Arbitrariness in Language

**flowrish** · 23-05-2009, 10:14 PM

السلام عليكم

ARBITRARINESS IN LANGUAGE

There are two views about the relastionship between the sound of the word and its mening :
*The natural position :there is no arbitrariness between sound and meaning : language describes nature==>non-arbitrary
*The conventional view:Arbitrariness was theNORM in language : all signs are arbitrary(F.de Saussure) and even exceotions there a certain degree of arbitrariness

Examples of arbitrariness :
1-Intra-linguistic examples: (in the same language)
exple:school (sound-image ,acoustic image,form) and its meaning or concept is the place where we study.
If the meaning of this word is absent in your mind ,you only get the sound but it doesn't mean anything for you so there is no image in your mind.==>The combination of a form and meaning connected in this way gives what we call a "LINGUISTIC SIGN".
Also in one language we can find many words expressing ONE meaning or concept example HAPPY :glad;pleased;content.

2 - Inter-linguistic example:(cross linguistic example)
We can find the same meaning expressed in in different sounds across many languages ,exple:water in english , eau in french,shui in chineese...

3- A diachronic example (in the same language)
The pronunciation of many words have witnessed many changes over time and we expect then the meaning to change also but it didn't .exple wors like (wrong, knight , gnow) used to be pronunced with theire first letters but now they do not and their meaning didn't change.

4- Onomatopoeic examples:
Onomatopoeia : words that are imitative of natural sounds or have meanings that are associated with such sounds of nature .
However , onomatopoeic words differ from one language to another examlpe: the sound of laughing in english is described:/haha/,/qahqah/ in arabic .Therefore , every language uses its linguistic ressources (sounds) to imitate nature .That is speakers of a given language have just arbitrarily conventionalized this noise in that form.

=======> The relationship between meaning and sound is non-natural and arbitrary .