Experienced repetition. Integrational linguistics and the first-person perspective

Abstract

This article is concerned with the relationship between the first-person perspective and the experience of linguistic repetition in processes of contextualization and integration. The sense of a sign's repeatability has to do with our own historicity. An act of repetition involves a subjectively experienced lived-through sense of sameness that cannot be encapsulated by the idea of form-meaning pairings or type and token. From a phenomenological perspective I argue that a sign gets its perceived identity from its experienced appearances. That in the sign which becomes repeatable is exactly that which is the identity in all of its appearances. The fact that this identity can come forward is the sine qua non condition for the sign's continuous revitalization. The relevance of the existential implications of the phenomenon of repetition for integrational linguistics is also considered.