A Survey Of Arbitrariness And Iconicity In Lexical Sign

At the mention of man being animals of nous, the amount of the remark is that man creates signs accessing to the world rationally. Of all the signs, linguistic signs are basilic. Linguistic signs as instrument of expressing thought are signs of evolution for thousands of years naturally. One issue that interests and puzzles many scholars is the origin of language, namely, the form/meaning relationship of linguistic sign. Surveying representative theories on arbitrariness and iconicity in history, the paper cards out its own point of view.There are, in general, two kinds of relationships between the form and the meaning of a linguistic sign: arbitrariness and non-arbitrariness (motivation). One kind of non-arbitrariness is commonly referred to as iconicity. There has been the controversy over arbitrariness vs. iconicity down the ages.Saussure is known as the founder of modern linguistics and has great influence among linguistic circle worldwidely. Ever since he put forward the principle of arbitrariness in his General Course of Linguistics and considered it as the primary rule of linguistic signs, it was treated as an oracular principle for quite a long time. As iconicity in linguistics was brought forward from Peircean sign theory along with more and more phenomena of iconicity in language being found, in recent decades, researchers have been focusing on the subject again, putting forward their own opinions or their understanding. But so far, there is still not a satisfying conclusion.The paper gives a brief outline on Plato's Cratylus, makes a comprehensive study and comments as well on Saussure's arbitrariness, narrates peircean iconicity and some basis of its universal existence in anutshell, and then offers a viewpoint of arbitrariness vs. iconicity in lexical signs. The conclusion is: arbitrariness and iconicity are not contradictory against each other, and they are complimentary features of linguistic signs.