Page 76 - Communication Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts

DEREGULATION

DEIXIS

Words or expressions whose precise meaning always depends upon the
particular context of their situation. Deictic items in effect point
outwards (deixis is derived ultimately from the Greek, ‘to show’) from
the text to the extra-linguistic context. They include words such as
this, that, here, there, us, you, etc. Deictic items may be seen as falling
into three major categories: person deixis such as ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he/she/it’,
‘we’, ‘they’, ‘me’, ‘mine’, ‘us’, ‘ours’, ‘them’, ‘theirs’; temporal deixis
such as ‘now’, ‘then’, ‘yesterday’, ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’; and place deixis
such as ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘away’, ‘this’, ‘that’.
Part of the interest of such apparently commonplace items is the
way in which they shift their meaning from context to context by
referring to different entities: thus ‘I’ refers to whoever is speaking at
the moment of utterance. This can pose problems during early
language development. Precisely because the referent is always
shifting, children take time to identify the meaning of deictic terms
and can mistakenly reverse their application, saying, for example, ‘pick
you up, Daddy’ instead of ‘pick me up, Daddy’.
Deixis is also interesting for the way in which it raises crucially
important issues about language and meaning. Consideration of deictic
terms helps to showhowthe meaning of many utterances does not reside
purely in the words themselves, but depends also upon the context in
which the words are uttered. For it is only by reference to context that
we can recover the particular meaning of particular deictic expressions.

Further reading: Levinson (1983); Lyons (1977)

DEMOCRATAINMENT

In commercial democracies, public participation in public affairs is
conducted increasingly through highly mediated entertainment media
and commercial rather than public institutions. The term was coined
by Hartley (1999), as an extension to already identified hybrids such as
infotainment and edutainment.

DEREGULATION

Deregulation is intended to stimulate competition and efficiency
through the removal of bureaucratic and legislative barriers. It is the

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