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In linguistics and in philosophy of language, an indexical behavior or utterance symbolically points to (or indicates) some state of affairs. For example, I refers to whoever is speaking; now refers to the time at which that word is uttered; and here refers to the place of utterance. For Charles Pierce, "indexicality" is one of three sign modalities (see next paragraph), and is a phenomenon far broader than language. Anything we can construe as a sign that points to something -- including a weathervane (an index of wind direction), or smoke (an index of fire) -- is operating indexically. In the human realm, social indexicality includes any sign (clothing, speech variety, table manners) that points to, and helps create, social identity.

Indexicality is often treated as part of the study of language called pragmatics – in contrast to such fields as phonology, syntax, and semantics – in that it concerns the use and effects of language. Indexicality is sometimes seen as an alternative way of understanding reference (a concept of semantics) since it allows for an expansion of the way we understand language, and communication in general, to work. Scholars in linguistic anthropology, Elinor Ochs for example, note how gender can be indexed by the stances one adopts, whether physical or linguistic. This can be accomplished by the way one stands (e.g., the conventionally feminine: "hand on hip with body bent"; in contrast to the conventionally masculine: "thumb in pocket, standing straight with legs apart"). Gender can also be indexed by the language styles one uses (e.g., the conventionally feminine: "large variable range in speaking tones, favoring higher pitches" or "lisping, soft tones"; in contrast to the conventionally masculine: "deep tones within a narrow range of low pitches"). Indexicality is sometimes erroneously identified with the related phenomenon of deixis, which denotes a behavior or an utterance whose meaning varies according to certain features of the context in which it is uttered. Now, here, and I are also typical examples of deictic terms, as well as examples of indexical terms.

The related term "index" comes from Charles Peirce's trichotomy of signs: icon, index, and symbol.^[1]

Indexicals are closely related to demonstratives (this, that), in that both vary in meaning depending on context. Demonstratives may be thought of as forming a subset of indexicals: they are often accompanied, in ordinary usage, by pointing gestures or other non-verbal expressions of their sense. Many but not all indexicals are also egocentric, which means that in order to successfully interpret them the hearer must have knowledge of the respective speaker, time, and place of utterance.

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.

There are various extensions of the basic idea of indexicality, some of which arise outside of linguistics and philosophy of language. One notorious example is David Lewis's indexicality of actuality, according to which actual is itself an indexical term, and the ontological distinction between merely possible worlds and the actual world is just that the actual world is this world (see Modal realism, Modal logic).

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. Gurwitsch's formulation is a development of the concept as it appears in Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations (1900/1901). Gurwitsch's paper is especially valuable in that it explores this concept against the background of a number of philosophical theories of meaning.

• Semeiotic
• Semiotics

1. ^ Peirce, C.S., "Division of Signs" in Collected Papers, 1932 [1897].

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