Biosemiotics to date has focused on the exchange of signals between organisms, in line with bioacoustics; consideration of the wider acoustic environment as a semiotic medium is under-developed. The nascent discipline of ecoacoustics, that investigates the role of environmental sound in ecological processes and dynamics, fills this gap. In this paper we introduce key ecoacoustic terminology and concepts in order to highlight the value of ecoacoustics as a discipline in which to conceptualise and study intra- and interspecies semiosis. We stress the inherently subjective nature of all sensory scapes (vivo-, land-, vibro- and soundscapes) and propose that they should always bear an organismic attribution. Key terms to describe the sources (geophony, biophony, anthropophony, technophony) and scales (sonotopes, soundtopes, sonotones) of soundscapes are described. We introduce epithets for soundscapes to point to the degree to which the global environment is implicated in semiosis (latent, sensed and interpreted soundscapes); terms for describing key ecological structures and processes (acoustic community, acoustic habitat, ecoacoustic events) and examples of ecoacoustic events (choruses and noise) are described. The acoustic eco-field is recognized as the semiotic model that enables soniferous species to intercept core resources like food, safety and roosting places. We note that whilst ecoacoustics to date has focused on the critical task of the development of metrics for application in conservation and biodiversity assessment, these can be enriched by advancing conceptual and theoretical foundations. Finally, the mutual value of integrating ecoacoustic and biosemiotics perspectives is considered.

迄今为止，生物符号学的重点是与生物声学相一致的生物体之间的信号交换。作为符号学媒介，人们对更广泛的声学环境的考虑还不完善。研究环境声在生态过程和动力学中的作用的新兴生态声学学科填补了这一空白。在本文中，我们介绍了关键的生态声学术语和概念，以突出生态声学作为一门学科的概念和研究物种内和种间符号化的价值。我们强调所有感官景观的固有主观性质（活体景观，陆地景观，振动景观和声音景观），并建议它们应始终具有有机属性。描述来源（地理学，生物学，人类学，技术学）和音阶的关键术语（描述了声景的声谱，音顶和音调。我们介绍了声景的表述，以指出全球环境在符号学（隐性，感知和解释声景）中所涉及的程度；描述了描述关键生态结构和过程（声学群落，声学栖息地，生态声事件）的术语以及生态声事件（合唱和噪音）的示例。该声生态场被认为是一种符号学模型，可以使含声虫物种拦截诸如食物，安全和栖息地等核心资源。我们注意到，尽管迄今为止生态声学的重点是制定用于保护和生物多样性评估的指标的关键任务，但可以通过提高概念和理论基础来丰富这些指标。最后，考虑了整合生态声学和生物符号学观点的共同价值。