ABSTRACT
Meaning-making can be seen as a basic human phenomenon. Humans make meaning using signs, which by definition, stand in for other things (Valsiner, 1998). By using signs, the person can go beyond the immediate environment, organizing his or her relation to the world. One remarkable feature of human sign use is the movement of meaning. For instance, there are a variety of meanings that can be constructed for what is – ostensibly – the same situation. So, too, the person can travel between various locations, sometimes feeling closely connected to the environment, while entering into abstract reflection at others. Indeed, the three papers to which this commentary responds – themselves distinct – are all nonetheless implicitly or explicitly interested in the movement of meaning. These chapters discuss this phenomenon in terms of entering a mystical realm of thought, the creation of the divine from the mundane, and the transformation of memories. There can be no doubt that meaning moves. The question which remains – and to which this commentary responds – is to articulate the basic process through which these shifts occur.
