The Influence of Self-touch and Other-touch Situations on the Choice of Spatial Demonstratives
Zhou Rong · Waiguoyu · 2010
Examined in simulated situations,Chinese spatial demonstratives were found to be sensitive to the alternation of self-touch and other-touch situations.The subjects tended extremely strongly to use the proximal form to refer to the entity in self-touch situations whereas they tended strongly to use the distal form to refer to the entity in other-touch situations.The results of the experiment show that the proximal-distal distinction encoded by spatial demonstratives is abstract and schematic.Demonstratives really refer to what are conceptualized and structured by the ICM of deixis.It is psychological distance rather than physical distance that determines the choice of proximal and distal forms.And the process of choice has the characteristic of subjectivity.