Arbitrariness And Nonarbitrariness Of Linguistic Signs

The discussion on whether the linguistic sign is arbitrary or nonarbitrary is an everlasting heated discussed topic. At the end of 19th century, Saussure, father of modern linguistics, put forward his first principle of linguistics—the linguistic signs are arbitrary, which is widely considered and accepted by most linguists. On the other hand, some linguists doubted the significance of this principle and claimed that nonarbitrariness is superior to arbitrariness and therefore should be the first principle of linguistic signs. Since then the problems,"which of the two properties should be the first principle of the linguistic sign"and"how are the two properties related with each other", become a hot point of the field of modern linguistics.By reexamining the definitions and scopes of arbitrariness and nonarbitrariness respectively, it can be seen that the objects of the two properties are at different levels of linguistic signs, so that it is really unreasonable and even unnecessary to identify which is the first principle of linguistic signs. The duty for the explorers should be researching the relations between arbitrariness and nonarbitrariness when they co-exist and cooperate in the linguistic signs and the language system. Even the nonarbitrariness feature of linguistic signs cannot wipe out the contributions of arbitrariness and the two features of linguistic signs co-exist and interact to construct a large number of linguistic signs in the mysterious language system.To conclude, it seems, therefore, that arbitrariness and nonarbitrariness are two extremes on a continuum. This is a gradient continuum, along which there is no clear-cut boundary between them. The probe into these fields shows that both arbitrariness and nonarbitrariness play important roles in language system and the two interact with each other. Neither of them can be divided from each other and neither of them can exist or function solely to form the language system.