Most people in this world have some sort of animal that they like to call their pet. These animals are the pride a joy of many peoples lives. Being so close to their animal, humans feel like they can communicate with the pet. Human and animal communication is a very interesting topic that has the potential to bring up many debates.

Animals have ways of communication that are very unique in many ways. The majority of this communication takes place through communicative signals such as movements, noises, etc. Some examples of this communication between animals are things such as mooing by cows, barking or growling by dogs, and meowing or purring by cats. These ways of communication between animals are also used by animals to communicate with their human owners as well. When a dog barks or growls, it typically means that he or she is angered in some way or fashion. To us humans, this is the signal to go away. This signal sends a very obvious message to the human as they understand the dog completely and listen to this message. The same thing goes for when a cat purrs. This soothing noise tends to mean "Hey I want to be petted", and nine times out of ten, the cat will get his or her wish as their owner will listen. With these examples, it is a rather simple concept to realize that yes, animals do have the capability to communicate as we discussed in the reading. With the gestures and tones that animals produce, they are fully capable of having a successful animal-to-animal conversation (i.e. the examples mentioned above) but can only succeed in certain points of conversation with humans.

Just as Yule discusses in his article, animals ARE able to speak a language. It is a language that is completely unique with only parts being decipherable by us humans. When it comes to discussing how advanced this language spoken by animals is, another interesting debate arises. This is another difficult conclusion to make as different people have different interpretations of what their animal is actually saying to them. In my opinion, the language spoken by animals is more advanced than many might assume but is also far less advanced that many people may think. This, in my case, puts the advancement of the language right in the middle of the scale. Yule states that "...we clearly do not have a totally objective and non-controversial definition of what counts as using language..." With this being said, it is logical to say that animal language is misunderstood on both sides of the table as far as questioning how advanced animal language is and how well they can communicate within themselves as well as with humans. This debate will continue to be an important topic in both scientific and linguistic minds for many more years to come.