This paper is about how emotion generates sociolinguistic advocacy for dairy cows, and activism for nonhuman animals. It discusses my case for an animal turn in sociolinguistics that came about as I was carrying out ethnographic fieldwork among dairy cows in an industrial farming context in which the routinized separation of newborn calves can be considered as an act of normalized violence, confronting me with numerous emotions when relating to these calves, their mothers and other dairy cows. The aim of the paper is to show what research into animal others can contribute beyond the assumptions of human exceptionalism and species hierarchy. It shows that emotion, although historically gendered, should have a place in sociolinguistics since it performs an important role in the various streams producing reflexive researchers, scientific knowledge and motivating action i.e. animal advocacy and activism. Advocacy of animal welfare rests on three public mainstays: (i) the researcher who makes a case for an inclusive sociolinguistics in which nonhuman animals are no longer silenced and muted; (ii) sociolinguistic knowledge in which bodies are part of the semiotic landscape, and (iii) the voice of the calves, although portrayed as victims can be heard when we as humans decentre ourselves.