Christian Avila

ENG 100E
Mathew Craft
11/9/21

A Rhetorical Analysis on Why Do Humans Talk to Animals if they Can’t Understand?

This article, based on solving one of the many human unknowns, has been developed

primarily to stimulate our human logic, seek concrete answers through studies and research, and

ask ourselves why humans act like this when we try to communicate with other non-humans.

entities such as animals or objects. At some point in our life, we have wondered when we try to

communicate with our pets if they really understand us or if we really do it for a purpose. The

author through this article tries to persuade us and find in different ways how to solve these

unknowns that more than one of us have had in mind at some point. Throughout the article, the

author also developed the main idea briefly, clearly and with a specific purpose of capturing the

attention of the readers of this article using some techniques such as accurate opinions, providing

examples with evidence that supports the idea and realizes some simple but interesting

statements that make us analyze why you happen from a deeper perspective.

In this article, the structure of the author's introduction is found at the beginning of the

first two paragraphs. It begins with a series of statements and questions on the subject that

generate interest in the audience to know more about what is being talked about because most of

us have wondered why we talk this way to our pets or certain objects. When the author begins to

unravel why he speaks to his pets since they do not understand our language, she tries to make

the audience ask themselves why we do it too and we can reach a point and deduce the answer

by means of our human logic. Also, by means of this open question, she captures the audience's

attention to maintain interest, to be able to remain interested in the article and mainly is that the

readers can read it with a purpose.

Christian Avila
ENG 100E
Mathew Craft
11/9/21

There are several transition points in this article. when the author mentions that she talked

to the anthrozoologist and psychology professor and begins to ask why we talk with animals and

gives him a supportive answer and provides examples. when it is mentioned that people speak to

their pets with a higher tone of voice that is similar to the way people speak to babies,

demonstrating a bond of parental, affectionate and caring response from people and eliciting a

similar response. Later, she changes the focus when she mentions about the studies carried out in

2008 on what kind of people are more prone to that anthropomorphic instinct, comparing

between people who lack social interaction and people who lack control and want to feel more

secure in uncertain circumstances. Finally, she talks about the level of understanding of language

in animals, describing a study carried out on some dogs to study their brain activity when their

owners speak to them and if they manage to recognize something of it.

The purpose of the article begins to become clear when the three transition points are

finished touching since it provides a more effective support by transmitting important points of

why we talk with animals or things, if it really is something natural in human beings or if it is

something strange, if there are people more prone to perform these types of conditions and if

there are unilateral or bilateral connections. then the evidence begins to be integrated when it

begins to develop and you affirm the connections we have with animals when we communicate

based on language and we receive responses to these conditions, proven in the study carried out

on some dogs with magnetic resonance, since they verified that when their owners they spoke to

him in familiar words, motorized language recognition responses. Finally, everything solves it

specifically that we get to talk to animals since it is a psychological process that we use to
Christian Avila
ENG 100E
Mathew Craft
11/9/21

recognize the consciousness of other human beings as well as our family, friends and animals

and it is a sign of intelligence and encourages us to continue doing it now that we are human.

Performing a more exhaustive analysis, this article is written as a persuasive article and at

the same time with a small investigative report because throughout the author is developing his

initial question of whether it is strange for him to tell his cat that he loves him several times, she

supports her idea with certain investigations and consultations made to knowledgeable people,

and also tries to persuade the audience with certain points of view that are mentioned, for

example she said, ''perhaps, too, people speak to their pets because they like to believe the

animals understand, and perhaps people like to believe they understand because the alternative is

kind of scary''. the author tried to provide a deeper insight than one can think and break some

limits of human thought. She neatly develops her idea and adds consultations made to

anthropologist Hal Herzog and research done on animals to really check if there is any reaction

from them to our language.

The type of appeal that she is making to the audience is very logical because she takes

points on the subject in which they make us wonder if everything that is spoken is congruent, for

example, when she mentions, "If people are speaking to their pets, they're usually doing so in

short, simple, grammatically correct sentences, and usually they speak in a higher-pitched

voice". It's similar to the way people speak to babies "with this little reference makes us think

carefully if this has any sense when we try to communicate with our language to our pets. Also,

when Herzog says, "When you talk to them, they respond. Your dog might cock his head, give

you a sort of quizzical look, like, Huh? I say ‘Do you wanna go outside?’ and my cat will come

up to me and she'll meow". This makes us imagine in our minds that this happens, and we begin
Christian Avila
ENG 100E
Mathew Craft
11/9/21

to think more logically about the reactions that exist when you speak to your pet and what are the

responses that it gives you to that communication that you provide.

The purpose of the author with this article wanted to persuade the public both with

certain research, opinions and beliefs to the audience about the communication link that we have

both with animals and with things, providing both expert opinions that were very valid and

interesting as well as the opinions of the author. The author managed to evaluate many important

points such as that people have an instinct to anthroponomy and that there are more prone to that.

But he should also have used more evidence and examples to be able to achieve a more effective

communication of what he was proposing and to keep the readers more interested in the subject.

There were also quotes that were not very relevant as the fact of mentioning the animals did not

understand the people did not support it with relevant or true data. Also, near the end of the

article he mentions in a sentence “I used to have pet snakes, but I hardly ever spoke to them. For

one reason, snakes are deaf. " It seemed very interesting that with a resonance investigation it

could be verified that there was a reaction and response of the pets towards the call of their

owners, but it should not have been written that snakes are deaf, which is not true. There are

many articles about snakes that can persist sounds but in a different way and the fact of

attributing something false to an article that develops it well can lower the credibility of what is

being read and that readers doubt the certainty of what that is being discussed. but

organizationally, the article developed very clearly and took very good points of importance and

relevance that in the end resolved the doubt about why we really talk with our pets and include

objects.