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Pointing language

Device
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

Language that directs attention to specific elements in the immediate context

Detailed Definition
Pointing language consists of deictic words and phrases that orient meaning in relation to the speaker’s spatial, temporal, or personal context (“I,” “you,” “today,” “this place”); in poetry, it creates intimacy, immediacy, and a sense of the lyric as occurring in real time.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” pointing language uses “this,” “here,” and “now” to ground cosmic vision in immediacy; In Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror,” pointing language (“I am silver and exact”) creates object-person hybridity; In Seamus Heaney’s “Digging,” pointing language (“Between my finger and my thumb”) anchors memory in bodily presence; In Lucille Clifton’s “homage to my hips,” pointing language (“these hips”) asserts bodily autonomy
Additional Notes
Pointing language uses demonstratives and spatial terms to orient the reader within the poem’s world; it creates immediacy but requires clear contextual grounding to avoid vagueness.
Also Known As
Deictic speech Indexical diction Demonstrative phrasing Demonstrative reference Pointing words
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