Indexical Reference in Discourse: Coherence, Text Organization and Information Structure

This book brings together Francis Cornish’s previous publications, spanning 1996 to 2022, to offer a comprehensive exploration of indexical reference that emphasizes the functional distinctions between anaphora and anadeixis and underscores their roles in structuring discourse. The eight chapters that comprise it reflect the view that indexical reference via anaphora stricto sensu and anadeixis (the hybrid use of indexicals combining both anaphoric and deictic referential components) is a multifactorial phenomenon.

The aspects of the discourse functioning of indexicals revisited are its symbiotic relation with coherence relations holding between neighbouring discourse units; the phenomenon of ‘indirect anaphora’, which operates ‘laterally’, via associations; the broader issue of the distinction between resumptive references from within backgrounded and foregrounded units, and their implications for the type of indexical resumption used; the functioning of a range of indexicals in structuring whole texts from different genres; and finally, the behaviour of various types of markers within an information or message structure context: in particular, those of Topic-Comment and Thetic (conveying all-new information) articulations.

Providing fresh insights into the dynamic nature of indexical reference in discourse through a look back on the author’s seminal publications, this volume will appeal to scholars in linguistics, particularly those interested in discourse analysis and psycholinguistics.