Talking animal
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A talking animal or speaking animal refers to any form of animal which can speak a human language. Many species or groups of animals have developed a formal language, even through vocal communication between its members, or interspecies, with an understanding of what they are communicating. As well, studies in animal cognition have been very successful in teaching some animals a formalised language, such as sign language with Koko the gorilla. For these reasons, this phenomena is widely discussed and investigated, while skeptics consider the results to be a form of mimicry and the observer-expectancy effect, not true communication.
A very similar perspective of study is talking animals in fiction.
In many fables, each particular animal typically represents a certain human trait, traditionally associated with it. For example, in Western folktales, a fox is supposed to be cunning, a hare is supposed to be a coward (whenever it is brave or smart, this is only with the goal to create a paradox with respect to the common expectation). In these tales, the names of the animals are simply their capitalized names of species: Mr. Fox, Mr. Hare, etc. Different cultures may associate different traits with the same animals.
