»Ist es obszön, einen Abschiedsbrief an ein Haustier zu schreiben?« – Tiere als Adressat*innen in (offenen) Briefen und (anderen) Social Media-Formaten

In this media-linguistic contribution, we examine the addressing of (companion) animals in ›animal letters‹ and various social media formats and demonstrate the extent to which these texts can be understood as an expression of emotional capital in the context of medial human-animal emotional communities and identities. According to human-animal studies, animal linguistics understand animals as equal social actors. Consequently, medialized animals are conceptualized as quasi-subjects/-objects that take on various communicative roles in social online interactions. The representation of these animals is indicated by different forms of human animal-directed communication that can be described as communicative practices.