Phatic Communication
What does it mean when someone asks ´How are you?` Usually the speaker expects to hear a response like ´I am fine, thank you. How are you?`, if he is trying to make ´chit-chat`.
It is assumed that all people are able to seize a distinction between chit-chat and the attempt to conduct a genuine conversation.
To make it easier to understand I will start with two conversations which I am going to analyze:
(1) Groundhog Day
ML: I hope you enjoy the festivities.
PC: Oh I´m sure I´m going to (pulls face).
ML: There´s there´s talk of a blizzard.
PC: Well, we may catch a break and that blizzard´s gonna blow right by us. All of this moisture coming up outta the south by midday is probably gonna push on to the east of us and at high altitudes it´s gonna crystallise and give us what we call snow. (winks) Probably be some accumulation. But here in Punxsutawney our high´s gonna get up to about 30 today, teens tonight, chance of precipitation about 20 per cent today 20 per cent tomorrow. Did you wanna talk about the weather or were you just making chit-chat?
ML: (shrugs and shakes head) Chit-chat.
PC: OK. Right. See you later. B´bye.
ML: Oh em eh will you be checking out today Mr. Connors?
PC: Chance of departure today one hundred per cent.
Obviously MC just wanted to make chit-chat what means that Connor´s detailed answer was inappropriate. Since he is doing this intentionally he could have reasons for his behaviour (e.g. he does not like chit-chat; he does not like MC).
The next example is a conversation between two real estate salesmen:
(2) Glengarry Glen Ross
RR: How are you
GA: Fine (,,) you mean on the board (,) you mean you mean you mean on the board
RR: I (,) yes (,) the board
GA: I’m fucked on the board
Speakers: RR = Ricky Roma; GA = George Aaronow.
Contextual assumptions:
Roma is very successful in contrast to Aaronow, which is a fact well-known to both since their performances are being recorded on the mentioned board in their office. Only the best two salesmen will keep their jobs while the others are about to get fired.
The question which arises is which utterance should be interpreted as phatic and which as non-phatic (if there is anything like that).
Referring to example (1) we can say that Mrs. Lancaster´s attempt to start a verbal exchange could be called phatic since she is trying to make contact with Connor. Connor´s dis-preferred response, however, can be considered as negatively phatic.
As mentioned above, i
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Phatic Communication
2.1 Manifestness
2.2 Ostensive-Inferential Communication
3. Intuitions
4. Interpretations
5. Degrees of Phaticness
6. Small Talk
7. Conversational Storytelling
8. Conclusion
Literature
1. Introduction
This paper deals with Phatic Communication and the way it is produced. There are not many workings about this topic yet.
All the more interesting is the approach done by Vlad Zegarac and Billy Clark who connected Phatic Communication with the framework of Relevance Theory and obtained striking results. In contrast to what was generally supposed by linguists, Zegarac and Clark assume that phatic interpretations require an account of cognitive processes and that phatic communication can not only be explained as a social phenomenon.
In the course of this paper I will explain the insights of Zegarac and Clark and try to find out to what extent the term phatic can be applied to conversations.
2. Phatic Communication
What does it mean when someone asks ´How are you ?` Usually the speaker expects to hear a response like ´ I am fine, thank you. How are you?`, if he is trying to make ´chit-chat`.
It is assumed that all people are able to seize a distinction between chit-chat and the attempt to conduct a genuine conversation (Zegarac/Clark 1999: 321).
To make it easier to understand I will start with two conversations which I am going to analyze:
(1) Groundhog Day
ML: I hope you enjoy the festivities.
PC: Oh I´m sure I´m going to (pulls face).
ML: There´s there´s talk of a blizzard.
