literallyreferring

Literallyreferring is a neologism used in linguistics to describe a referential strategy in which a speaker explicitly marks a term as referring to its exact, real-world referent rather than a figurative, generalized, or hypothetical sense. The term focuses on referential accuracy and disambiguation in discourse, often by employing explicit qualifiers such as "the actual," "the real," or "the thing itself" to anchor the intended referent in context.

Etymology and scope: The term literallyreferring blends "literally" and "referring" to signal its focus on literal referents. It originated in contemporary discourse analyses and online linguistic discussions in the 2010s–2020s as researchers sought a label for clarifying statements that disambiguate reference. It is descriptive rather than prescriptive and is used mainly in analysis of spoken or written discourse.

Usage and examples: In settings with multiple potential referents, speakers may add explicit clarifications to ensure the intended target is understood. For example: "Give me the actual document, not the draft," or "This is the real version of the contract." In questions like "Which building is the festival in?" a response may use "the actual building on the corner" to fix reference. Note that not all uses of "literally" or explicit qualifiers constitute literallyreferring; the key idea is deliberate anchoring to the true referent.

Relation to other concepts: Literallyreferring is related to deixis, definiteness, demonstratives, and metonymy but is distinguished by its explicit assertion of the referent's identity. Some scholars view it as a pragmatic device, while others consider it part of general referential signaling in discourse.

Critical reception: Some scholars warn that the label may overgeneralize a wide range of explicit referential strategies and that it overlaps with existing pragmatics concepts such as clarification or disambiguation. Cross-linguistic variation also affects how explicit referential markers function in different languages.