ABSTRACT
Situated in the domains of the philosophy of language, generalized linguistics and semiotics—and to some extent in the philosophy of science—semio-ethics is a field of research whose leading proponents are the Italian team of theorists, Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio. Semio-ethics, a field concerned with potential means for improving living conditions through critical examination of the value of being, focuses primarily on the Other. Semio-ethics provides a unique perspective on the study of signs in that it is not merely a compendium of pre-established rules and principles, but rather, it represents a general vision that addresses the question of interactions between semiotics and ethics. The notion of speech is commonly used in reference to Saussurian semiology, and to the language/speech dichotomy that determines the way in which language functions. Defining musical compositions as instances of “speech” demands a conception of music signification that instantiates a dialogue between several “actors”: composers, listeners, performers, musicologists.
