Symbol and Reference

Symbol is an object that is being used by someone or something to refer to another object called the referent.

For examples:

• in a book, you have the word cow, and the word cow is then used to refer to some real cow out in the real world.

• or you have a picture of a cow in a book, and its a picture of cow named Daisey, with black and white spots, who live on a particular farm, at a particular farm, at a particular time, and here is this complete picture of Daisey. 

The picture is an object, and the ink on the paper is an object, and the picture is made of paper which is an object, and this compound object is being used to refer to the actual cow that existed in the real world.

      
      The referent also is an object, it too exists in the real world, just as the symbol does.
Obviously, that's where milk comes from. Mooo!
Or the other example of referent:

• in the sentence Marry saw me, the referent of the word Marry is the particular person called Marry who is being spoken of, while the referent of the word me is the person uttering the sentence.