Teaching zoosemiotics as an educational framework for understanding animal sound communication

Abstract

Teaching animal communication processes known as zoosemiotics provides an interdisciplinary framework for helping learners understand how animals create, perceive, and understand sounds. Drawing on bioacoustics, semiotics, ethology, and communication studies, zoosemiotics education encourages students to move beyond anthropocentrism and recognize the communication of animal sounds as intentional and meaningful communication within an ecological and social framework. This model enables learners to consider animal vocalizations as a unique semiotic system, and to analyze how various signals convey information about identity, social and emotional states, and social, and environmental changes. Including studies in zoosemiotics also promotes scientific literacy, critical thought and ethics in human–animal relations. In all, teaching zoosemiotics provides students with the tools to understand the intricate, multimodal, sound communication systems used in various forms of animal life, while fostering an appreciation for the understanding of animal agency and biodiversity.