User:Ntijerina/sandbox

In linguistics, a phatic expression is communication which serves a social function such as small talk and social pleasantries that don't seek or offer any information of value. For example, greetings such as "hello" and "how are you?" are phatic expressions.

History
The term phatic communion ('bonding by language') was coined by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in his essay "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages", which appeared in 1923 as a supplementary contribution to The Meaning of Meaning by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. The term "phatic" means "linguistic" (i.e. "by language") and comes from the Greek φατός phatós ("spoken, that may be spoken"), from φημί phēmí ("I speak, say").

Understanding
In phatic communion, speech acts are not communicative, since no content is communicated. According to Malinowski even such apparently "purposeless" speech acts as polite small talk, like "how are you?" or "have a nice day," even though its content may be trivial or irrelevant to the situation, perform the important function of establishing, maintaining, and managing bonds of sociality between participants.

In Roman Jakobson's work, the 'phatic' function of language concerns the channel of communication, for instance when one says "I can't hear you, you're breaking up" in the middle of a cell phone conversation (obviously, not Jakobson's example). This usage appears, for instance, in research on online communities and micro-blogging.

In speech communication the term means "small talk" (conversation for its own sake) and has also been called "grooming talking."

English
For example: "You're welcome" is not intended to convey the message that the hearer is welcome; it is a phatic response to being thanked, which in turn is a phatic whose function is to acknowledge the receipt of a benefit.

Similarly, the question "how are you?" is usually an automatic component of a social encounter. Although there are times when "how are you?" is asked in a sincere, concerned manner and does in fact anticipate a detailed response regarding the respondent's present state, this needs to be pragmatically inferred from context and intonation.

The following is a specific example of the former: a simple, basic exchange between two acquaintances in a non-formal environment.


 * Speaker one: "What's up?" (US English. In UK English this means "is there something wrong?")
 * Speaker two: "Hey, how's it going?"

Conversely:


 * Speaker one: "Alright?" (UK English. In US English this means "is there something wrong?")
 * Speaker two: "You alright."

Neither speaker expects an actual answer to the question. Much like a shared nod, it is an indication that each has recognized the other's presence and has therefore sufficiently performed that particular social duty.

Japanese
In Japanese, phatic expressions play a significant role in communication, where they are referred to as "aizuchi."

Persian
Taarof is a complex set of expressions and other gestures in Persian society, primarily reflected in the language.

Online
Phatic communication is used online to maintain an online presence when using social media. In order to accumulate more followers phatic communication can be encouraged sometimes it is not always about the content but instead about the quantity when doing things such as 'keeping in touch'. Things such as Twitters limit on the number of characters used in a post helps create phatic communication. Social Media sites such as Facebook use things such has 'like' and automated messages that relay a person's interest and purchases to their friends.

Peer Review
Hi! So far with the information that you gathered I think it would go great and be a good addition to the article that you are editing/reviewing. It was quite interesting to read as well and hence I don't find anything wrong with the catego ries that you and your classmates have found, no spelling errors either. Good luck with the article! Jmartinez4316 (talk) 16:55, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking good so far. I feel that the understanding category can be expanded a bit more. Besides the examples given think of other social settings where collectively everyone knows what to do or say without really being told. These are the things that are culturally bound and foreigners might not know until they are told. For example, (and this is something I do and have seen others do) is walking in front of someone either in the store or somewhere else where I just need to cross their path/block line of sight I say "excuse me" and the other responds in either an "Mmh" or a "no problem". I'm not doing anything wrong going in front of them, but it's so ingrained it just happens. I'm not actually asking for the person to excuse my chosen path. The same with when someone sneezes. Everyone around automatically says something without thinking, but they don't really mean to bless the individual in a religious sense! I would suggest looking into sociolinguistics to help with this article and definitely ask the department librarian if you can't find the information your looking for. CA108017 (talk) 19:36, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your review and your suggestions. We will definitely look into it more. There seems to be many different phatic expressions I don't know if we can add them all, but we will try to put in as much useful information as we can and put it in a way that everyone can understand. BobLee4 (talk) 18:38, 3 April 2018 (UTC)