Chapter1. Introduction and purpose -- Chapter2. Debates and controversies -- Chapter3. Necessary and problematic definitions -- Chapter4. Semiotic tools and concepts -- Chapter5. Intertheoricity: how to build bigger models -- chapter6. Strengths and flaws of ethological and biological methodology -- chapter7. Animal studies, animal ethics -- chapter8. Building zoosemiotics.

This monograph is about new perspectives in animal studies methodology, by using concepts and tools from the field of semiotics. It proposes a reflexion on current challenges and issues in the ethology field, and introduces different semiotics - biosemiotics, zoosemiotics - as potential methodological solutions. The chapters cover many aspects of ethology where semiotics can be a helpful hand: studies of language, culture, cognition or emotions, issues about complex, endangered or variable species. It explains why these points are difficult to study for actual ethology, why they still matter for researchers, biodiversity actors or wildlife programs, and how an interdisciplinary study with a semiotic point of view can help understand them. This book will appeal to a wide readership, from researchers and academics in living sciences as well as in linguistics fields, to other professionals - veterinarian, wildlife managers, zookeepers, and many others - who feel the need to better understand some aspects of animals they are working with. Students with animal focus should read this book as an introduction to interdisciplinary methodology, and a proposition to work differently with animals.