30 Years' Argument over the Arbitrariness of Linguistic Signs: Review and Reflection

Since the publication of Course in General Linguistics(Chinese version) in 1980,the hypothesis of the arbitrariness of linguistic signs put forward by F.de Saussure has attracted a lot of attention from Chinese linguists.There remains two major disagreements on the hypothesis among the Chinese scholars: whether linguistic signs are arbitrary or motivated and whether arbitrariness is the first principle of linguistic signs.The argument over the arbitrariness of linguistic signs is in part due to the lack of correct and comprehensive understanding of the hypothesis.