Arbitrainess and the sign

what do you understand from the concept of Arbitrariness and Sign?
What are the different signs

Arbitrary
- no natural relationship between sound, the written form of the word and what it stands for.

Sign
- anything that draws our attention to something

Types of Sign
1)Symbol
- arbitrary relationship between sign and what it represents for
eg: = equal

2)Icon
- non arbitrary rs between icon and what it stands for.
-resemblance icon and referent will not be exactly the same else the icon would be the referent
-sign that resembles what it stands for
For eg :
the picture of a letter is iconic because we can make educated guess about what is being represented just by looking it.
This probably can be found in a post office
The location of where the sign is placed is also important; if this sign is found in the office, it most likely represents the room where mails are being processed.

-words that mimic the sounds of animals : onomatopoeic
+these words are iconic as they sound like the sound made by the respective animal sound in some extent.

3)Index
- causal and sequential relationship between sign and event

-indexical aspect of language is most apparent in the accent of the language speaker/pronunciation.
For eg: we are able to tell alot of where people are from by just listening to them.

-spelling and form of certain British English and American English are also indexical

Eg : colour (BE) color (AE) / tap (BE) faucet (AE) / tube (BE) subway (AE)
these words are used in 2 different varieties of English but are used to refer to the same item. We call these words consistently used and spelt in a particular way as indexical.
Eg :
relationship between smoke an fire
when there is smoke, one can expect to see a fire.
the presence of smoke indicates a fire.
-thus smoke is an index indicating the presence of fire, regardless whether it can be seen or not

Eg: symptoms of an illness
-doctors base their diagonses of illness on symptoms
-the symptoms are indices that suggest the presence of an underlying medical problem.
for instance a temperature over 37.3 degree celcius would indicate a fever