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Exophoric

Grammar
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Referring to linguistic elements that point beyond the text to real-world contexts, requiring external knowledge for full interpretation.

Detailed Definition
Exophoric refers to words or phrases in a poem that point outside the text to shared cultural knowledge, real-world events, or the immediate context of utterance; exophoric references (e.g., “that war,” “her city”) assume reader familiarity, creating intimacy or urgency by anchoring the poem in extratextual reality.
Example
Example in poetry:
Exophoric: a poem referencing external context—“as we discussed last Tuesday”; Political poetry naming current events: “After the verdict in Ferguson”; A love poem alluding to a shared vacation spot unnamed in text; Contemporary social media poetry assumes reader knows the meme or hashtag; Exophora relies on shared knowledge beyond the poem.
Additional Notes
Reference pointing outside text (e.g., "that tree" indicating real tree). Linguistic term. Affects poetry's relationship to world. Contrast: endophoric (within text). Related: deixis, reference.
Also Known As
External reference Outside-pointing Context-dependent reference
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