Abstract
This essay reviews treatments of language and meaning in recent speech communication literature and outlines the approach to these subjects taken by ordinary language philosophers. Speech scholars view language as a system of symbols and meaning as a matter of symbols representing or naming objects, ideas, or behavioral responses. Ordinary language philosophers contend that words do not function in any single way; specifically, meaning is not simply referring and words are not simply names. The philosophers treat language‐using as situationally dependent behavior governed by informal logical rules.

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