John Stewart is Associate Professor of Speech Communication at the University of Washington.

"I believe that the question this book addresses—whether language should be considered as symbolic or constitutive—is THE central questions for communication scholars. As the first extensive examination of this question to be undertaken by a scholar in this discipline, this book will generate significant thinking. Communication textbooks almost without exception assume language to be symbolic, thereby fatally limiting our understanding of what humans do when we communicate. A book like this, by an author of Stewart's standing, can change that." — Bruce Hyde, St. Cloud State University"This book addresses a fundamental assumption about language, the symbol model, and shows it to be problematical in serious ways. Stewart provides an alternative, positive case: he calls for a profound shift in our commonsense views of language, to see language first and foremost as a social activity in which persons partake and which constitutes our realities." — Richard Buttny, Syracuse University

• PrefacePart I. Language: A System of Symbols or Articulate Contact? 1. The Symbol Model and the Nature of Language2. The Symbol Model from the Ancients to Humboldt3. Twentieth-Century Versions of the Symbol Model4. Language as Constitutive Articulate Contact5. Diverse Friendly BedfellowsPart II. The Symbol Model and Three Philosophies of Language 6. Semiotics and Dialogue in Marxism and the Philosophy of Language7. The Symbol Model and the Philosophy of Language: The Case of Kenneth BurkeJohn Stewart and Karen J. Williams8. The Symbol Model and Calvin O. Schrag's Communicative PraxisNotesReferencesIndex