A Study on Arbitrariness and Motivation of the Linguistic Sign

Arbitrariness and motivation are two fundamental characteristics of the linguistic sign. As linguistics shifted from modern linguistics to contemporary linguistics, linguists theorized these two characteristics into two corresponding theories-the theory of arbitrariness and the theory of motivation. From the perspective of the distinction between the two characteristics and the two corresponding theories concerning them, the so-called incompatibility between arbitrariness and motivation in the present-day linguistic study is actually the competition between the theory of arbitrariness and the theory of motivation. Nevertheless, the complementarities of arbitrariness and motivation and their theorization can help us establish a more scientific and reasonable linguistic methodology.