Do Chickens Mean What They Say?

Animal behaviorists all agree that the various sounds chickens make have meaning. But they disagree on how to interpret the meaning. Some believe chickens speak a language, similar to human language. Others question whether chickens mean what they say. They believe that when a chicken makes a sound it does not intend to impart any sort of information.

Instead, the bird is stimulated to make a particular sound that reflects its circumstances or mood. Its intent is to influence the behavior of any chicken that happens to be listening. So, instead of focusing on conveying a message, this approach focuses on what the caller may gain.

The listener, in turn, uses past experiences and accumulated knowledge to assess the caller’s circumstances and mood. Perhaps it takes into account other qualities, such as the caller’s age or state of health. The listener then reacts in a way that benefits itself.

When a Rooster Crows

A hefty rooster crows, for instance, and on hearing the crow a lesser rooster moves away to avoid a confrontation. Sometimes, as in this example, the listener’s reaction benefits both the caller and the listener.

According to this theory, a chicken always calls to get something it wants. Perhaps it wants a copulation, a higher rank in the pecking order, or safety from predation.

What makes this approach difficult to grasp is that the caller does not always obtain a desirable response. Such would be the case, for example, if the lesser rooster did not move away, but instead confronted the crowing rooster.

A listener’s interpretation of any given sound depends on such things as its own age, gender, social status, reproductive state, degree of hunger, relationship to the caller, and distance from the caller. Whether a rooster, on hearing another rooster crow, will flee or fight depends on its perception of the crowing rooster’s size, strength, condition, and location as assessed by the lustiness of his crow.

Compared to the information approach to chicken communication, where the message is the same for each listener, here each listener extracts potentially entirely different information from the same sound. Listeners therefore respond in entirely different ways. A perfect example is a rooster’s food call: some hens come running, others ignore it.

Because scientists in this camp interpret the meanings of sounds based on their function — the function always being to influence a listener’s behavior to the benefit of the speaker — this method of studying animal communication is known as the functional approach. The idea that information is produced by the listener’s perception turns the informational view on its head: The listener, not the speaker, rules the roost.

Interpretation Confers Meaning

So, according to this theory, descriptions of the sounds a chicken makes are based, not on what they might mean, but on how a diversity of listeners might interpret them. And it assigns importance to each sound’s structure — Does it rise or fall? Is it harsh or melodious? — because a sound’s structure holds the key to the speaker’s motivation.

Proponents of this approach don’t use the word “information” to describe knowledge thus gained by the listener. Their intent is to avoid confusion between whatever the listener might perceive by assessing sound structure as compared to information deliberately transmitted through symbolic words. If the difference between the two approaches to understanding chicken talk seems too subtle, all you need to remember is this:

• The informational approach focuses on whatever message the speaker may intend to convey. In other words, chicken language is not much different from human language.

• The functional approach focuses on the interpretation and reaction of each individual listener. In other words, the sounds a chicken makes have no inherent meaning.

So where do you stand on this issue? Do you believe chickens mean what they say — that every sound they make has a specific meaning? Or do you believe we only think they have meaning, based on our own human interpretation?

This blog was written in collaboration with ornithologist Gene Morton, author of Animal Vocal Communication.