| The main purpose of this paper is to examine the use of this and that in the written discourse and to show whether the function of the two demonstratives can be fully explained by the theory of territory of information. According to Kamio (1990), the use of this is appropriate when the information the demonstrative expresses belongs to the speaker's (S's) or writer's (W's) territory of information, whereas that is used when its information falls outside of the S/W's territory of information. Kamio argues that S/W's territory contains information close to S/W in the sense that it concerns S/W's own direct experience, personal experience, expertise, or personal data of those close to S/W.
However, as a result of the examination of the use of the demonstratives collected from some magazine articles, it has been found out that the concept of territory of information is not always determined by the above-mentioned properties of information. Based on this observation, I have argued that some other psychological factors could also have an important effect on the choice between this and that.
|