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Glite Dictionary
🗺️ Context-based meaning 🗣️ Social signal
indexicality

indexicality

9.9
A speech or style detail that shows a person's social identity, like an accent
  • noun
  • /ˌɪndɛkˈsɪkəlɪti/
  • Specialized
translation icon : indexicalidad social
  • The indexicality of regional accents can reveal a speaker's background and social identity.

Examples

  • In her study, she analyzed the indexicality of certain phrases, which reflected the speaker's class and stance on the issue.

  • Understanding indexicality helps us see how language signals not just meanings, but also social attributes like identity.

  • I had no idea, and now it makes all kinds of sense, right down to the indexicality of the tie!

    Blog text (11)

  • In the same essay, Bal and Bryson exemplify indexicality by features of subject matter implying spatial or temporal contiguity.

    Academic text (1994)

  • Furthermore, the insistent indexicality of the Andersen ad ("through the gate to the right") invokes an adjacency that only now gets a physical context, one referred to but literally out of place in the newspaper format.

    Academic text (1999)

Surface Forms

indexicality singular
indexicalities plural

Morphology

indexicality = indexical (semi-transparent) = index + ical + ity

Formed regularly from 'indexical' with '-ity', but the sociolinguistic sense ('pointing to social meanings') is specialized and not directly inferable by average learners.

Etymology

Indexicality comes from index, which means 'pointer', like an index finger or a book index that points to pages. In social use, it means a way of speaking or a style (for example an accent or clothes) that 'points' to who you are or which group you belong to, so indexicality signals social identity.