DRESSCODES 19
Animal calls, gestures and colours: What does it naturally mean?
The linguist Paul Grice (1913-1988) defined two types of meaning: non-natural meaning, which is conveyed through human linguistic conventions (e.g., "This sign means no dogs allowed in the shop"), and natural meaning, which reflects a causal relationship between a sign and the phenomenon it indicates (e.g., "Dark clouds mean rain"). Natural meaning is prevalent in animal communication: signals and signs—such as vocalizations, gestures, postures, or colour patterns—are strongly linked to specific phenomena, like events in the environment or states in the producer. Receivers extract relevant information from these signals to make decisions that help them navigate their social world, survive and reproduce successfully. In this talk, I will present recent work in animal linguistics, illustrating how combining methods from linguistics and biology can enhance our general understanding of how what is said and what is shown, from gestures to body postures and colors, conveys crucial information about oneself.
