The Deixis of Contemporary British Short Prose: Ariadne’s Thread in the Labyrinth of Text

The article examines narrative deixis in contemporary British short prose, a genre characterized by compactness, the absence of linear plot development, a focus on the inner world of the character, and symbolism. The relevance of the study stems from the insufficient exploration of the linguostylistic and linguopoetic features of the short story genre, particularly in terms of its deictic characteristics. The research demonstrates that the format of short fiction requires an enhanced role of deictic projections in shaping the structure and content of the short story, as well as an expansion of the range of linguistic and compositional means performing deictic functions. The material for the study includes short stories by British writers of the 20th and 21st centuries (G. Greene, G. Swift, R. Butlin, J. Harris), which reflect the typological features of contemporary British short fiction. The study employs the descriptive method, the general scientific analytical-synthetic method, methods of linguostylistic and linguopoetic analysis, and contextual analysis. The results of the study suggest that in contemporary British short fiction deixis serves as a key navigational tool that enables readers to orient themselves within the multidimensional space of the text. The analysis has identified a number of deictic strategies, the most significant of which include: 1) close correlation between different types of deixis; 2) orientation of deictic projections towards the character’s inner world and the imagery of the text as a whole; 3) emergence of a split or multiple deictic center; the deictic projection of «reader as subject»; 4) realization of the deictic opposition «near vs. far» as a multi-layered semantic marker; 5) amplification of the deictic potential of the frame structure (the title, beginning, and ending of the story).