[The search for meaning, with regard to the activity of reading]

"Searching for meaning" leads to approaching three levels. The level of the meaning is registered in an oriented space, using the elements of a code. The symbolic level is that of the relation between meaning and meant: to what extent does the subject have access to the world of meanings? This level encompasses two dimensions: one is paradigmatic, through which the subject associated the elements of the vocabulary with words from the same semantic field (the author refers to a survey carried out on 145 normal children as well as with reading problems, which brings to light a very characteristic evolution in the children with problems); the other dimension is syntagmantic: to what extent does the subject have access to the meaning of the text he is tackling? The third level is psycho-affective: what is the underlying meaning that the act of reading takes on for certain people? To what extent does the difficulty of reading take on the dimension of a symptom, with its unconscious roots? The author presents the details of two cases from which many lesions can be drawn. Steps to be taken on the therapeutic level are given at the end of the study.