Curs, crabs, and cranky cows: Ethological and linguistic aspects of animal-based insults
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Dagmar Schmauks
Dagmar Schmauks (b. 1950) is a supernumerary professor at the Technical University of Berlin 〈schmauks@mail.tu-berlin.de〉. Her research interests include pragmatics, man-animal-relationship, and orientation in space. Her publications includeMultimediale Informationspräsentation am Beispiel von Wetterberichten (1996);Orientierung im Raum. Zeichen für die Fortbewegung (2002); Semiotische Streifzüge (2007); andDenkdiäten, Flachflieger und geistige Stromsparlampen (2009).
Abstract
Our attitude towards animals is highly inconsistent. Linguistic evidence of this is the many animal names that we use for characterizing other humans. Although terms like “beastly” draw a clear dividing line between mankind and the animal kingdom, we also see numerous similarities across species and coin expressions such as “eagle eyes” or “ostrich policy.” A treasure trove for such comparisons can be found in animal-based insults with which we mock the appearance or behavior of others. Based on English and German examples, this contribution intends to give some ethological reasons for the fact that we choose specific animals for insulting humans. As this topic has not yet been widely explored, the result can only be a general overview, combining ethological and linguistic aspects. There are many expressions preferably used in “joshing,” but the never-ending creation of new expressions is proof of human creativity.
About the author
Dagmar Schmauks (b. 1950) is a supernumerary professor at the Technical University of Berlin 〈schmauks@mail.tu-berlin.de〉. Her research interests include pragmatics, man-animal-relationship, and orientation in space. Her publications include Multimediale Informationspräsentation am Beispiel von Wetterberichten (1996); Orientierung im Raum. Zeichen für die Fortbewegung (2002); Semiotische Streifzüge (2007); and Denkdiäten, Flachflieger und geistige Stromsparlampen (2009).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Dimensions of zoosemiotics
- Frontmatter
- Dimensions of zoosemiotics: Introduction
- The semiome: From genetic to semiotic scaffolding
- Codes and coding: Sebeok's zoosemiotics and the dismantling of the fixed-code fallacy
- Zoosemiotics is the study of animal forms of knowing
- Zoo-aesthetics: A natural step after Darwin
- Curs, crabs, and cranky cows: Ethological and linguistic aspects of animal-based insults
- On zoosemiotics and bridging the value gap
- Umwelt or Umwelten? How should shared representation be understood given such diversity?
- Umwelt trajectories
- Training guide dogs of the blind with the “phantom man” method: Historic background and semiotic footing
- From sign to action: Studies in chimpanzee pictorial competence
- Patterns and dynamics of (bird) soundscapes: A biosemiotic interpretation
- Observation ↔ Text/e ↔ Culture
- Introduction
- Culture, power, dictionaries: What lexicography reveals about cultural objects
- La culture comme objet
- La mémoire et l'événement: Les autobiographies intellectuelles au Brésil
- Human voice: Its meaning and textuality outside the verbal and the musical
- Des parcours interprétatifs à la réception des textes médiévaux
- Semiotic of pretext, semiotics of pre-text
- From text to culture through corpus: Interactivity as an argumentative keyword of contemporary cyberculture
- Le texte comme fragment culturel: Trois scénarios d'observation
