Forms of Animality: The Dog

Abstract

Animals are not the object of zoosemiotics as discussed here, neither is their language nor any other system of signs that affects them directly as living creatures that communicate, but the forms of animality, forms through which the concept of animal itself is socially constructed and transformed over time. Now, if there is one place in which such forms are plain to see, it is in those areas that focus on their nutrition. Looking at feeding animals as a semiotic activity, this paper wants to focus on what I call a nutritional pact, an implicit agreement that binds humans and animals, and that is being continuously negotiated by cultures. A relationship that advertising deeply contributes to build.