How (dairy) cows and humans intertwine languaging practices: recurrent vocalizations are not the same

TY - CHAP

T1 - How (dairy) cows and humans intertwine languaging practices: recurrent vocalizations are not the same

AU - Cornips, L.

PY - 2024/7/1

Y1 - 2024/7/1

N2 - In this chapter, two interspecies interactions between a (dairy) cow and human(s) i.e. “give a cookie” and ‘untie my neck-chain” have been contrasted with respect to particulars of events in a situated context. The lens of languaging as a normal cooperative and coordinated activity in interspecies interactions enables one to show how patterns of the (dairy) cows’ co-articulations influence the course of cow-human relations. Both cows embed recurrent vocalizations in whole body activities that contribute to life sustaining relations between cows, humans, and objects like cookies, neck-chains, barns and meadows. In her small herd, Noor articulates more shortenings, and the same pattern of rising and falling pitch but with a lower rise in her last two vocalisations compared to her first three articulations as the human shows successful learning, namely by initiating a practice. The humans find out quickly that Noor wants a cookie by using experience to engage with her co-articulations. Equally, Noor engages with the humans’ actions though whole-body activity in a shared and situated material context. In the barn, by contrast, the cow starts to co-articulate more energetically to establish engagement by, as she wishes, prompting the farmer to help her free her front leg from the neck chain.Comparison between the two languaging practices lend considerable strength to the claim that cows contribute to meaning-making. Their vocalisations directed at humans are not imitations or repetitions but, rather, alter as humans and cows coordinate, observe, and perform mutual actions which the parties treat as more or less felicitous.

AB - In this chapter, two interspecies interactions between a (dairy) cow and human(s) i.e. “give a cookie” and ‘untie my neck-chain” have been contrasted with respect to particulars of events in a situated context. The lens of languaging as a normal cooperative and coordinated activity in interspecies interactions enables one to show how patterns of the (dairy) cows’ co-articulations influence the course of cow-human relations. Both cows embed recurrent vocalizations in whole body activities that contribute to life sustaining relations between cows, humans, and objects like cookies, neck-chains, barns and meadows. In her small herd, Noor articulates more shortenings, and the same pattern of rising and falling pitch but with a lower rise in her last two vocalisations compared to her first three articulations as the human shows successful learning, namely by initiating a practice. The humans find out quickly that Noor wants a cookie by using experience to engage with her co-articulations. Equally, Noor engages with the humans’ actions though whole-body activity in a shared and situated material context. In the barn, by contrast, the cow starts to co-articulate more energetically to establish engagement by, as she wishes, prompting the farmer to help her free her front leg from the neck chain.Comparison between the two languaging practices lend considerable strength to the claim that cows contribute to meaning-making. Their vocalisations directed at humans are not imitations or repetitions but, rather, alter as humans and cows coordinate, observe, and perform mutual actions which the parties treat as more or less felicitous.

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9781350304482

T3 - Bloomsbury Advances in Ecolinguistics

SP - 29

EP - 53

BT - Language as an ecological phenomenon

A2 - Vork Steffensen, Sune

A2 - Döring, Martin

A2 - Cowley, Stephen

PB - Bloomsbury Academic

ER -