Deixis in Digial Monologue Discourse: A Pragmatic Study

This study investigates the use of deixis in digital monologue discourse, focusing on a YouTube commentary video entitled “Nobody is Talking About This Huge Flop” by Penguinz0. The study is significant because research on deixis in informal digital monologues remains limited, despite the growing influence of online spoken media in shaping public communication. Drawing on Levinson’s (1983) pragmatic theory of deixis, the study examines five categories of deixis: person, place, time, discourse, and social deixis. Employing a qualitative descriptive method supported by quantitative frequency analysis, the data were collected from the video transcript through close reading and manual identification of deictic expressions. The data were analyzed using Levinson’s (1983) framework for deixis classification and interpreted through qualitative contextual analysis to examine their communicative functions. The findings reveal that all five types of deixis, occur in the monologue, with person deixis being the most dominant category, accounting for 56,2% of the total occurrences. Discourse deixis ranks second (28.1%), followed by social deixis (5.9%), time deixis (4.4%), and place deixis (3.4%). The predominance of first-person pronouns demonstrates a highly speaker-centered and subjective narrative style, while second-person references promote audience engagement. Furthermore, discourse deixis contributes to textual cohesion, whereas time, place, and social deixis help establish temporal, spatial, and interpersonal relationships. The study concludes that deixis functions not only as a contextual reference system but also as a strategic pragmatic resource for constructing meaning, expressing stance, and enhancing audience interaction in digital discourse.