Construing Complex Referentiality in Interspecies Interaction: Embodiment and Biosemiotics

This paper investigates language use in interspecies interaction. The aim is to characterize the variation in children's pet-oriented speech and to explore how semantic complexity is treated. The analysis first presents quantitative observations on properties of talk and the ongoing activities. The dataset includes 19 video recordings presenting cats, dogs, and 6-12-year-old French-speaking children in an ecological context. The analysis showed that children spoke more to dogs than to cats. We also found a strong correlation between play activity and the amount of talk. We then observed that, just like adults in the previous literature, children use short utterances when talking to pets. This may indicate syntactic simplification. The second part of the study concentrated on complex referential constructions in two child-dog play sequences. It showed that the child enacted multilayered semantic configurations through indexical embodied means. The dog participated in constructing the referential link when she was asked to choose between alternatives. When it came to locating an absent referent, the child continued to employ indexical signs to support the abstract semantic structure, displaying awareness of the participants' different semiotic worlds. The paper supports that while syntax is simplified, meaning structures may remain complex and become part of the play.