Discourse Analysis with Pre-linguistic Communicative Partners

Discourse analysis (DA) is a qualiitative approach, studying the relationship between speech acts and the social environment. It traces how language use affects the social sphere, and vice-versa. Our research adapts strategies from DA to non-linguistic interaction between humans, animals, and plants. As part of a 5-year externally funded research project on non-verbal interspecies communication, we seek to develop a methodological tool kit for the study of more than human meaning-making in the humanities.