School of Arts, Culture, and Language, Bangor University, College Road, Bangor, LL57 2DG, UK.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 621 Young Drive South, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1606, USA.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2023 Dec;98(6):1887-1909. doi: 10.1111/brv.12989. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
Does non-human communication, like language, involve meaning? This question guides our focus through an interdisciplinary review of the theories and terminology used to study meaning across disciplines and species. Until now, it has been difficult to apply the concept of meaning to communication in non-humans. This is partly because of the varied approaches to the study of meaning. Additionally, while there is a scholarly acknowledgement of potential meaning in non-human cognition, there is also scepticism when the topic of communication arises. We organise some of the key literature into a coherent framework that can bridge disciplines and species, to ensure that aspects of meaning are accurately and fairly compared. We clarify the growing view in the literature that, rather than requiring multiple definitions or being split into different types, meaning is a multifaceted yet still unified concept. In so doing, we propose that meaning is an umbrella term. Meaning cannot be summed up with a short definition or list of features, but involves multiple complexities that are outlined in our framework. Specifically, three global facets are needed to describe meaning: a Signal Meaning Facet, an Interactant Meaning Facet, and a Resultant Meaning Facet. Most importantly, we show that such analyses are possible to apply as much to non-humans as to humans. We also emphasise that meaning nuances differ among non-human species, making a dichotomous approach to meaning questionable. Instead, we show that a multifaceted approach to meaning establishes how meaning appears within highly diverse examples of non-human communication, in ways consistent with the phenomenon's presence in human non-verbal communication and language(s). Therefore, without further recourse to 'functional' approaches that circumvent the critical question of whether any non-human meaning exists, we show that the concept of meaning is suitable for evolutionary biologists, behavioural ecologists, and others to study, to establish exactly which species exhibit meaning in their communication and in what ways.
非人类的交流，比如语言，是否包含意义？这个问题引导我们从跨学科的角度，对各个学科和物种中用于研究意义的理论和术语进行综述。到目前为止，人们还很难将意义的概念应用于非人类的交流中。这部分是因为对意义的研究方法多种多样。此外，尽管学术界承认非人类认知中存在潜在的意义，但在涉及交流时，也存在怀疑。我们将一些关键文献组织成一个连贯的框架，可以跨越学科和物种，以确保准确和公正地比较意义的各个方面。我们澄清了文献中日益增长的观点，即意义不是需要多个定义或分为不同类型，而是一个多方面但仍然统一的概念。通过这样做，我们提出意义是一个总称。意义不能用简短的定义或特征列表来概括，但涉及到我们框架中概述的多个复杂性。具体来说，需要三个全局方面来描述意义：信号意义方面、互动者意义方面和结果意义方面。最重要的是，我们表明，这种分析同样适用于非人类和人类。我们还强调，非人类物种之间的意义细微差别不同，因此对意义的二分法方法值得怀疑。相反，我们表明，意义的多方面方法可以确定意义如何出现在非人类交流的高度多样化的例子中，这与人类非言语交流和语言中存在的现象一致。因此，我们不需要进一步诉诸于“功能”方法来规避非人类意义是否存在的关键问题，而是表明意义的概念适合进化生物学家、行为生态学家和其他研究人员来研究，以确定哪些物种在其交流中表现出意义，以及以何种方式表现出意义。
