Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Zoosemiotics 2.0

  • Published:
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper discusses how major changes in methodology, ideology and the points of view of researchers have given linguistics a new opportunity to study animal semiotics and return to the “animal language” question. The article presents new linguistic perspectives from language theory but also from sociolinguistics, language development studies or the study of sign language. This paper shows how these perspective changes have scientifically modified the way linguists approach animal communication and cleared a path for new study fields such as biosemiotics and zoosemiotics. The second part of this article introduces other significant evolutions in various scientific fields, such as biology, neuroscience or ethology, but also philosophy, and how these changes are going in the same directions as linguistics’. It demonstrates how animal linguistics is without doubt a completely interdisciplinary subject where efficient research is only possible by paradigm changes in all related fields. The last part of the paper introduces some of these possible new study prospects.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The French biologist and primatologist Georges Chapouthier explained that while this ability is not widely discussed, a few articles do explore it, like this recent one [10].

  2. Sign languages have been at the centre of a debate since their creation on whether they should be called “languages”, causing many to use that term between quotation marks. As for myself, it is the word “sign” that bothers me as a semiotician, as all languages are sign languages. In my opinion, the phrase “sign language” shows once more the issues we have with seeing our dear spoken language as simply a series of communication signs.

  3. In October 2017, the LFDA journal published a summary paper of the author thesis [37]: it was the first time a zoosemiotics thesis was defended in France.

References

  1. Benveniste, Émile. 1966. Problèmes de linguistique générale, 56-58. Paris: Gallimard.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Guillaume, Astrid. 2014. Animal : « être sensible » unanimement désensibilisé. Sémiotique du sensible. Revue trimestrielle de la Fondation Droit Animal, Ethique et Sciences 81: 35–37.

  3. Fouts, Roger, and Stephen T. Mills. 1998. L’école des chimpanzés: ce que les chimpanzés nous apprennent sur l’humanité. Paris: J. C. Lattès.

    Google Scholar 

  4. De Waal, Frans. 2013. Le bonobo, Dieu et nous. A la recherche de l’humanisme chez les primates, 162–171. Paris: Les Liens qui Libèrent.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Gordon, Peter. 2004. Numerical cognition without words: Evidence from Amazonia. Science 306: 496–499.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Guyomarc’h, Jean-Charles. 1980. Abrégé d’éthologie: déterminisme, fonction, ontogenèse, évolution des comportements, 158–159. Paris: Masson.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Eco, Umberto. 1988. Sémiotique et philosophie du langage, 23–24. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Bekoff, Marc. 2009. Les émotions des animaux. Paris: Payot & Rivages.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Delahaye, Pauline. 2013. Application de la zoosémiotique à l’éthologie. Peut-on parler de culture animale? Master thesis, Paris V René Descartes.

  10. van Schaik, Carel, Laura Damerius, and Karin Isler. 2013. Wild orangutan males plan and communicate their travel direction one day in advance. PLoS ONE 8(9): e74896.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. De Vincenz, André. 1974. Disparition et survivances du franco-provençal: étudiées dans le lexique rural de La Combe de Lancey, Isère. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  12. Pepperberg, Irène. 1999. Alex studies. Cognitive and Communicative Abilities of Grey Parrot. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Kull, Kalevi. 2001. Jakob von Uexküll: An introduction. Semiotica 134(1/4): 1–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Peirce, Charles S. 1993. A la recherche d’une méthode, 59–61. Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  15. Bentolila, Alain, Bruno Germain, Liliane Sprengers-Charolles, et al. 2014. La maternelle: les cinq piliers du langage: cycle 1. Paris: Nathan.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Cook, Vivian, and Mark Newson. 2007. Chomsky’s universal grammar: An introduction. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Fröschels, Emil, and Robert Rieber. 1980. Language development and aphasia in children: New essays, and a translation of “Kindersprache und Aphasie” by Emil Fröschels. New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Darwin, Charles. 1989. The Expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: W. Pickering.

    Google Scholar 

  19. Christen, Yves. 2011. L’Animal est-il une personne?. Barcelone: Flammarion.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  20. Moss, Cynthia. 1989. La Longue Marche des éléphants. Paris: Robert Laffont.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Herman, Louis, Douglas Richards, and James Wolz. 1984. Comprehension of sentences by bottlenosed dolphins. Cognition 16: 129–219.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Ryabov, Vyacheslav A. 2016. The study of acoustic signals and the supposed spoken language of the dolphins. St. Petersburg Polytechnical University Journal: Physics and Mathematics 2–3: 231–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Prior, Helmut, Schwarz, Ariane and Güntürkün, Onur. 2008. Mirror-induced behavior in the magpie (Pica pica): Evidence of self-recognition. PLoS Biology. http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060202. Accessed 19 August 2017.

  24. Chapouthier, Georges. 2012. Philosophie et neurosciences: les racines animales de la psychiatrie. Psychiatrie Française 1/2012: 62–73.

  25. Bradshaw, Isabel G. 2004. Not by bread alone: Symbolic loss, trauma, and recovery in elephant communities. Society and Animals 12–2: 143–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Guillier, Camille. 2017. Les primates non humains ont-ils une théorie de l’esprit ? Revue de primatologie. https://doi.org/10.4000/primatologie.2781.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 1989. La pertinence: communication et cognition. Paris: Editions de Minuit.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Boesch, Christophe. 2007. What makes us human (Homo sapiens)? The challenge of cognitive cross-species comparison. Journal of Comparative Psychology 121: 227–240.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Rosenthal, Robert. 1970. Le préjugé du maître et l’apprentissage de l’élève. Revue française de pédagogie 13: 38–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Bodamer, Mark, and Allen Gardner. 2002. How cross-fostered chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) initiate and maintain conversations. Journal of Comparative Psychology 116–1: 12–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Terrace, Herbert S. 1987. Nim. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  32. Forsberg, Niklas, Mikel Burley, and Nora Hämäläinen. 2012. Language, ethics and animal life: Wittgenstein and beyond, 21–25. New York: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Chapouthier, Georges, Catherine Coquio, and Jean-Paul Engélibert. 2011. La Question Animale. Entre science, littérature et philosophie. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  34. De Waal, Frans. 2016. Sommes-nous trop «bêtes» pour comprendre l’intelligence des animaux?, 45–87. Lonrai: les Liens qui libèrent.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Guillaume, Astrid. 2013. Question de définitions. Humanité versus Animalité ? Sémiotique de l’animal. Revue trimestrielle de la Fondation Droit Animal, Ethique et Sciences 79: 22–24.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Rattasepp, Silver, and Tyler Bennett (eds.). 2012. Gatherings in biosemiotics. Tartu: University of Tartu Press.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Delahaye, Pauline. 2017. Des signes pour le dire: le langage animal. Revue Trimestrielle de La Fondation Droit Animal Ethique et Science 97: 36.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. EA 4509, Sens, Texte, Informatique, Histoire, Université Paris Sorbonne (Paris 4), Paris, France

    Pauline Delahaye

Authors
  1. Pauline Delahaye
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pauline Delahaye.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Delahaye, P. Zoosemiotics 2.0. Int J Semiot Law 31, 707–714 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-018-9563-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-018-9563-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation