differences between signed and spoken languages
Iconicity and arbitrariness In English, as with most spoken languages, the principle of arbitrariness holds: No intrinsic relationship exists between the set of sounds and the object to which the sounds refer. For instance, there is no relation between the size of a word and the size of its referent; we have big words for small objects. According to hockett, this is a universal feature of human language.
American Sign Language, in contrast, possesses a high degree of iconicity: Many of the signs resemble the objects or activities to which they refer. For example,