A Critical Companion to Zoosemiotics: (eBook)

Preface 7
Acknowledgments 11
Contents 12
1 Introduction to Zoosemiotics 14
1.1 What is Zoosemiotics? 14
1.1.1 Characteristics of Zoosemiotics 20
1.1.2 Zoosemiotics and the Natural Sciences 27
1.1.3 Zoosemiotics and the Human Sciences 29
1.1.4 The Importance of the Umwelt Theory 38
1.2 Critical Issues in the Past, Present and Future of Zoosemiotics 41
1.2.1 The Turbulent Relationship Between Biosemiotics and Biology 42
1.2.2 The Ever Present Cartesian Dualism. Part I: Razors and Cryptosemioticians 48
1.2.3 The Ever Present Cartesian Dualism. Part II: Semiotic Animals and Metasemiosis 51
1.2.4 In Defence of Biosemiotics 67
1.2.5 The Zoosemiotic Program 72
2 Ethological Zoosemiotics 78
2.1 General Systematics of EZ 78
2.2 Typologies and Functions of the Signs 82
2.2.1 Indexes and Icons 82
2.2.2 Symbols, Syntax and Names 85
2.2.3 The Six (or Seven?) Functions of Communication 90
2.3 The Mind/Body Dualism and the Problem of the Point of View 94
2.3.1 Etic Versus Emic 95
2.3.2 Zoosemiotic Universals 100
2.3.3 Multimodal Semiosis 104
2.4 A Semiotic Investigation of Deception, Play and Aesthetics 106
2.4.1 On Deception 106
2.4.2 On Play 112
2.4.3 On Aesthetics 117
2.4.4 A Unified Theory of Deception, Play and Aesthetics 124
3 Anthropological Zoosemiotics 133
3.1 General Problems Addressed by A.Z 133
3.2 The Concept of Animal from the Semiotic Perspective 134
3.2.1 Forms of Human- Other Animal Interaction 141
3.3 Interspecific Communication and Language 146
3.3.1 Semiotic Scepticism 150
3.3.2 The Case for Anthropomorphism 153
3.3.3 Critical Remarks on the Interspecific Communication Experiments 157
3.3.4 Subject Matters 167
3.3.5 Morgan's Canon and Other Forms of Scientific Fear 175
4 A Glossary of People, Paths and Ideas 183
Abduction 183
Abstraction 184
Acoustic Channel 185
Adaptation 185
Adoption 185
Aesthetics 186
Alarm Call 187
Alarm Response 187
Alex (19762007) 187
American Sign Language 189
Ameslan 189
Analogies-Homologies 189
Analogy 189
Animal 189
Animal Ontology 190
Anthropocentrism 191
Anthropomorphism 191
Anthropological Zoosemiotics 192
Anthroposemiotics 192
Anthrozoology 193
Anthro-Zoosemiotics 193
Appeasement 193
Applied Zoosemiotics 194
Aquinas, Thomas (1221--1274) 194
Architectural Signs 194
Aristotle (384--322 b.c.) 196
ASL 197
Baer, Karl Ernst Von (1792--1876) 197
Barbieri, Marcello (1940) 199
Bateson, Gregory (1904--1980) 199
Bayle, Pierre (1647--1707) 200
Bee Dance 200
Behaviorism 202
Bekoff, Marc (1945) 203
Bentham, Jeremy (1748--1842) 203
Bioacoustics 204
Biocentrism 204
Biocommunication 205
Biorhetorics 205
Biosemiotics 205
Biosphere 206
Bower 206
Camouflage 206
Cassirer, Ernst (1874--1945) 207
Channels 207
Chantek (1977) 207
Chemical Channel 208
Cimatti, Felice (1959) 208
Cleaning Symbiosis 208
Clever Hans Effect 209
Code 209
Coetzee, John Maxwell (1940) 210
Cognition 210
Cognitive 211
Cognitive Ethology 211
Cognitive Map 212
Comfort 212
Communication 212
Communicational Anthrozoosemiotics 212
Conative 212
Condillac, Etienne Bonnot De (1715--1780) 212
Consciousness 213
Contextual Codes 214
Convention 214
Critical Anthropomorphism 214
Culture 215
Dance 215
Darwin, Charles (1809--1882) 216
Dear Enemy 216
Deception 216
Deely, John (1942) 217
Descartes, Ren (1596--1650) 217
Descriptive Zoosemiotics 219
Design-Features of Language 219
De Waal, Frans (1948) 219
Diagrammatic Iconism 219
Dialect 219
Discontinuity 220
Distant Space-Time Semiosis 220
Domestication 221
Early Etho-Zoosemiotics 221
Echolocation 221
Ecocentrism 221
Ecosemiotics 221
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenus (1928) 222
Electric Channel 222
Emic-Etic 222
Emotion-Free Experimental Context 222
Endosemiotics 223
Endosemiotics-Exosemiotics 223
Ethics 224
Ethogram 224
Ethology 224
Ethological Zoosemiotics 226
Etho-zoosemiotics 227
Exosemiotics 227
Expressive 227
Exhibition 227
Food Request 227
Four Questions 228
Fouts, Roger (1943) 228
Fossey, Dian (1932--1985) 229
Frisch, Karl Von (1886--1982) 229
Functions of Communication 229
Gabriel, Peter (1950) 230
Gaius Plinius Secundus (23--79) 230
Galdikas, Birut (1946) 230
Gardner, Allen and Beatrix 231
Generalization 231
