Animal actions and their involvement in human meaning-making processes in interaction

Area of Science:

• Interspecies pragmatics
• Animal cognition
• Conversation analysis

Background:

• Interspecies pragmatics analyzes communication between humans and non-human animals.
• Conversation analytic (CA) research provides a framework for understanding interactional meaning-making.
• Cognitive dimensions are increasingly recognized as crucial in interspecies communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the meaning-making processes in human-dog interactions during ball-throwing exercises.
• To introduce cognitive dimensions into the field of interspecies pragmatics.
• To explore how CA findings on cognition can inform pragmatic questions in interspecies interaction.

Main Methods:

• Data collected using GoPro cameras attached to three dogs, capturing first-person perspective footage.
• Nearly 2 hours of video data analyzed using conversation analytic (CA) methods.
• Focus on dog-initiated interactions during ball-fetching sequences.

Main Results:

• Identified two key sequential occurrences in pre-sequences where meaning-making intertwines.
• Dogs' expectations of human actions in the second position of pre-sequences were highlighted.
• Dog behavior (running or remaining) indicated understanding of the interactional sequence.

Conclusions:

• Cognition is sequentially situated and materializes through cooperation in interspecies interactions.
• The pre-sequence and main sequence are integral to the development of the ball-throwing exercise.
• Understanding dog expectations is key to deciphering their role in meaning-making.