Biocommunication theory may be considered to be a branch of biosemiotics. Whereas biosemiotics studies the production and interpretation of signs and codes, biocommunication theory investigates concrete interactions mediated by signs. Accordingly, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatics aspects of biocommunication processes are distinguished.

Biocommunication specific to animals (animal communication) is considered a branch of zoosemiotics. The semiotic study of molecular genetics, can be considered a study of biocommunication at its most basic level.

Examples

Whale Vocalization
Honey Bee Waggle Dance
Peacock Feather Fan (to alert about territorial dangers)

Language formats

Given the complexity and range of biological organisms and the further complexity within the neural organization of any particular animal organism, a variety of biocommunication languages exists.

A hierarchy of biocommunication languages in animals has been proposed by Subhash Kak: these languages, in order of increasing generality, are associative, re-organizational, and quantum. The three types of formal languages of the Chomsky hierarchy map into the associative language class, although context-free languages as proposed by Chomsky do not exist in real life interactions.

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types of languages

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