AWSELVA Winter Conference: Language and Animals

21st November 2019

Mothers' Union, Mary Sumner House, 24 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3RB United Kingdom

The use of language relating to animals is fundamental in all our interactions with them. Whether relating to animal law, policy and welfare prosecutions, in the media and wider society or the language employed when talking to pet owners about the animal they care for, language has meaning. It impacts on the way animals are perceived and regarded by us and their status in a human-dominated society. Communication affects the care given to animals and can be a bridge or a barrier to shared understanding of the place of animals in human lives. 

Schedule

9.00 - 9.45Registration opens
9.45 - 10.00Conference opening address from Chair Paul Roger
10.00 - 10.30Neil Forbes, Exotics consultant: Exotic animal patients - understanding their needs and acting as their advocate with their owners.  Just because we always have... doesn’t mean it’s right or acceptable
10.30 - 11.00Peter Fordyce, University of Cambridge: Words, animal welfare, and the law; the Humpty Dumpty problem
11.00 - 11.30Break
11.30 - 12.00Phil Stocker, National Sheep Association: Language, Policy and Sheep
12.00 - 12.30Frances Robinson, Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics: Is there a problem in calling a non-human animal 'it'?
12.30 - 14.00Lunch
13.00 - 14.00AWSELVA AGM, handovers and announcements
14.00 - 14.30Heather Bacon, University of Edinburgh: Language, animals and welfare
14.30 - 15.00Chris Draper, Born Free: The association between words and the welfare of free-living and captive wild animals
15.00 - 16.30Panel discussion
16.30Conference closes, drinks at The Marquis of Granby