Continuum of Linguistic Signs from Arbitrariness to Iconicity

Whether linguistic signs are arbitrary or not has been an ever-discussed and controversial issue in the linguistic circle.Since Saussure proposed the first principle of arbitrariness of linguistic signs,many linguists expressed successively their agreement or disagreement both abroad and at home.After taking views from all sides into account,the article redefined the characteristic of linguistic signs,holding that there exist both arbitrariness and iconicity.At last,it discussed the correlation between arbitrariness and motivation and further elucidated that there is a continuum from iconicity to arbitariness in the language system from the dialectic point of view.