counterpart in M’

M (= Sender’s reality) M’ (= Mental space in which hitting takes place) S

R

S’

R’

The deictic shift into this space is marked in two ways. First, there is a change in narration style: the first-person narration in the first two phases (slyszalam “I’ve heard”) is replaced by third-person narration in the final part (wali “hit-3.SG”), indicating also a change in positioning within the narrative. Second, the sender employs conventions accepted in texting and other forms of electronically mediated communication to signal this shift.

Following Fauconnier’s (1985) transcription conventions, the action in example (2) will be represented as:

wali (S’, R’)

where the action (wali – “hit-3.SG”) is performed by the sender’s alter per-sona (S’) on the recipient’s alter perper-sona (R’), which is being reported as close to the interactacts’ perceptions of their communicative partners. The sender of (2) reported she had in her mind the image of herself playfully hit-ting the recipient who was trying to avoid repeated blows while smiling. The

text-message, she claimed, worked based on the assumption that the recipi-ent, like the sender herself, adopted the play frame in reading the message.

Here, the interactants’ familiarity with the conventions employed in elec-tronically mediated communication proves vital. The convention of using angle brackets in the analysed text-message comes from the Polish instant messenger Gadu-Gadu, with which both the sender and the recipient were familiar. Enclosing certain (usually single) words in third person singular (e.g., wali “hits”) in angle brackets results in the occurrence of an animated icon in the conversation window in Gadu-Gadu. The sender creatively appropriated this convention in her texting—a text-only form of communi-cation where animated icons do not appear—and thus referred to the send-er’s and recipient’s common ground. She confirmed in a later interview that the reason for the employment of this strategy was to evoke in the recipient associations with Gadu-Gadu conventions. As a result, it was hoped, the action of hitting would be imagined.

This type of content resembles stage directions, i.e., implicit voices of authors of plays that provide cues to the theatrical and dramatic effects of the scenes they control and are an important vehicle of meaning in early theatre (McJannet 1999; Dessen 2009). The convention for stage directions in plays is to print them in italics, which would not be possible in text-messages. Instead, conventions used in text-only forms of electronically mediated communica-tion include the use of certain grammatical forms, as well as text-category indicators (Nunberg 1990; Lyons 2014), i.e., sets of printable characters that are employed to represent enactment, for example, hugs can be represented in chatrooms by means of parentheses around a user’s screen name (del Teso-Craviotto 2004). Another convention commonly found in virtual worlds, cha-trooms, and IRC involves the use of verbal glosses of gestures and movements characteristic of face-to-face communication. The convention here is to enclose a given action in asterisks (Werry 1996) or angle brackets (del Teso-Craviotto 2004; Crystal 2006). In IRC, which he analyses, Werry (1996, 60) finds tex-tual representations, or symbolic enactment, of “[h]ugs, kisses, offers of cof-fee, yawns, shaking hands, and the popping of champagne.” Similarly, Crystal (2006, 42) mentions the use of such kinesic effects as <smirk> and <laugh>.

In example (2), interaction taking place in an alternative mental space (M’) is enclosed in angle brackets, which clearly mark the beginning and end of interaction through the sender’s and recipient’s counterparts (S’ and R’ in space M’). As such, this exchange is separate from interactions taking place in the sender’s reality (M), but maintains a link with this reality through specific con-nectors. Thanks to such shifts between mental spaces, texters (or narrators) are able to construct storyworlds that appear incoherent, impossible, or illogical.

This brings to mind unnatural narratives, the study of which focuses on the ways projected storyworlds are different from those that can be explained by our knowledge of the real world (Alber, Iversen, Nielsen, and Richardson 2010). For example, experimental or hallucinatory narratives (see Kakko’s chapter in this volume) cross the boundaries of the natural

in constructing storyworlds that are characterised by logical impossibili-ties in their represented spatial and temporal organisation (Alber, Iversen, Nielsen, and Richardson 2010). The analysis presented in this chapter makes it evident, yet again, that conventional approaches to narratives—be they literary or oral—with their orderly temporal sequence and anthro-pomorphic narrator, account for a large part of but not all possible spa-tiotemporal combinations. At the same time, text-messages—although often portrayed as small and purely transactional—offer rich expressive possibilities both in terms of the logically coherent and the impossible.

Playful shifts from one mental space to another, be it to hit the recipient with a frying pan, as was the case in case study (2) or to create the feeling of intimacy, as is the case in sexting³, are a spontaneous creation of regu-lar mobile phone users, rather than the careful work of writers or artists.

Since the human mind is bound by its cognitive possibilities, interpret-ing the unnatural has to be done through reference to and manipulation of existing frames and scripts to create “new cognitive parameters that tran-scend our real-world knowledge” (Alber, Iversen, Nielsen, and Richardson 2012, 376). The question of interpreting and making sense of the “unnat-ural” in a texting narrative involves not only reshuffling familiar frames in narrative processing, but also taking into account the modality of tex-ting, its affordances, and constraints, which tie in with the importance of genre awareness in processing post-classical narratives. Familiarity with the accepted conventions of electronically mediated communication and with one’s texting partner (cf. the notion of audience design proposed and devel-oped by Bell 1984, to which Mildorf refers in her chapter in this volume) helps draw conclusions as to the most plausible interpretation of both natu-ral and unnatunatu-ral texting storyworlds.