Aspects of Meaning Construction

Meaning construction pervades every aspect of our lives. A crucial aspect of our interaction in the world is being able to identify and categorize things.

In his pioneering work on remembering, the British psychologist Sir Frederic Bartlett (1932) confronted subjects with what would seem to be meaningless figures and asked them to remember and reproduce them.

One of the figures they were shown was Figure 2a. Some subjects would reproduce the figure the way it was presented to them, i.e. as (b), others would reproduce it as (c) or (d). The striking observation Bartlett made was that, in reproducing meaningless figures, his subjects turned them into meaningful drawings. For example, some subjects would interpret figure (a) as “two carpenter’s squares” and hence reproduce it faithfully as in (b); other subjects would interpret it as a “picture-frame” and reproduce it as in (c) or (d). Bartlett fittingly described people’s desire to associate things with meaning as “effort after meaning.”

Interestingly, finding a name for a meaningless figure turned out to be very helpful in the subjects’ effort after meaning: they often felt relieved when they found a label which expressed a certain concept. In Langacker’s (1987) terminology, the subjects were able to project a “sanctioning structure,” i.e. the concept of two carpenter’s squares or a picture frame, to the meaningless figures.

This material for VIP Membership only, please Sign up or Login to unlimit any download.

- VIP for 01 day : 9 USD (Accept and recommend pay by paypal/Crypto)
- VIP for 01 month : 33 USD (Accept pay by paypal or bank account/VISA card/Western Union/Crypto)
- VIP for 01 year : 99 USD (Accept pay by paypal or bank account/VISA card/Western Union/Crypto)
- VIP forever - Unlimit time : 333 USD (Accept pay by paypal or bank account/VISA card/Western Union/Crypto)
* Below is payment button by paypal (CLICK 'Send' IN THE NEXT PAGE), If you pay by other methods, pls contact us (huyhuumik@gmail.com).

Pay VIP 01 day (9USD)

Pay VIP 01 month (33USD)

Pay VIP 01 year (99USD)

Pay VIP Unlimit Time (333USD)

*Notes : Your account will be upgraded to VIP Member after we receive your payment (Sometime you need to wait a few minutes or a few hours). After received your payment, we will inform to your email that you provide, then please login again.

Here is an example for VIP, If you become a VIP member you will see the link download as below:
Improve Your IELTS Reading Skills (Ebook)

* Link VIP 1 is the main link, Link VIP 2,3,4 is backup/mirror links, download 01 link is enough