The other day, I touched on the arbi-
tarariness found in the relation between
a word form and what is meant by it. Japan's
very famous thinker Maruyama Keizaburo ex-
tended this argument further to culture(in-
cluding language)in general.
His point is that as symbols found in culture
and what they mean are in an arbitrary re-
lationship, we could play a responsible role
in changing conbination of them, that is, in
giving new meanings to cultural symbols. Things
to this effect are heard so often,but since he
applies to culture in general the same argument
structure for language,it sounds to me very
interesting and at least logically possible.
『ソシュールを読む』岩波セミナーブックス
