Systemic Functional Semiotics and Critical Animal Studies: Intersections and Applications

In this talk, I’ll be considering how systemic functional theory might contribute to the field of critical animal studies (CAS). I’ll begin by introducing CAS and some of its key concepts, e.g. speciesism, animal liberation, and intersections with other liberatory struggles (e.g. Adams 2003 [1990], Nocella et al. 2014, Ko and Ko 2017, Taylor 2017). I’ll also highlight previous systemic functional work related to (critical) animal studies (e.g. Benson and Greaves 2005, Knight 2006, Benson and Thibault 2009, Moore 2014) and how that and SFS more generally might be used as a starting point for reexamining a particular CAS work, a commentary and analysis by Adams (2015) of a Super Bowl TV commercial. Here I want to show how SFS can inform and supplement critical social studies of speciesism and misogyny through detailed multi- and intersemiotic analyses. I’ll then present some recent examples from my own work (Fryer 2020, 2022) in which these and other forms of oppression or discrimination (including state violence, nationalism, racism, commodification, and body-shaming) appear to overlap or intersect, and how these might be confronted from a systemic functional perspective (cf. linguistics as social action; Halliday 1985, 1993, 2001, 2013, Martin 1992, 2000, inter alia). My work here takes a primarily interpersonal approach, drawing on appraisal, among other things, as a way of identifying communities of shared values and feelings. This presentation is part of a work in progress intended for publication in Social Semiotics and the Animal Other (Routledge 2024; co-edited with Alison Moore). My contribution aims to highlight some of the complementaries between SFS and CAS and to suggest tools for the (critical) study and transformation of human-nonhuman animal relations. References available on request