Deixis
Deixis is the technique of marking discourse with deictic words (pronouns, demonstratives, spatial and temporal markers) whose meaning depends on the speaker's position relative to the audience and the moment. In Taylor's writing deixis is most often analytical work done at the level of grammatical proximity: which person owns the line (first-person 'I / me / my', second-person 'you / your', third-person 'she / he / they'), and at what density. A measurable concentration of first-person deictic markers (sustained across a song rather than incidental) converts the grammatical choice into a structural feature, formally enacting the speaker's interior focus. Sibling to Diction at the sentence level, with Deixis the narrower technique scoped to deictic-marker grammar specifically.
Deixis embeds the song's perspective into grammar itself - making the listener experience the speaker's position rather than just hear about it. At high first-person density the effect is claustrophobic and confessional, as in Anti-Hero's 60+ first-person markers across 48 lines; at second-person density the effect is direct address; at sustained third-person the effect is observational or narrative distance. The technique operates cumulatively rather than line-locally, with the meaning carried by sustained patterns of deictic grammar across the song.
Appears in 2 songs
Uncle Jerry identifies and extensively discusses the use of first-person deixis throughout the song. He counts over 60 uses of 'I,' 'me,' and 'my' across only 48 lines, calling it the first thing that 'spanks you in the face' when doing diction study. He names the literary term 'deixis' (spelled D-I-E-X-I-S) and describes it as a proximal description focused on the speaker, all the deictic markers point to her. He connects this to the confessional poetry tradition.
The overwhelming first-person deixis makes the song almost claustrophobically self-focused, formally enacting the narcissism and self-obsession the speaker confesses to in the lyrics.
Uncle Jerry identifies the liberal spread of the word 'I' throughout the text as a defining feature. He connects the concentration of first-person markers to the poem's function as Betty's truth, 'she underscores that by saying, I think this, I saw that, I felt this, I remember that. This is Betty's truth.'
The high density of first-person deixis formally enacts the subjectivity that is the trilogy's thematic concern, each narrator's truth is marked by the grammatical insistence on 'I.'