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“It’s Just An Animal”: How Language Takes Away Personhood
By Hanh Nguyen

“The following chapter is excerpted from Tongue-Tied: Breaking the  Language Barrier to Animal Liberation by Hanh Nguyen (copyright 2019). It is reproduced with permission of Lantern Publishing & Media.”

MOST AMERICANS LEARNED IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL THAT A NOUN is a person, place, or thing.

Where do other animals fit in, then?

They are not places. And lest one is tempted to put them in the “person” category, which of course means only human persons, one is reminded that to do so would fundamentally contradict humans’ self-aggrandizing view of our own species. So other animals remain a forgotten category; in reality, though they are not things in the same way the computer I’m using to type this sentence is a thing, most of them are treated not much better than inanimate objects. According to grammar guides, they are “somethings.” We ought to say “The fox that jumps over the fence,” not “who.” After all, they are “just animals.” In the world of law, many of the most vulnerable other-than-human animals aren’t even “animals” at all: the U.S. Animal Welfare Act, the only federal law regulating the treatment of animals in experimentation, exhibition, transport, and by dealers, uses an absurd definition of “animals” that excludes birds, rats and mice bred for vivisection, horses not used for “research purposes,” and a broad category of “other farm animals.” Read more

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COMMENT (0) | animal consiousness, Issue 3, Language
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