The term "pointer" is generally use for in-memory accesses in languages like C, while "symbolic link" is generally used by file systems.
Yes, the concepts are related (a) in that something points to something else but that's about it. Otherwise, you could potentially include thing like footnotes, tables of contents entries, phones with call forwarding set up, delegates at work and a host of other things.
(a) Even to the point where you can have invalid symlink-pointers if you remove the target file (i.e., "free" the pointer). I'm just not certain what a NULL symlink pointer would look like :-)