5.3 Iconicity and arbitrariness of a sign

One of the factors influencing the outsider’s view of sign language is the obviously pantomimic origin of many signs. This iconicity, or pictorial quality, has been widely regarded as an indication that manual languages are in some way primitive, linguistically inferior, and crudely concrete (Rodda & Grove 1987:133).

The Saussurean emphasis on the arbitrariness of the link between the form of the linguistic symbol and its referent, as Kyle and Woll (1994:3892-3893) find, has strongly influenced linguists’ views on sign language: the non-arbitrary relationships found in spoken languages (e.g. sound symbolism and onomatopoeia) were usually regarded as odd exceptions and marginal. By contrast, non-arbitrary relationships between the symbol and its referent occur rather frequently in sign languages, as if being a proof of the marginal nature of sign language as a human language (Kyle & Woll 1994:3892-3893). It should be emphasised, however, that although sign languages have a comparatively large proportion of signs which in some respect resemble what they represent, the relationship between a sign and its referent is as conventionalised as in spoken languages.

According to the relationship between the form of a sign and the referent, that is, “how the forms are motivated (or not) by extra-linguistic reality” (Bergman 1982:13), signs can be classified into several types. Following Bergman (1982:13-16), who adopts Lyon’s version of semiotic triangle, the first distinction is made between arbitrary symbols/signs and motivated signs. The former “does not exhibit any similarity with the referent or cannot be explained with reference to any property of the referent” (Bergman 1982:13). In ESL, the sign WOMAN (see Figure 3) serves to illustrate this kind of relationship. The latter - motivated signs - are motivated by the referent and thus have a non-arbitrary, or iconic relation with it. Deictic signs which refer to their referents by pointing are also motivated by their referents and so constitute the second type of motivated signs (Bergman 1982:13). In ESL, for instance, such signs as NOSE, HEAD belong to that type of motivated signs.

Bergman (1982:13) also draws a distinction between a direct and an indirect motivation of forms. According to her (Bergman 1982:13), an iconic sign such as BALL in SSL is directly motivated by the referent as the form of the sign reproduces the shape of the ball. The sign ELEPHANT in SSL would be indirectly motivated, since it is the shape of the trunk which is reproduced by the form of the sign. The trunk should be regarded as the base of the sign (after Schlesinger). Strategies which have been suggested for the choice of the base are as follows: “a strong tendency to person-centricity, part of the whole, and the use of a “concrete paraphrase” (as in EMPLOY where the hand “takes hold of a person and puts him in the palm of the other hand”)” (Bergman 1982:13-14).

A further classification of iconic signs can be made with respect to whether “the aspect of articulation is iconic to a shape, a movement or a relationship” (Bergman 1982:14). This could be illustrated by shape-reproducing signs from ESL: BALL, EGG, HOUSE, TABLE; by movement-reproducing signs such as WAVE, APPLAUD; relationship-reproducing signs are ON, BELOW. (For a more detailed discussion of the iconicity of signs, see Bergman 1977/1979:95-113, 1982:13-16, Klima & Bellugi 1979:9-34, Haukioja 1991:123-140). Although signs tend to have visual imagery underlying their adaption into the language, “they still function as linguistic units rather than as simple pictures (in the same way as onomatopoeic words in a spoken language are part of the language and obey phonological restrictions)” (Kyle & Woll 1985:123).

Furthermore, language change frequently diminishes the iconic properties of signs4: some signs become more opaque over time, some completely arbitrary (Klima & Bellugi 1979:34). “Grammatical operations that signs undergo can further submerge iconicity” (Klima and Bellugi 1979:34), as a result of which a signer may not be aware of the iconic origin of a sign at all. This is particularly the case of children’s sign language acquisition, as pointed out by Haukioja (1991:138), because “what is iconic to adults is not always iconic to young children,” and “there may not even be much visual iconicity available to toddlers” (Haukioja 1991:138). (For the discussion of the role of iconicity in sign language acquisition, see Haukioja 1991).

In other words,

[s]ign language makes use of the dimensions of the spatial mode, which spoken languages lack, in creating visible shapes moving in space which reveal their mimetic origins yet are systematically and formationally constrained (Klima & Bellugi 1979:66).