On the Arbitrariness of Linguistic Sign: A Brief Commentary on de Saussure’s Argument of Arbitrariness

Weihong ZHOU, Wei WANG

Abstract


Ever since Ferdinand de Saussure pointed out the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign, some linguists have accepted and agreed to this assertion, others have aired challenging views from the perspective of iconicity. This paper attempts to analyze this question and prove that the linguistic sign is arbitrary, and iconicity is also a characteristic of language. It can complement rather than replace the principle of arbitrariness.

 


Keywords


Arbitrariness; Linguistic sign; Iconicity

Full Text:

PDF

References


Haiman, J. (1985). Natural Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as social semiotic: The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold.

Harris, R. (1987). Reading Saussure : A Critical Commentary on the Cours de linguistique générale. London : Duckworth.

Katzner, K. (1986). The languages of the world (Revised ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Koerner, E. F. K., & Asher, R. E. (1995). Concise history of the language sciences – From the Sumerians to the cognitivists. Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd.

Peirce, C. S. (1931). Collected papers of Charles S. Peirce (Vols. 8, p. 58), In C. Hartsborne, P. Weiss, & A. W. Burks (Eds.). Cambridge: MA.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1959). Course in general linguistics, In W. Baskin (Trans.). London: Philosophical Library Inc.

Shi, Y. Z., & Li, N. (2001). A history of grammaticalization in Chinese – Motivation and mechanisms of evolution of Chinese morpho-syntax. Beijing: Peking University Press.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/10616

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2018 Canadian Social Science

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Reminder

  • How to do online submission to another Journal?
  • If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

Submission Guidelines for Canadian Social Science

We are currently accepting submissions via email only. The registration and online submission functions have been disabled.

Please send your manuscripts to [email protected]，or [email protected] for consideration. We look forward to receiving your work.

 Articles published in Canadian Social Science are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 

Canadian Social Science Editorial Office

Address: 1020 Bouvier Street, Suite 400, Quebec City, Quebec, G2K 0K9, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail:[email protected]; [email protected]

Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture