Abstract
This article moves fromthe familiar—the human—to the very different in sociolinguistics—
the dairy cow. Based onmultispecies ethnography, the aim of
this article is to advocate the animal turn in sociolinguistics (Cornips 2019).
The guiding question is how do non-human animals, that is, dairy cows—
mutually and with humans—imbue their intraspecies and interspecies interaction
with meaning that makes sense for the two species. The concept of
semiotic repertoire is invoked in order to investigate how dairy cows draw
on resources to make meaning, and the concept of material-semiotic assemblage
is applied in order to account for the different effects generated by the
resources that come together at particular moments. The assemblage perspective
does not take a ‘cow’ or ‘human’ as discrete and fixed but focuses on the
distributed and emergent agency as a relational effect of all elements involved:
humans, non-humans, and other. (Intraspecies and interspecies interactions,
the semiotic repertoire, assemblage, dairy cows, practices)*
the dairy cow. Based onmultispecies ethnography, the aim of
this article is to advocate the animal turn in sociolinguistics (Cornips 2019).
The guiding question is how do non-human animals, that is, dairy cows—
mutually and with humans—imbue their intraspecies and interspecies interaction
with meaning that makes sense for the two species. The concept of
semiotic repertoire is invoked in order to investigate how dairy cows draw
on resources to make meaning, and the concept of material-semiotic assemblage
is applied in order to account for the different effects generated by the
resources that come together at particular moments. The assemblage perspective
does not take a ‘cow’ or ‘human’ as discrete and fixed but focuses on the
distributed and emergent agency as a relational effect of all elements involved:
humans, non-humans, and other. (Intraspecies and interspecies interactions,
the semiotic repertoire, assemblage, dairy cows, practices)*
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1-25 |
| Journal | Language in Society |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 03 Oct 2024 |