1。1Research background 

Anaphora is a term used in grammatical description for the process or result of a linguistic unit deriving its interpretation from some previously expressed unit or meaning (the antecedent)。 Anaphoric reference is one way of marking the identity between what is being expressed and what has already been expressed。 In such a sentence as “He did that there”, each word has an anaphoric reference (i。e。 they are anaphoric substitutes, or simply anaphoric words): the previous sentence might have been John painted this picture in Bermuda, for instance, and each word in the response would be anaphorically related to a corresponding unit in the preceding context。 Anaphora is often contrasted with cataphora (where the words refer forward), and sometimes with deixis or exophora (where the words refer directly to the extralinguistic situation)。 It may, however, also be found subsuming both forwards- and backwards-referring functions。 The process of establishing the antecedent of an anaphor is called anaphora resolution, and is an important research aim in psycholinguistics and computational linguistics。 (A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 2008)来自优Y尔L论W文Q网wWw.YouERw.com 加QQ7520~18766

Deixis is a term used in linguistic theory to subsume those features of language which refer directly to the personal, temporal or locational characteristics of the situation within which an utterance takes place, whose meaning is thus relative to that situation。 For example, now/then, here/there, I/you, this/that are deictic words。 Deixis is analogous to the philosophical notion of indexical expression。 Deixis has also been called by different names in different period or approaches such as Pure index, Zeigworter (index), Indexical symbol and Shifter。 The term is also used to refer backwards or forwards in discourse (anaphora and cataphora respectively)。 This is sometimes known as discourse (or text) deixis。 Nevertheless, to avoid ambiguity, the deixis this essay is going to talk about excludes the discourse deixis, which overlaps anaphora。 The notion of deixis has proved to be fruitful in several areas of linguistics, especially in pragmatics and language acquisition studies, where some investigators view the learning of these items by children as constituting a significant feature of early development。 (A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 2008)

1。2 Aims and Significance of the study

Both anaphora and deixis are referential patterns in linguistics。 In our daily conversations, both anaphoric and deictic expressions can be used to refer to entities, so they are to some extent substitutable for each other。 Nevertheless, there undoubtedly exist differences between anaphora and deixis, and the selection of one rather than the other or the shift from one to the other in the discourse is also related to many factors。 This essay aims to further discuss analyze the hidden reasons behind this linguistic phenomenon。 

 The significance of this study mainly lies on its special methodology of analysis。 At present there are mainly three approaches to discourse anaphora, namely hierarchy model, topic continuity model and cognitive model。 Huang Yan, in light of the inadequacies of these analyses and given the fact that the pragmatic factor has for some time been a much neglected area here, then developed a neo-Gricean pragmatic approach to discourse anaphora in the book Anaphora, A Cross-linguistic Study。 (2000) The basic idea underlying the neo-Gricean pragmatic model is that anaphoric distribution in discourse can largely be determined by the systematic interaction of Q-, M-, and I- principles。 So we have altogether four models to analyze anaphora。 Since deixis and anaphora have much in common and given the lack of similar approach to deixis, this essay will make a unique attempt to apply these four models to both anaphora and deixis。 That is to say, this essay will explain the shift from deictic “this” to anaphoric “it” from these four perspectives, so that we could better clarify the similarities and distinctions between these two terms。