Iconicity In Language:a Formal Approach

In recent years, it has been a controversial issue since some functional linguists argued that language is iconically motivated in significant measure. According to the foundation of semiology and linguistics, this thesis is to construct a tentative study of the direct mapping correlation between linguistic form and conceptual meaning, which is seemingly taken against views of "autonomy" and "independence" in the generative grammar. But in fact many linguists have offered the speculation both in iconicity and the generative grammar to demonstrate that the generative grammar has no difficulty in representing iconic relations between grammatical structures and conceptual structures aiming at the comparability from concrete attributive resemblance to abstract relational analogy.The thesis starts with interpretations of iconicity, its manifestations in language and our reflections on it. As to the generative grammar, the research approach formularizes the nature of the human language and explores the innate system of language evolution. And the formal approach is strongly emphasized to testify the validity of the methodology of the generative grammar to establish iconic relations and match-ups between syntactic structures and conceptual structures since iconicity study can not do without forms according to its origin and interpretations.The thesis is to present and to demonstrate the idea from a formal approach; meanwhile the term of iconicity is reviewed from some misunderstanding of principles and the contrast with "arbitrariness","motivation" and "economy", which is very important for the comparability works. Then, the thesis investigates the iconic aspects in the generative grammar covering the X-bar theory, D-structure, S-structure, the logical form, the double-objective construction and the Minimalist Program. The thesis scrutinizes the syntactical structures and figures out that it is fairly reasonable to demonstrate the unity of the generative grammar and iconicity; the iconicity study is beyond the reach of questioning for the fundamental views of the generative grammar, instead it just right offers a potent evidence to support the employment of the generative grammar. And the demonstration is not aimed to weaken the study motive power for the study of the language evolution but to generate the cohesive driving force for understanding the essence of the language evolution.This thesis tentatively offers a pervasive testimony to convince the questioning group of both functionalists and formalists to realize the unity of language structures and conceptual meaning in iconicity.And through the dialogue between iconicity in language and the formal approach, we could find that a lot of linguistic signs or structures may once have started as icons, nevertheless, in the course of time, they were evolved to symbols like the alphabet and ideographs. From the biological process behind language, iconicity coding principles are natural tendencies in language, which provides the platform for the text civilization and language civilization. And the diverse language systems tell the truth of the evolution of the humans thinking and actions.All through the present thesis, we could find no fundamental incompatibility between these two different approaches in iconicity; as to various linguistic phenomena, iconicity actually contributes a great creative force in language evolution; and iconicity indeed comes to the major factor for forming the connections between things and signs. It is marked that iconicity plays a role in the verbal and mental knowledge evolution and assists the transformation of antiquated beliefs into verbal categories and the expression with more precise mental contents of complexity.