Deitic elements in academic discourse an analysis of students’ long essays in colleges of education in the Eastern Region

Abstract

This study examines the deictic elements in students’ long essays using Levinson’s (2004) Theory of Deixis. Specifically, it identified the deictic elements realized and determined their functions in the long essays of the students. A purposive sampling was used to choose 350 written essays on English related topics from seven colleges of education. The qualitative analysis revealed that student teachers in all the colleges used the five types of deixis according to Levinson (2004) in their writing. Personal deixis was the most preferred deixis used by the student teachers while social deixis was the least realized. Moreover, the analysis showed that words in the essays which function deictically may be able to function as personal and demonstrative references; identify speakers and listeners; indicate psychological distance and perform grammatical functions. In addition to appropriate use of the elements, there were instances of inappropriate use of person deixis by student teachers. When this happens, communication between the writer and the reader becomes very difficult and creates cause confusion for the reader.