Goodall, Jane (1934) 231
Gradualism 231
Griffin, Donald (1915--2003) 232
Gustatory Channel 232
Hediger, Heini (1908--1992) 232
Heterotroph 232
Hockett, Charles (1916--2000) 233
Hoffmeyer, Jesper (1942) 234
Homology 234
Human-Other Animal Relation 234
Hume, David (1711--1776) 234
Icon 235
Imitation 235
Imprinting 235
Index 236
Ingold, Tim (1948) 236
Instinct 237
Intentionality 237
Interspecific 237
Interspecific Communication Experiments 238
Intraspecific 240
Joni 240
Kant, Immanuel (1724--1803) 240
Kanzi (1980) 241
Kaplan, Gisela (1944) 243
Kinaesthetic Signs 243
Kircher, Athanasius (1601--1680) 244
Kluge Hans, Der 245
Kohts, Nadia (1890--1963, full name: Nadezhda Ladygina-Kohts) 245
Koko (1971) 245
Kull, Kalevi (1952) 246
Lana 247
Language 247
Leakeys Angels 248
Learning 248
Leclerc De Buffon, George-Louis (1707--1788) 249
Lenneberg, Eric 249
Lestel, Dominique (1961) 249
Lexigrams 250
Lindauer, Martin (1918--2008) 250
Locke, John (1632--1704) 250
Lorenz, Konrad (1903--1989) 252
Magnetoception 252
Maran, Timo (1975) 252
Marchesini, Roberto 253
Marler, Peter (1928) 253
Martinellis Canon 253
Maynard Smith, John (1920--2004) 253
Mechanism 254
Mental Map 254
Mental Representation 254
Metalinguistic 254
Metasemiosis 254
Miles, Lyn 255
Mimicry 255
Mind 256
Mirror-Test 257
Modelling 257
Modern Etho-zoosemiotics 257
Morgan, Conwy Lloyd (1852--1936) 257
Morgans Canon 257
Morris, Charles (1901--1979) 258
Morris, Desmond (1928) 258
Multimodality 259
Musical Signs 259
Nim Chimpsky (1973--2000) 260
Nkisi 260
Objects 260
Occams Razor 260
Ockham, William Of (1288--1348) 260
Ockhams Razor 260
Olfactive Channel 261
Olfactory Channel 261
Osten, Wilhelm Von 261
Pain, Stephen (1956) 261
Pansemiotism 261
Patterson, Francine (1947) 262
Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839--1914) 262
Pepperberg, Irene 263
Pergola 263
Pergolate 263
Personhood 264
Pfungst, Oskar 264
Phatic 264
Phenomenology 264
Phyletic Homology 264
Pictorial Signs 265
Plato 266
Play 267
Poetic 268
Porphyry of Tyre (234--circa 305) 268
Portmann, Adolf (1897--1982) 269
Pragmatics 270
Principles of Picture-Making 270
Prodi, Giorgio (1928--1987) 271
Proprioceptive 271
Pure Zoosemiotics 272
Referential 272
Regan, Tom (1938) 272
Representation 272
Rhetoric 273
Ritualized Fight 273
Ritualization 273
Rorarius, Hieronymus (1485--1556) 274
Rothenberg, David (1962) 274
Savage-Rumbaugh, SUE 274
Sayers, William (1935) 274
Schopenauer, Arthur (1788--1861) 275
Sebeok, Thomas Albert (1920--2001) 275
Self-awareness 276
Self-consciousness 276
Semantics 277
Semiosis 277
Semiosphere 278
Semiotic Threshold 278
Signification 278
Significational/Representational Anthrozoosemiotics 279
Singer, Peter (1946) 279
Singing 279
Smith, William John 279
Sociality 280
Sociobiology 280
Species 281
Speciesism 282
Species-Specific 282
Symbiosis 283
Symbol 283
Syntactics 284
Syntax 284
Tactile Channel 285
Taylor, Hollis (1951) 285
Tembrock, Gnther (1918) 285
Terrace, Herbert 286
Thermal Channel 286
Thermic Channel 286
Theophrastus (ca. 370287 b.c.) 286
Things 286
Things-Objects 286
Tinbergen, Nikolas (1907--1988) 287
Tools 287
Tool-Making 289
Tool-Use 289
Training 289
Trans-Specific 290
Trophallaxis 290
Turovski, Aleksei (1946) 290
Uexkll, Jakob Johann Von (1864--1944) 290
Umwelt 291
Vilkka, Leena (1964) 292
Visual Channel 292
Washoe (1965--2007) 293
Wenner, Adrian (1928) 295
Witzany, Gnther (1953) 295
Zooanthropology 295
Zoocentrism 296
Zoomorphism 296
Zoomusicology 297
Zoosemiotic Canon 299
Zoosemiotic Universals 300
Zoosemiotics 300
5 Does Zoosemiotics Have an Ethical Agenda? 303
5.1 Introducing the Problem 303
5.2 The (Zoo)Semiotics of Resistance 305
5.2.1 Ending the Past 306
5.2.2 Dominance of One Discourse 306
5.2.3 Demagogy of Language 307
5.2.4 Metalevel of Activities 308
5.2.5 Standardization of Diversity and Binarization of Values 310
5.3 The HumanAnimal(ist) Relationship in Everyday Discourse 310
5.4 A Semiotics of Anthropocentrism 314
5.4.1 Intergroup Relations 316
5.4.2 Categorizing Anthropocentric Attitudes 319
5.5 The Concept of Biocentrism 330
5.5.1 Why Biocentrism? 333
5.5.2 The Pillars of Biocentrism 335
References 338
Author Index 351
Glossary Index 356
Species Index 360