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Language in Society 21, 207-230. Printed in the United States of America
JEFFREY D. ROBINSON
CommunicationArts and Sciences
Universityof SouthernCalifornia
Los Angeles, CA 90089
ABSTRACT
207
COUPLAND, COUPLAND, AND ROBINSON
A HISTORICAL REVIEW
Malinowski
In the widelycited 1923 supplement,Malinowskidescribedphaticcommu-
nion as "languageused in free, aimless, social intercourse"(Malinowski
1972:I42; this is a reprint,to which page numbersin this section refer). In
his famous dictum, phaticcommunionis "a type of speechin whichties of
unionarecreatedby a mereexchangeof words,"whenpeople"aimlesslygos-
sip" (I5I), "the function of speechin mere sociabilities"(I50). On the as-
sumptionthatthe needfor the merepresenceof othersis "oneof the bedrock
aspectsof man's [sic] naturein society,"speechcan be seen as "theintimate
correlateof this tendency"(I50). Therefore,communionamonghumanswill
often be markedin speech- "phatically."Theseare the termsin whichini-
tial formulasof greetingand parting(one of Malinowski'sexamplesis nice
day today) and the "flow of language"that follows such utterancesare to
be interpreted:"purposelessexpressionsof preferenceor aversions,accounts
of irrelevanthappenings,commentson what is perfectlyobvious"(ibid.).
In this initial delimitation,we find the origins of the interpretationof
phaticcommunionas a form of "smalltalk," discourseoperatingin a lim-
ited domain and dislocated from practicalaction and what Malinowski
thoughtof as "purposiveactivities"(whichincludehunting,tillingsoil, and
warin "primitive"societies).Malinowskineverthelessrecognizedphatictalk
to be a formof action,serving"to establishbondsof personalunionbetween
people broughttogetherby the mere need of companionship"(i5I). Even
thoughit may "notserveany purposeof communicatingideas,"phaticcom-
munion is functionalin defusingthe threatof taciturnity(i5o).
208
NEGOTIATING PHATIC COMMUNION
A NEGOTIATION PERSPECTIVE
high
Pos;iti'v
relat iQonal foregrounded ............ ................... backgrounded
goals8
PHATIC DRUNKEN
COMMUNION BANTER
70w
to represent the norm rather than the exception for communicative inter-
change), the ritual subsystem gives entry only to phatic and ceremonial
purposes.
What is important (for our purposes) in Fawcett's conceptualization of
obliqueness is his argument that all oblique actions must be analyzed "at two
levels," in that "there are often two ways of reacting to such messages"
(I984:4I). They may be intended either "ostensibly"or at an "ulterior"level.
Fawcett's further notion of "variability in the strength of purpose" (47) is
helpful in allowing us to break out of the either/or (straight or oblique, non-
phatic or phatic) designation that is firmly implied by the systemic model-
ing of choices in Figure 2. As Fawcett commented, "it is not that we are not
sharing information when we say nice day but it looks as if it may rain soon,
but that the informational purpose is rather weak" (47).
From the negotiative perspective that we wish to argue for (first on theo-
retical grounds and then on the basis of the data analyses to follow), the
function of particular sequences of talk as phatic or otherwise should not be
preconceived. Relevant analytic questions are whether, how, and when talk
is oriented to as phatic or not, contingent upon its local sequential placement
in particular contextualized episodes and on the momentary salience of par-
ticular interactional goals. Important further possibilities are that participants
in talk may orient differently at one moment, among themselves but also in-
dividually at different moments, to the phaticity of an utterance. That is, we
want to suggest that phatic communion may be negotiated relationally, and
215
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NEGOTIATING PHATIC COMMUNION
RESPONSES TO HAY?
Unqualifiednegativeresponses
At the otherextreme,some responsesto the HAY?openingin the data (and
rememberthat we aretranscribingresponsebeginningshere)arebluntlyneg-
ative self-appraisals,clearlymakingexplicitreferenceto somaticor psycho-
logical problems.
FM: not very happy (.) and not very well
DE: I'm a long-standing asthmatic
BB: well I've got everything wrong with me (.) my legs yeah everywhere even my fingers
AD: erm (.) I got (.) rheumatoid arth (.) arthritis is in my legs and they're terribly painful
This preparednessto disclose negativelyvalenced,intimateinformationto
nonfamiliarsin first encountershas been consideredcounternormative(see
Berger& BradacI982), thoughit is entirelyconsistentwith our earlierfind-
221
COUPLAND, COUPLAND, AND ROBINSON
NOTES
positiveaffect in greetingsamongmiddle-class,white(perhapsparticularlyfemale)studentson
NorthAmericanuniversitycampusesand contrastthis witha generalizedUnitedKingdomstu-
dent or nonstudentnorm.
5. Weshouldagainnote that evenin WesternAnglo contexts,thereis clearvariationin the
normativeness of HAY?.Serviceencounters(otherthanthe most cursory)on the westcoastof
the UnitedStatesappearto requireHAY?or one of its variantsas a firstmoveby the server,
whereassimilarencountersin the UnitedKingdomdo not openwith HAY?Moreover,the giv-
ing of HAY?and its responsedo havean affect on relationaldevelopment,howeverroutinized
it may appear.For example,havingbeenthrougha HAY?exchangein a U.S. west coast gro-
cery store seemsto predictmoreextensiveinterpersonalinteractingbetweenserversand their
that as-
customerson futureoccasions.Thereis a dangerin stronglyrelativisticinterpretations
sume that differentculturalnormsare necessarilyfunctionallyequivalent.
6. We havereportedpatternsof age disclosurein this corpusas partof anotherarticle(see
Coupland,Coupland,& Giles I989).
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228
NEGOTIATING PHATIC COMMUNION
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230