When Steve was in sixth grade, his friend Ed would play an annoying word game with people. Ed would point to a table and say, “What’s that?” The unwitting victim would answer, “It’s a table, duh!” Ed would say, “No, that’s just the word we use to represent it. What’s it really?” The person would pause, then respond, “Oh, I see. OK, it’s wood and metal and plastic.” “No,” Ed would laugh, “those are just words that we use to represent what it is. What is it really?” About this time the person would get fed up with Ed’s game and walk away.

Ed’s game illustrates the first defining feature of language: it is symbolic. When items are used to represent other things, they are considered symbols. In verbal communication, words are the primary symbols used to represent people, objects, events, and ideas (Foss, Foss, & Trapp, 1991). Thus, the word table refers to an object with a flat surface and legs to support it. You could just as well call it a “cotknee” or some other term. If you did, nothing about the actual object would change—just its name. As psychologist Erich Fromm noted, words only point to our experience of the world; they are not the experience. All languages are collections of symbols in the form of words people use to communicate.