Communication is symbolic

Symbolic behavior is a person’s capacity to respond to or use a system of significant symbols.
The symbolic behavior perspective argues that the reality of an organization is socially constructed through communication.
Symbolic messages are used by individuals to understand their environment and create a social reality.
When faced with uncertainty, individuals continually organize themselves within their group based reality and respond within that reality.

Symbolic convergence theory (SCT) is a communication theory developed by Ernest Bormann proposing that the holding of fantasies in common transforms collections of individuals into cohesive groups.
SCT offers an explanation for the appearance of a group's cohesiveness, consisting of shared emotions, motives, and meanings.
Through SCT, individuals can build a community or a group consciousness which grows stronger if they share a cluster of fantasy themes.
Symbolic convergence theory provides a description of the dynamic tendencies within systems of social interaction that cause communicative practices and forms to evolve.
This theory allows theorists and practitioners to anticipate or predict what will happen and explain what did happen.
One thing SCT does not do is allow for control of human communication.
It attempts to explain how communication can create and sustain group consciousness through the sharing of narratives or fantasies.

Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that develops from practical considerations and alludes to humans' particular use of shared language to create common symbols and meanings, for use in both intra- and interpersonal communication.
According to Macionis, symbolic interactionism is a framework for building theory that sees society as the product of everyday interactions of individuals.
In other words, it is a frame of reference to better understand how individuals interact with one another to create symbolic worlds, and in return, how these worlds shape individual behaviors.
It is a framework that helps understand how society is preserved and created through repeated interactions between individuals.
The interpretation process that occurs between interactions helps create and recreate meaning.
It is the shared understanding and interpretations of meaning that affect the interaction between individuals.
Individuals act on the premise of a shared understanding of meaning within their social context.
Thus, interaction and behavior is framed through the shared meaning that objects and concepts have attached to them.
From this view, people live in both natural and symbolic environments.

A symbolic language is a method of communication that uses characters or images to represent concepts.

The theory of symbolic self-completion is a psychological theory which holds that individuals seek to acquire and display symbols that are strongly related to what they perceive as the ideal self.
For example, relatively effeminate boys who want to appear macho may use products associated with manliness—such as a strong cologne or a silver watch—in hopes of symbolically fulfilling their self-definitions, i.e. becoming manly.
Such cases of symbolic self-completion are seen in internet communication, marketing and advertising, and consumer behavior.

Symbolic speech is a legal term in United States law used to describe actions that purposefully and discernibly convey a particular message or statement to those viewing it.
Symbolic speech is recognized as being protected under the First Amendment as a form of speech, but this is not expressly written as such in the document.
One possible explanation as to why the Framers did not address this issue in the Bill of Rights is because the primary forms for both political debate and protest in their time were verbal expression and published word, and they may have been unaware of the possibility of future people using non-verbal expression.
Symbolic speech is distinguished from pure speech, which is the communication of ideas through spoken or written words or through conduct limited in form to that necessary to convey the idea.