Exophoric Reference To The Previous Speaker

Ngo, Hood, Martin, Painter, Smith & Zappavigna (2022: 167-8):

Note that when a speaker points to an [actual] entity in the shared material space, that entity may in fact relate indirectly to one referenced in language. Examples are presented in (3) and (4). 

In (3) an academic writing teacher has elicited suggestions from students on approaches to self-editing their work. Following a discussion of a contribution from a particular student the teacher remarks – so using that approach is I think a great idea. The verbal text endophorically tracks to the semiotic entity approach through the specific determiner that while the synchronous paralanguage points to a thing entity – a student, the student who was the source of the suggested approach.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the demonstrative reference item that is endophoric to language, indicating that an identity is recoverable from inside preceding text, whereas the pointing gesture is exophoric to body language, indicating that an identity is recoverable from the environment of the gesturing.