Linguistic Presence

Linguistic presence is the use of signs to ensure that we remain within a shared attentional space. Linguistic presence is our "highest priority" as sign users it motivates all of our sign usage.

Origin

Linguistic presence is what the participants of the sign community desire above all else. On the originary scene, linguistic presence is achieved and maintained via the repetition of the Originary Sign and the joint shared attention that is produced for the first time on the originary scene. The inability for us to maintain linguistic presence would be apocalyptic insofar as it would mean that sign users are no longer able to share attention and communicate and thereby continue to defer the violence that representation keeps at bay. Ultimately, we are still participants on the originary scene, and by maintaining linguistic presence we preserve at least the possibility of the deferral of violence via representation.

Role in the Development of Speech Modes

Gans uses the concept of Linguistic Presence to account for the transition from one speech form to another in The Origin of Language (ostensive to imperative to interrogative to declarative). Katz stretches the concept further in Anthropomorphics and elsewhere by pursuing the implication that much of human inventiveness and creativity results from attempts to maintain Linguistic Presence when signs are in danger of failing.