PC: Well, we may catch a break and that blizzard´s gonna blow right by us. All of this moisture coming up outta the south by midday is probably gonna push on to the east of us and at high altitudes it´s gonna crystallise and give us what we call snow. (winks) Probably be some accumulation. But here in Punxsutawney our high´s gonna get up to about 30 today, teens tonight, chance of precipitation about 20 per cent today 20 per cent tomorrow. Did you wanna talk about the weather or were you just making chit-chat?
ML: (shrugs and shakes head) Chit-chat.
PC: OK. Right. See you later. B´bye.
ML: Oh em eh will you be checking out today Mr. Connors?
PC: Chance of departure today one hundred per cent.
(Taken from Zegarac/Clark 1999: 321)
Obviously Mrs. Lancaster (ML) just wanted to make chit-chat what means that Connor´s (PC) detailed answer was inappropriate. Since he is doing this intentionally he could have reasons for his behaviour (e.g. he does not like chit-chat; he does not like ML).
The next example is a conversation between two real estate salesmen:
(2) Glengarry Glen Ross
RR: How are you
GA: Fine (,,) you mean on the board (,) you mean you mean you mean on the board
RR: I (,) yes (,) the board
GA: I’m fucked on the board
Speakers: RR = Ricky Roma; GA = George Aaronow.
(Taken from Zegarac/Clark 1999: 322)
Contextual assumptions:
Roma is very successful in contrast to Aaronow, which is a fact well-known to both since their performances are being recorded on the mentioned board in their office. Only the best two salesmen will keep their jobs while the others are about to get fired.
The question which arises is which utterance should be interpreted as phatic and which as non-phatic (if there is anything like that).
Referring to example (1) we can say that Mrs. Lancaster´s attempt to start a verbal exchange could be called phatic since she is trying to make contact with Connor. Connor´s dis-preferred response, however, can be considered as negatively phatic.
As mentioned above, in general people know the difference between the attempt of a phatic exchange and an explicitly meant utterance. In both cases (1) and (2) the addressees give responses which contain over-informativeness. Yet there is a difference in quality between these two answers, since the hearer of (1) (Mrs. Lancaster) could interpret the answer as an offence while the hearer of (2) (Roma) might assume that Aaronow is displeased about the working situation (or perhaps envious).
In order to answer on how these interpretations are possible we take a look at Zegarac and Clark´s (in the following called Z/C) work. Z/C believe that Sperber and Wilson´s Relevance Theory could be the key to the answer (Zegarac/Clark 1999: 321).
To understand this approach it is indispensable to explain one crucial element of this theory, namely the Ostensive-Referential Communication.
Ostensive-Inferential Communication takes place when the interlocutors show evidently intentionally informative behaviour. In other words, the speaker makes evidently clear that he has the intention to communicate (this is the ostensive part) while the hearer needs to be able to infer the speaker’s intention (this is inferential part) (Zegarac/Clark 1999: 323).
There are two intentions carried by this kind of communication:
a) a communicative intention to make mutually manifest
b) an informative intention to make manifest or more manifest a set of assumptions
(Zegarac/Clark 1999: 324)
2.1 Manifestness
Since the terms manifest and mutually manifest are crucial elements of this theory they will be described in the following. Sperber and Wilson’s definition is that an assumption is manifest if the environment provides sufficient evidence for its adoption (Sperber/Wilson 1995: 39). In contrast to the every-day use it does not need to be mentally represented, it rather refers to a psychological disposition which depends partly on aspects of the environment (e.g. making an utterance makes manifest to the hearer that the speaker is alive, is able to speak, able to open his mouth or to move his tongue although all these true assumptions are usually not represented mentally).
The term for all manifest assumptions of an individual is his Cognitive Environment (Sperber/Wilson 1987: 699). As soon as there are several assumptions which are manifest to both interlocutors then this overlap is called their Shared Cognitive Environment without being necessarily mutual. Only when both interlocutors are aware of their Shared Cognitive Environment we speak of Mutual Cognitive Environment.
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- Mergim Bytyci (Autor:in), 2009, Phatic Communication, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/134706
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