In this article, I examine the ‘modal’ or ‘empathetic’ (Lyons, 1977: 677) use of the distal (or ‘nonproximal’) determiner/pronoun that: namely, where the intended referent may have just been evoked in the immediately prior discourse, but where the distal pronoun that, not the ‘in-focus’ it or the ‘activated’, proximal this is used. The rationale behind the choice of this particular type of indexical seems to be that the speaker is distancing him/herself from the referent, not wishing to ascribe actuality to it in the way that would be the case if either it or this were used instead. Examination of this particular value of that leads to the hypothesis that the principles underlying the choice of that as opposed to this or it generally are not derived ‘objectively’, as it were, from their situational use in terms of degrees of proximity of a referent or demonstratum to the speaker or hearer, nor primarily in terms of attention focus. They are, rather, social and cognitive, and play an important interactional role in the construction of discourse.