A Semiotic Methodology for Animal Studies

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.

Auteur
Pauline Delahaye studied in Paris Descartes under the direction of the anthropologist Jean-Didier Urbain, then in Paris Sorbonne, where she did her PhD thesis under the direction of the semiotician Astrid Guillaume. Specialist of emotions, active member of the French Society of Zoosemiotics, and partner of the Jane Goodall Institut (France), she taught at Sorbonne University and participates in many seminars and congresses, in France (Diderot, Lyon 1, Descartes) and abroad (Moscow, Palermo, Lausanne, Berkeley).

Résumé

This monograph is about new perspective 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.

Contenu

1. Introduction and purpose

1.1. Creation process 1.1.1. About the subject

1.1.2. About the corpus

1.1.3. About the academic and social impact

1.2. Why use semiotics in animal studies 1.2.1. History of semiotics

1.2.2. History of animal studies

1.3. Questions about methodology 1.3.1. Studying a subject from different academic fields

1.3.2. Including new corpus categories

1.3.3. Hypothesis, biases and ideologies

2. Debates and controversies 2.1. Existing controversies

2.1.1. Language

2.1.2. Consciousness

2.1.3. Emotions

2.2. The perspective of humanities 2.2.1. What is an animal?

2.2.2. What are language sciences for?

2.2.3. The specific French academic tradition

2.3. Author position 2.3.1. The lesser evil position

2.3.2. About the particular case of definitions

3. Necessary and problematic definitions 3.1. Necessary definitions

3.1.1. Emotion

3.1.2. Consciousness

3.1.3. Memory

3.2. Problematic definitions 3.2.1. Language

3.2.2. Emotions

3.2.3. Intelligence

3.2.4. Culture

4. Semiotic tools and concepts 4.1. How to pick semiotic tools

4.1.1. Relevance

4.1.2. Peirce's tools

4.1.3. Intensity, frequency, context

4.2. Semiotic concepts

4.2.1. Intentional, conscious, unconscious

4.2.2. Jakobson's functions of language

4.2.3. Eco's semiotic theory

4.2.4. About the case of anthropomorphism

5. Intertheoricity: how to build bigger models 5.1. What is intertheoricity

5.1.1. Academic position about interdisciplinarity

5.1.2. Difficulties and flaws of interdisciplinarity 5.1.3. Guill...