The Semiotics of Animal Representations Introduction

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The semiotics of animal representations Introduction

Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür

1. Re-presenting animals

In a cultural context, the manner in which we represent animals says a lot about who we are, or who we strive to be, and what we are conflicted about. Whether the animal is constructed as the radical other or someone with whom we can relate and feel kinship, describing animals in popular culture is often ± if not always ± a way to indirectly describe ourselves. Our identity as humans is intimately tied to that of the animals, whether these two are identified or defined LQ RSSRVLWLRQ :KHWKHU µPDQ¶ LH RXU VXEVSHFLHV Homo sapiens sapiens) represents itself as animal or non-animal, über-DQLPDORU³RXW RI WKLV ZRUOG´ DQ LPPDQHQW FUHDWXUH ZKLFK LV SDUW RI QDWXUH RU D transcendent being incomparable to the rest of the living, reflection on animal representations is, in the context of human understanding, ultimately self-reflection. With contributions from seven countries on three continents, we believe that this collection of essays comprises an eloquent and reasonably representative portrayal of current and modern analysis of animal representations. The chapters are elaborated by scholars brought together by the first international conference ever devoted explicitly to zoosemiotics, Zoosemiotics and Animal Representations, arranged in Tartu, Estonia, April 4±8, 2011. Methodologies applied include philosophical, ecocritical, autobiographical, postcolonial, historical, and phenomenological research. All these approaches are tied together by a common understanding of semiotics as an analytical tool enabling us to conceptualise the meaning of animals, as well as the meaning in animals and in animal lives. Some subjects of inquiry 8 Morten Tønnessen and Kadri Tüür recur in different chapters. The protagonists and antagonists treated ± besides humans ± include insects and birds, sheep and dogs, fish and marmots ± just a small selection of our fellow species, for whom our mutual understanding may often prove to be a matter of life and death. With the following chapters we hope to demonstrate that the explanatory power of zoosemiotics, combined with the array of the aforementioned approaches in the study of animal representations, may offer some new and exciting perspectives in our still long way to mutual understanding with animals. While applying a range of different theories and methodologies, this book is grounded in a rich semiotic approach to the study of animal representations. The semiotic toolbox provides scholars from various backgrounds with means to analyse phenomena that can be approached from both sides of the traditional nature/culture divide ± not least due to the emerging academic fields of biosemiotics and ecosemiotics. In these, plus zoosemiotics ± originally framed as the semiotics of animal commu- nication1 ± the study constituted by semiotics of animal representations has a firm scientific outlook (if still in development) at its base. To put it simply, this outlook is essentially equivalent with the idea that animals and other biological organisms, and ecosystems, can usefully be studied from the perspective of communication, signi- fication, and representation ± in short, from the perspective of meaning generation. Zoosemiotic theory finds its basis in the works of Jakob von Uexküll (1864±1944), Thomas Sebeok (1920±2001), and others (see Uexküll 1909, 1928, 1956, 2010; Sebeok 1972, 1990; and Maran et al. HGV 8H[NOO¶VQRWLRQRIUmwelt, the experiential world of an organism, helps us to conceptualise the world as known or modelled by an individual organism, and the relations an organism has in an ecosystem. Considered in the proposed framework, studies of popular

1 0DUWLQHOOL ZULWHVWKDW³>L@QYLHZRIQHZGHYHORSPHQWLQWKLVILHOGRILQTXLU\ zoosemiotics can be defined today as the study of semiosis within and across animal VSHFLHV´7KDWLVIDLUO\H[DFWEXWQRWTXLWHDVLWDSSHDUVWROHDYHRXWDOOVLJQH[FKDQJH LQYROYLQJ DQLPDOV¶ FRPPXQLRQ ZLWK QRQ-DQLPDOV LQFOXGLQJ DQLPDOV¶ SHUFHSWLRQ RI vegetation). Alternatively, for the specific purpose of this volume, we could define zoosemiotics as the study of all semiosis involving animals one way or another (whether as subjects of semiosis or as objects of semiosis).