Nadine Jansen Milking

metalinguistic function: Examples include dogs

a sign that refers to another signal is called Metasegnale. For example, when under a road sign that warns of the presence of a series of tight turns is another sign reading "2 miles", the latter refers to the first signal, alerting the recipient of the message that a number of curve takes a couple of miles. Human language the metalinguistic function is particularly used in both the everyday speech is specifically metalinguistic contexts, such as a grammar book (a book, and then a set of words that speak of other words). In languages \u200b\u200bof non-human animals such signals is very rare, and seems confined only to the contexts of play. In these situations the actions that are often used during the game take a different value:

"such as when my dog \u200b\u200bterrier bites my hand to play, often snarling at the same time, if it holds and I tell-piano, piano, continues to bite, but he answers with a quick wag their tails which seems to mean do not take it, it's just a game. " (Darwin, 1872 trad.1882, p. 164) The use of Metasegnale by the consignor at one level implies the ability to control what you're doing and, to a higher level, that means that the first level: that of the terrier is Darwin a Metasegnale, which alerts the recipient, Darwin, which is engaged in actions in reality are framed in another context that is to a game. (Bateson, 1995; Allen, Bekoff, 1997, section 6)