[Hu]Man is A symbol-using Animal

Ahh, finally I “get to” speak directly about animals.  As if I haven’t been doing so indirectly throughout the semester of blog posts.  But alas, Burke “Definition of [Hu]Man” provides the launching pad I have waited for…

It bears noting that Burke says in the beginning of the DoM, “I am offering my Definition of Man[sic] in the hope of either persuading the reader that it fills the bill, or of prompting him to decide what should be added, or subtracted, or in some way modified” (LSA 3).  As such, I don’t think the following will be a contradiction of Burke at all --- merely a following of his directive.

So allow me to highlight just a couple of my bones with the DoM:

1) The definitive use of the article “the” is unnecessarily and incorrectly exclusionary of other symbol-using non-human animals. 

A) Other animals’ communication is Symbolic: Vervet monkeys, for instance, have been recorded using very distinct tonal calls to indicate specific predator types (e.g., snake, leopard, eagle).  It is a vocal phoneme-morpheme that points to a concept beyond itself (i.e., it’s not a grunt for the sake of grunting, but a particular combination of sounds to say “beware – there is a ground predator approaching”)

B) Other animals “use” symbols: The distinction between sign and symbol seems to be predicated upon conscious use.  There are all sorts of studies demonstrating varying levels of animal cognition – such as the elephants who appear to mourn the loss of pack members.

2) Burke routinely short-changes animal communication with no sound rationale.  For instance, in clause-1 of DoM, Burke “demonstrates” the symbol-less-ness/language-less-ness of animals by saying he couldn’t speak to a bird and tell it how to get out of the window.  Need I explain the problems with this anecdotal proof?  Perhaps the bird uses symbols within its own community?

Burke contends that his definition, specifically the first (and most famous) clause “doesn’t come as much of a surprise” (4).  I think it should.