Semiotic alignment: Towards a dialogical model of interspecific communication

Abstract

Communicative interactions across different species have so far received relatively little attention from cognitive or behavioral scientists. Most research in this area views the process of communication as the adaptive interaction of manipulative signalers and information-assessing receivers. This paper discusses some shortcomings of the information/influence model of communication, particularly in the empirical study of interspecific communicative interactions. It then presents an alternative theoretical model, based on recent contributions in psycholinguistics and semiotics. The semiotic alignment model views communication as a dynamic process of joint semiosis resulting in the alignment of the interactants’ own-worlds (Umwelten). It is argued that this model can improve our understanding of communicative interactions between heterospecifics and provide the basis for future work in the empirical study of interspecific communication.

“Kox Kwai Kauv Kox Kwai “:1 Ecopoetic Symbolisation in Pgaz K’nyau Oral Poetry

“…More specifically, what we aim to study through the analysis of a particular performance drawn from a precarious but still living oral tradition is the role of the skilled practice of oral poiesis in sustaining processes of semiotic alignment between humans and nonhumans within a particular habitat (Ribó 2019a;2019b;forthcoming). This project, while founded on a slightly different conceptual framework and stemming from fieldwork of considerably less scope and ambition, has much in common with Steven Feld's (1982: 16) classical attempt to interpret the relationship of the Kaluli with the birds of Papua New Guinea's forests through a semiotic, affective, and ethnological analysis of their "melodic-sung-weeping".…”