Deictic processes in literary discourse

This research presents a critical review of deictic processes and a reflection on their defining parameters based on Textual Linguistics. To this end, we decided to observe the behavior of deictics in literary discourse, considering it peculiar in its use of language and exploration of stylistic possibilities. Our purpose is to show that, when considering the specificity of literary text, some functions can be identified that are distinct from those previously presented in the literature on the subject. To this end, we draw on concepts from Literary Theory and French Discourse Analysis. In our analysis, we found that the different enunciative instances present in literary texts and the stylistic effects intended by this type of discourse can endow an expression that would not commonly be classified as deictic with deicticity. These observations were made after analyzing 20 short stories by 10 authors of modern and contemporary Brazilian literature. Our analysis focused on the function rather than the form of deictics, although the latter was not ignored.