The Structure of Meaning--A Linguistic Description.

Just as a reader must bring an experiential conceptual background to the printed page, so must he bring an ability to recognize the graphic cues that signal meaning. The graphic cues or structural meaning works as a system the description of which can be outlined in three parts as the vocabulary, the structure, and the sound. What has been neglected in the area of vacabulary is the concept that words alone do not carry precise meaning until they are placed in the structural and intonational system of the English language. An individual's sense of structure gives the written work meaning or determines how it means in contrast to what it means. Intonation functions as a controller of meaning. Generally speaking, the structural and intonational signals are not new. What is new is that this description of how meaning is structured is linked to the language that the child already knows intuitively so that the whole system can be taught without technical terminology at an early age and as the child is learning to read. What is also new is that this knowledge of the signals is not isolated as part of a spelling program or a grammar lesson but in the context of meaning in reading. (WR)