Deixis as a category of journalist’s mental space
in reportage message
This article systematically analyzes the cognitive structure of discursive deixis. The category of deixis is interpreted in terms of structuring actual events in reportage messages and texts, an impartial representation of objective reality as an epistemological entity reproduced and changed by the journalist. Deixis is interpreted as a pragmatic category that is structured around the corresponding ideal cognitive model, measured on the prototypical scale, since it is implemented based on nuclear and peripheral means of expression. It is argued that deictic means reproduce specific mental spaces in reportage texts, while the metaphorical generating basis for discursive deixis is spatial deixis. The functioning of discursive deixis is based on the metaphorical awareness of the reportage text as an epistemological entity unfolding in space and time. In the reportage narration, the journalist shifts the deictic center from the situation in objective reality to the textual embodiment of the image of himself / herself. In this case, the category of locativity is represented as a cognitive structure that captures the spatio-temporal characteristics of an actual event through the prism of journalistic perception. Based on these characteristics, the reader localizes this event, interprets it in terms of the general event canvas unfolding in objective reality. In the reportage text, the deictic center is not static: the detail of the actual event is carried out, among other things, by means of shifts in this center. Current events are reproduced by the journalist taking into account specific spatial and temporal parameters. These events are often considered against the background of previous or subsequent (hypothetical) eventfulness, and therefore shifts in the original deictic center of the reportage text are a natural phenomenon.
