Department of Modern English Language and Linguistics
Dr Bella Marley is an internationally recognised researcher in interspecies communication, with particular interests in multimodality, translanguaging and the therapeutic potential of human–animal interaction. Her database of birdsong: Transnational Wildlife Exchange and Ethological Tracking of Interspecies Expression (TWEETIE) has been widely reported in the Gilliland Gazette.
Her pioneering work has challenged conventional understandings of linguistic competence by exploring how meaning is negotiated across species boundaries. Her current research focuses on feline communication, drawing on longitudinal observational data from two domestic cats, Sooky and Honey.
Teaching
MELL308 Animal Communication
MELL309 Baby Talk
Publications
- Pritchard, E. and Marley, B. (2023) Negotiating interspecies meaning: A multimodal analysis of communicative encounters between domestic cats and dogs. International Journal of Animal Linguistics 20(2): 115–139.
- Marley, B. (2022) Translanguaging and cats: a case study of Sooky and Honey. Journal of Holistic Animal Communication 3(1): 1-6.
- Fontaine, L., Marley, B., and Gibbons, R. (2020) Dancing with horses: Towards a kinaesthetic framework for human–equine communication. Journal of Holistic Animal Communication 1(2): 44–67.
- Marley, B. (2019) The role of cats as instructional and diagnostic partners in social-emotional learning and human health monitoring. International Journal of Animal Linguistics 16(2): 110-119.
- Singh, A., Wilcox, J. and Marley, B. (2018) Building the Birdsong Database: A multimodal corpus of avian vocalisation and communicative intent. Animal Language and Symbolism 7(1): 23–51.
- Marley, B. (2017) Use of Multimodal multimedia to facilitate human-chimpanzee communication. International Journal of Animal Linguistics 14(3): 212-244.
- Marley, B. (2015) Beyond sign language: on using email to interact with chimpanzees. Animal Language and Symbolism 4(2): 90-113.
- Marley, B. (2014) Towards a holistic theory of chimp language: signs, symbols, meaning, Balboa Working Papers in Linguistics 5. Balboa Press: USA.