Indexicality
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See: Indexical Expression, Index Data Structure, Index.
References
- (Wikipedia, 2009) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indexical
- In linguistics and in philosophy of language, an indexical behavior or utterance 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 Peirce, "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.