Animals as Communication Partners: Ethics and Challenges in Interspecies Language Research

TL;DR

This paper explores how animals communicate with humans, suggesting that their emotional and cognitive abilities are more complex than previously thought.

Contribution

The paper proposes a relational framework for interspecies communication that emphasizes shared emotional engagement and ethical interpretation.

Findings

Empathy, cooperation, and bonding mechanisms are evolutionarily conserved across species.

Technological tools like AI can help analyze animal communication but require ethical care.

Animals should be viewed as partners in communication, not just signal emitters.

Abstract

Research on interspecies communication—including primates, dogs, and other social species—shows that cognitive and emotional processes in animals are far more complex than traditionally assumed. These findings challenge anthropocentric views in the science of language and cognition. Contemporary ethology, neurobiology, and animal philosophy indicate that communication is not merely the exchange of signals, but a form of participation and relationship. This article integrates biological, veterinary, and humanistic perspectives, analyzing the evolutionary mechanisms of communication, empathy, and morality, as well as the ethical consequences of language research with animals. The authors propose a vision of communication studies in which the human being is no longer the center of inquiry but becomes a partner in shared knowing.

Interspecies communication is increasingly recognized as an affective–cognitive process co-created between humans and animals rather than a one-directional transmission of signals. This review integrates findings from ethology, neuroscience, welfare science, behavioral studies, and posthumanist ethics to examine how emotional expression, communicative intentionality, and relational engagement shape understanding across species. Research on primates, dogs, elephants, and marine mammals demonstrates that empathy, consolation, cooperative signaling, and multimodal perception rely on evolutionarily conserved mechanisms, including mirror systems, affective contagion, and oxytocin-mediated bonding. These biological insights intersect with ethical considerations concerning animal agency, methodological responsibility, and the interpretation of non-human communication. Emerging technological tools—bioacoustics, machine vision, and AI-assisted modeling—offer new opportunities to analyze complex vocal and behavioral patterns, yet they require careful contextualization to avoid anthropocentric misclassification. Synthesizing these perspectives, the review proposes a relational framework in which meaning arises through shared emotional engagement, embodied interaction, and ethically grounded interpretation. This approach highlights the importance of welfare-oriented, minimally invasive methodologies and supports a broader shift toward recognizing animals as communicative partners whose emotional lives contribute to scientific knowledge. This review primarily synthesizes empirical and theoretical research on primates and dogs, complemented by selected examples from elephants and marine mammals, which provide the most developed evidence base for the affective–cognitive and relational mechanisms discussed.

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