zoosemiotics [Grk ‘living being, animal’]

Term introduced by Sebeok (1963) that delineates a direction of study treating the investigation of specific kinds of animal communication systems (ants, bees, chimpanzees) ( animal communication) as well as the characteristics of communication in biological systems as a whole. Zoosemiotics, as the ‘study of signs in animal language,’ can yield important information about the origin and development of human language ( anthroposemiotics).