Take a quick look around you. You’ll likely see a wealth of images: from this book to, perhaps, your roommate or romantic partner. You might experience thoughts and emotions related to what you’re seeing—memories of your roommate asking to borrow your car or feelings of love toward your partner. Now imagine communicating all of this to others. To do so, you need words to represent these things: roommate, borrow, car, love, and so forth. Whenever we use items to represent other things, they are considered symbols. In verbal communication, words are the primary symbols that we use to represent people, objects, events, and ideas (Foss, Foss, & Trapp, 1991).

All languages are basically collections of symbols in the form of words that allow us to communicate with one another. When we agree with others on the meanings of words, we communicate easily. Your friend probably knows exactly what you mean by the word roommate, so when you use it, misunderstanding is unlikely. But some words have several possible meanings, making confusion possible. For instance, in English, the word table might mean a piece of furniture, an element in a textbook, or a verb referring to the need to end talk (“Let’s table this discussion until our next meeting”). For words that have multiple meanings, we rely on the surrounding context to help clarify meaning. If you’re in a classroom and the professor says, “Turn to Table 3 on page 47,” you aren’t likely to search the room for furniture.