What's in a name? Uncovering the connotative meanings of animal names

Osgood's Semantic Differential technique was used with a sample of 12 anima l names to see if they elicited responses that were distinctively character istic, and therefore useful in uncovering connotative meaning. The 100 surv ey participants responded with unanimity to some species, whereas their res ponses to others were highly variable. Results disclosed a taxonomy of grou ping animal names that differed from the normal zoological taxonomy. This s uggests that the technique may be useful for discovering the connotations t hat animals have, and what various animal species may mean to people. (C) 2 000 International Society for Anthrozoology.