Editing Phatic expression (section)

{{Short description|Utterances which primarily serve a social function}}

In [[linguistics]], a '''phatic expression''' ({{IPAc-en|lang|ˈ|f|æ|t|ᵻ|k}}, {{Respell|FAT-ik}}) is a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships. In other words, phatic expressions have mostly socio-[[Pragmatics|pragmatic]] rather than [[Semantics|semantic]] functions. They can be observed in everyday conversational exchanges,<ref>Vladimir Žegarac, [http://www.vladimirzegarac.info/1998_WhatIsPhaticCommunication.pdf "What IS Phatic Communication?"], 'Phatic Communication', 
April 25, 2018</ref> as in, for instance, exchanges of social pleasantries that do not seek or offer information of intrinsic value but rather signal willingness to observe conventional local expectations for politeness.<ref>{{citation|last=Malinowski|first=B.|title=The Meaning of Meaning|pages=296–336|year=1923|editor1=Charles K. Ogden|chapter=The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages|location=London|publisher=Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner|editor2=Ian A. Richards}}</ref>

Other uses of the term include the category of "[[small talk]]" (conversation for its own sake) in [[speech]] communication, where it is also called [[social grooming]].<ref>"Teach Yourself Linguistics", by Jean Aitchison, {{ISBN|978-0-340-87083-9}}</ref> In [[Roman Jakobson]]'s [[Jakobson's functions of language|typology of communication functions]], 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. This usage appears in research on [[online communities]] and [[micro-blogging]].<ref>
{{cite conference
 | last=Makice | first=Kevin
 | year=2009
 | title=Phatics and the design of community
 | book-title=Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems
 | place=Boston, MA, USA
 | url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1520340.1520445
}}
</ref><ref>
{{Cite web
 | last=pear analytics
 | year=2009
 | title=Twitter Study – August 2009, Whitepaper
 | url=http://www.pearanalytics.com/2009/twitter-study-reveals-interesting-results-about-usage/
}}
</ref>