To understand communication more fully, you assess the quality, or communicative value, of your communication. You do this by examining the degree to which the communication demonstrates the six characteristics discussed earlier. If it is definitely symbolic, with a shared code, and definitely intentional, it has high communicative value, and misunderstandings are less likely.

For example, recall the coffee sale described at the beginning of this section. The woman and the street vendor share a clear, if unwritten, code: in New York City, “regular” coffee means coffee with milk and two sugars. The code has a cultural meaning unique to New York. Even within the city, it is somewhat specialized, limited to street vendors and delicatessens. Had she said the same word to the counterperson at a Seattle’s Best coffee shop on the West Coast—or even at the Starbucks just down the street—she might have gotten a perplexed stare in reply. See Table 1.1 for a more detailed breakdown of this transaction.