On The Iconic Nature Of Language-from The Perspective Of Memetics

Whether language is arbitrary or iconic is a question concerning the nature of language. Argument between the hypothesis of arbitrariness and that of iconicity finds its way back to the ancient Roman times. Since the early 20th, Saussure's principle of arbitrariness has been extensively accepted and been viewed as a fundamental theory in modern linguistics. However, with the development of cognitive linguistics during the late 1970s, linguists began to give an eye to the function of people's cognition in the language evolution and development. Thereafter, iconicity, as a challenge to arbitrariness, reentered into the researching field of linguistics. However, previous iconic studies are generally conducted by proposing and analyzing iconic phenomena without offering any motivation or evidence for forming iconicity. Therefore, this thesis is intended to elaborate the nature of language in the perspective of the memetic theory in the hope of giving a biological support to the iconic nature of language as well as gaining a deeper understanding of memetics as a new theory.Memetics is a theory originated from Darwin's biological evolution theory. The meme as a unit of cultural information is of great importance in the development of human languages. Its replication and transmission provide a quick and an effective way to enrich human languages. The major effort is directed to the explanation of the memetic theory and application of this approach to the analysis of iconicity at different language levels. As a theoretical study, this thesis adopts the methodology of qualitative analysis, defining iconicity and arbitrariness, meme and gene, and memetics, classifying iconicity into different types, categorizing iconicity reflected on phonological, lexical and syntactical levels, and meanwhile applying the lifecycle of memes or memeplexes to illustrate how iconicity is formed on these three levels.The study finds that the lifecycle of memes or memeplexes is the active process of language development, while iconicity is the final result of the lifecycle of memes or memeplexes. The findings of the study suggest that memetic analysis of linguistic iconicity reveals the law of the origin and development of human languages, thus also sheds light on language teaching.