Lingthusiasm - A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics

By Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne

84: Look, it's deixis, an episode about pointing!

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Published September 21, 2023 9:58pm

Pointing creates an invisible line between a part of your body and the thing you're pointing at. Humans are really good at producing and understanding pointing, and it seems to be something that helps babies learn to talk, but only a few animals manage it: domestic dogs can follow a point but wolves can't. (Cats? Look, who knows.) There are lots of ways of pointing, and their relative prominence varies across cultures: you can point to something with a finger or two, with your whole hand, with your elbow, your head, your eyes and eyebrows, your lips, and even your...

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