对语言象似性和任意性之争的反思

近二、三十年来,国内就符号和语言的任意性和象似性问题时有争论。本文认为许多问题有待梳理和深入研究。例如,任意论者所谈的符号是语言符号,而象似论者所谈的符号具有包括语言符号在内的元符号性质;就语言而言,前者着重语音和口述语言,后者还兼及文字和书面语言;就象似性而言,前者承认为数较少的高度的拟声性,后者扩展至拟象性、隐喻和有理据性。本文还进一步讨论了这场争论为什么迟至上世纪八十年代后展开,从汉语的发展重新解读索绪尔的语言任意性和线性特征,以及我们如何正确对待传统与创新的关系。

Reflections on the Arguments over Linguistic Arbitrariness and Iconicity

The past twenty or thirty years have seen the heated debate between abritrariness and iconicity in linguistics and semiotics.The paper is aimed at sorting out some of the issues and exploring the nature of their differences.For instance,the arbitrariness view of sign is mainly linguistic sign,whereas the iconicity view of sign is meta-sign;the former focuses on the oral language,whereas the latter covers both writing and the written language;the former emphasizes the limitation of onomatopoeia,whereas the l...