Java Programming

I'd like to know if there is a way to send certain user defined kill signals from Linux to a java app and have the java app respond with a certain printout given a specific signal.
So if I code a static string for example and I'd like java to print it out given a certain kill signal. I know this would be easy if I just use a socket and have my java process listening to that socket for messages and then write a separate app sending "requests" to that socket.

Thanks in advance.