Analysis Of Person Deixis In The Originals From The Perspective Of Adaption Theory

Deixis is an important field of pragmatics research. Person deixis, as a kind of deixis, has attracted many scholars’ attention from home and domestic. Linguists like Levinson and Fillmore and other linguists, study deixis from the view of definition, classification, grammar levels, etc. Recent years, person deixis has got significant attention of linguists from abroad and home. Numerous studies have been conducted on the person deixis and the process of analysis is stable. But the studies of the choices and function of person deixis are limited. This article attempts to analyze anti-preemptive use and so on.This thesis bases on adaption theory, analyzing the relationship between the choice of person deixis and factors of mental world, social world and physical world. Adaption theory was firstly proposed by Jef Verschueren in 1978, which is a most significant theory in Pragmatics. Then he had made a thorough explanation in his Understanding Pragmatics in 1999. In the curse of communication, participants interadapt with the context by choosing proper person deixis. This is an adaptable behavior when participants choose person deixis with different context. This thesis has collected numerous speeches related to the choice of person deixis in The Originals and analyzed them from the view of mental world, social world and physical world. In the process of analysis, this thesis has noticed that the choices of person deixis have embodied the feature of variability, negotiability and adaptability. According to Vershueren’s view, the process of choice word is a proceeding of making linguistic choices. On the one hand when the participants choose person deixis, the participants interadapt with mental world, social world and physical world. The choice of the language bases on the elements that concerned. On the other hand, the different language forms may embody the elements.This thesis is composed of three parts:introduction, main body and conclusion. Its main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction. It introduces the research background, methodology, purpose and properties of this thesis. It briefly introduces the research background of person deixis and adaption theory and points the property of dynamic in analyzing person deixis with adaption theory. This thesis employs qualitative method and collects numerous speeches regarding the use of person deixis.The second part is main body which is composed of four chapters.In the first chapter, it mainly introduces the adaption theory and person deixis, and it gives a brief introduction on the application of translation and literature works. In the first portion it introduces the adaption theory. It gives a brief introduction to the process of making choices and introduces the properties of variability, negotiability and adaptability. It also introduces the four angles of investigation, like context. In the second portion, it introduces the use of person deixis, such as anti-preemptive use of person deixis. It has made a brief introduction to the study result in different fields.In the second chapter, this thesis has analyzed that the choice of person deixis interadapts with mental world. It analyzes from the point of motivations and emotions. Both of them have significant influence on the choice of person deixis. In our daily life, they are changeable and unstable. Thus the choice of person deixis need to interadapts with them which embodies that adaption theory is a process of making choice.In the third chapter it has studied the use of person deixis from the view of social world. The choices of person deixis have to interadapt with the institutions, culture and social status. In the series of The Originals, there is distinctive social status:the vampire, witch and wolf man rank high position in the society. Thus social world exerts great influence on the choice of person deixis.In the fourth chapter, this thesis has analyzed physical world in choosing person deixis. It analyzes the choice of person deixis from the view of spatial references and material conditions of speech. For the property of variability it provides numerous choices for the participants. The utterer and interpreter chooses the appropriate person deixis according to spatial reference and materials conditions of speeches which has embodied salience. In the process of analysis, the relationship between the choice of person deixis and physical world is mutual.The part three is the conclusion. It has concluded the result of this thesis and pointed the limit of the thesis. In the curse of analysis, it has notices the mutual relationship between the choice of person deixis and context; meanwhile it embodies the property of variability, negotiability and adaptability.This thesis is of both theoretical and practical value. Theoretically, through the analysis of the use of person deixis in The Originals, it will help people have a deeper understanding of person deixis. And the study proves the explanatory power of the adaption theory. Practically, it is value to study English and disseminate culture. Besides that we wish that more people will pay attention to The Originals.