The human-animal divide in communication: anthropocentric, posthuman and integrationist answers

The human-animal relation has mainly been negotiated one way or another - a humanist/anthropocentric approach which centralizes the human condition and a posthuman perspective which sees the human perspective as a hindrance to fully comprehending the nonhuman world. By exploring the humanist and posthuman discourse on the humananimal divide in communication, this paper contends that both approaches are subject to the "language myth". At the end, an integrationist-humanist answer to the humananimal divide will be proffered, which constitutes a form of humanism that neither relies on decontextualized conceptions of human communication nor inhibits personal signmaking creativity, thereby marking a point of departure from said humanist and posthuman models. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.