adj.
Of, relating to, or being speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas.
[From Greek phatos, spoken, from phanai, to speak. See -phasia.]
phatically phat'i·cal·ly adv.
phatic
| Dictionary: phat·ic |
(făt'ĭk)
adj.
Of, relating to, or being speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas.
adj.
Of, relating to, or being speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas.
| Wordsmith Words: phatic |
(FAT-ik)
adjective
Relating to a communication meant to generate an atmosphere of social relationship rather than to convey some information.
Etymology
Coined by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942). From Greek phatos, from phanai (to speak), which also gave us prophet and aphasia (loss of ability to speak or understand language as a result of an injury)
When you bump into your neighbor on your way out and say, "How are ya?" you're engaging in phatic communion. The idea is not to inquire your neighbor's state of affairs but simply to create a feeling of shared goodwill. Later, at work, when you discuss weather with someone at the water cooler, it's the same idea.
"When I saw the transcript of that G8 conference conversation between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, my first thought was that it read not so much like a conversation between statesmen as the phatic gruntings of a pair of teenage Kevins." — Jane Shilling; Plenty of Chatter Masks a Dearth of Conversation; The Times (London, UK); Jul 21, 2006.
| Word Overheard: phatic |
"How are you?" and "Have a nice day" and other small-talk standbys — these are components of phatic speech, phrases we say to set a mood or express a feeling rather than to convey any actual information. (But phatic speech should not be confused with the slang phat, meaning top-notch):
"...captured in his speech, in which phatic blips like 'kind of' or 'sort of' are interspersed..."
Link: Gay Donor or Gay Dad? - New York Times
Posted November 20, 2006.
See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words. 
| Obscure Words: phatic |
relating to discourse that is social rather than informative
| Wikipedia: Phatic |
In linguistics, a phatic expression is one whose only function is to perform a social task, as opposed to conveying information.[1] The term was coined by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in the early 1900s.
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 be polite in response to a gift.
Similarly, in the English language, 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.
As an example of the former: a simple, basic exchange, shared by many that see each other every day at work, but must fulfill that social obligation each morning, or at first contact:
- Speaker one: "What's up?"
- Speaker two: "Hey, man, how's it going?"
And each just walks on.
Neither expects an answer to his/her question. Much like a shared nod, it's an indication that each has recognized the other's existence and has therefore performed sufficiently that particular social duty.
The utterance of a phatic expression is a kind of speech act.
In speech communication the term means "small talk" (conversation for its own sake) and has also been called "grooming talking".[2]
In Roman Jakobson's work, 'Phatic' communication is that which 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 the context of online communities and more specifically on micro-blogging (see for instance [3][4]).
See also
References
- ^ Malinowski, B. (1923) "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages”, in: Charles K. Ogden / Ian A. Richards (eds.), The Meaning of Meaning, 146-152, London: Routledge
- ^ "Teach Yourself Linguistics", by Jean Aitchison, ISBN 978-0340870839
- ^ Makice, Kevin (2009). "Phatics and the design of community". Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems. Boston, MA, USA.
- ^ pears analytics (2009), Twitter Study – August 2009, Whitepaper, http://www.pearanalytics.com/2009/twitter-study-reveals-interesting-results-about-usage/
 |
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| Translations: Phatic |
Dansk (Danish)
adj. - der bruger ord eller tale som meddelelsesmiddel
Nederlands (Dutch)
(van taalgebruik) vooral sociaal/emotioneel
Français (French)
adj. - phatique
Deutsch (German)
adj. - keine spezifische Bedeutung vermittelnd
Ελληνική (Greek)
adj. - (για ομιλίες) κοινωνικός, για δημόσιες σχέσεις
Português (Portuguese)
adj. - fático
Русский (Russian)
фактический, контактоустанав- ливающий
Español (Spanish)
adj. - términos de simple sociabilidad
Svenska (Swedish)
adj. - phatisk (vänlig)
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
交流感情的, 应酬的
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 交流感情的, 應酬的
العربيه (Arabic)
(صفه) تجاملي, للمجامله
עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - (דיבורים) שמטרתם לשמור על קשר חברתי
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Overheard. © 1999-2009 by Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Obscure Words. © 2008 by Michael A. Fischer http://home.comcast.net/~wwftd. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Phatic". Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Mentioned in
- speech acts (philosophy)
- function
- Small talk
- Locutionary act
- Baba Dharam Dass
- Small talk (phatic communication)
- Joe Btfsplk
- Lawrence of Aquilegia
- Net-poetry
- Nadirah X
- Mobile ticketing
- Register (sociolinguistics)
- Psychoanalytic Conceptions of Language
- Pragmatics
