In other words, the very nature of language as an interpretive, signifying frame results in the production of multiple meanings, and it is through this multiplicity of meaning that reality—an ever-moving, changing, morphing perception—is shaped by us, or more specifically, by the discourses we compose. Language’s plurality of meaning also results in an ambivalent relationship to discourse, as Roland Barthes describes it: “To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive (by the limitless expansion of the ego, by emotive submersion) and impoverished (by the codes on which love diminishes and levels it).” (Barthes, 99) Language is thus excessive, in the sense of possibility for embodiment (or emotive submersion) that lies within it, as well as impoverished because of the linguistic and syntactical codes that bind it, codes which do not apply to emotion as they do to reason or discourse. This idea is one that provides the crux of Coetzee’s argument throughout The Lives of Animals: the hope of changing humanity’s consciousness in regard to our treatment of animals lies in language, which is lavish and unconstrained—specifically as a poetic art form (either in poetry or in literature at large), the form that is “organized violence committed on ordinary speech” (Eagleton, 2)—and not in reason. Language, as one form that specifically defines us as rational, reasonable, analytical, and logical human beings and allows us to attempt to articulate our thoughts, thus both separates us from other non-rational, nonlinguistic beings, as well as holding the potential for embodiment of other beings; it is this special role in society which language holds as excessive, yet impoverished and schismatic, yet promising, that I wish to explore through Kafka’s “A Report to an Academy,” Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, and a song by Andrew Bird, “Anonanimal,” all of which showcase language and its multiplicity of meanings in various forms.
For some, the boundary between animal and human is drawn along linguistic and reasoning lines; Descartes said, “I think; therefore I am,” and animals do not think (at least not to our standards, as far as we know); therefore they are not.
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Andrew Bird blurs the lines between human beings and animal beings in “Anonanimal.” Bird’s lyrical techniques of choice—which lead to the obscuring of boundaries between humans and animals—are homophones and alliteration, both of which factor in strongly to precisely how “breath and sense” are combined in the lyrics to “Anonanimal.”
Homophones and their resulting homophonous sounds when said (or sung) aloud serve to break down barriers of meaning (because of the multiplicity of meaning that results), which, when looked at within the song’s storyline, shatters borders between humans and animals as well. Throughout the entirety of “Anonanimal,” Bird uses eight different homophonous sounds, sometimes combining two or three words to fit the phonic pattern. Because so many of the words used in its lyrics are bound up in this homophonous cocoon, the actual lyrical content of “Anonanimal” is difficult to decipher without having liner notes in front of you, again blurring linguistic boundaries through wordplay, or “organized violence committed on ordinary speech” (Eagleton, 2). Alliteration also softens these lines by helping the lyrics slip off of one’s tongue smoothly and with ease (due to continuous similar sounds in the words).
I've got a long way to go.
and kudos to you for posting and popping that cherry 
