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The data discussed in this chapter have, with a few exceptions, been collected in naturally-occurring circumstances by myself. As will be seen, all apart from Example 2 fall mainly or entirely into a category of communication whose nature and boundaries are the subject of some discussion, but which is generally known as small talk, or phatic communion. My reasons for this will be discussed in detail later (see Chapter 3.4), but the main – and most obvious – one is that this category is crucially dialogic. According to Bickmore & Cassell (1999: 1), small talk is ‘non- task-oriented conversation about neutral topics whose primary functions are to mitigate face threats, provide an initial time interval in which the interlocutors can “size each other up”, establish an interactional style, and establish some degree of

mutual trust and rapport’. While most forms and functions of verbal communication – instructions, explanations, commands, persuasion and so on – are frequently used in talking to oneself in the absence of any other interlocutor, small talk as defined above is not. There is simply no point in using it on oneself.

There are two further initial reasons for taking phatic communion as a starting point. The first is its apparently universal nature and the motivation behind it: as

summarised by Abercrombie (1994; 3006) it ‘enters the everyday experience of everybody, from the most highly civilized to the most primitive, and far from being useless, this small talk is essential to human beings getting along together at all.’ The second is its relatively standardised nature and the fact that certain types of content – typically unchallenging and low in intrinsic relevance – are particularly suited to this use. The phatic use of language, as Žegarac & Clark explain, is

possible on any given occasion ‘to the extent that the interlocutors’ mutual cognitive environment includes some assumptions about the way conversations are usually conducted: how are certain topics usually relevant? What is the social relationship between the communicators? What are the social norms for appropriate linguistic behaviour?’ (Žegarac & Clark, 1999: 336) On this account, it is the situation model – the interlocutors’ joint situation model – that determines whether a certain use is ‘phatic’, and the parameters of this model that determine its standardised nature.

Furthermore, although the skills and sensitivities involved in phatic communion vary, as a general case it needs no special aptitude or training, no prerequisite level of education1. (It seems to be age-proof as well, in that adults of all ages do it; it would be interesting to investigate the age at which children start small-talking, a query raised with some immediacy by Example 4.) And this apparent ease of delivery is arguably a product of its semi-ritualised linguistic and conceptual content. Again as will be described in more detail below, what people say in a phatic situation, and how they say it, both fall within certain boundaries of likelihood; thus, phatic dialogue, though it occurs in a naturalistic setting, contains an element of standardisation that readily allows re-use in a variety of circumstances.

1

This last is a variable that, in linguistic studies, could have some importance, given that so many experimental subjects may – by practical necessity – be higher education students and therefore not necessarily representative of the population at large in terms of verbal skills.

The standardised nature of phatic communication also makes it relatively easy to spot deviations from the norm, thereby providing information about the norm itself. Perhaps the most extreme examples of such deviation come from attempts at phatic communion with an interlocutor with communication difficulties, as in autism. Example 1, collected by Uta Frith (Frith, 1989.2003: 116-7), illustrates the conversational problems experienced by a teenager with autism, and also – by its absence – demonstrates the mutuality of assumptions and effort on which successful phatic communion depends.

Example 1

Context: Uta, an academic, has just tested the reading skills of Ruth, a 17- year-old student. She now tries to engage the student in conversation:

a) Uta: Now you live in that lovely flat upstairs? b) Ruth: Yes.

c) Uta: Is that really good? d) Ruth: It is.

e) Uta: Do you do some cooking there? f) Ruth: Yes, I do

g) Uta: What kinds of thing do you cook? h) Ruth: Anything.

As Frith notes later, Ruth ‘had a good vocabulary, excellent grammar, and was a superb reader. Yet she was an abysmal partner for small talk’ (ibid: 128). Not only is the reciprocity required for phatic communion missing – Frith has to develop all the topics herself – but so, apparently, is any sign of the motivation that should underlie it. Ruth’s terseness seems to indicate a lack, not of the cognitive or

linguistic skills required for phatic language use, but of the affective need that drives it: she appears to have no feelings about either her own activities or the effect she is making on her conversational partner.

An indication of how profound the effect of such interlocutor disengagement can be amongst neuronormal interactants – and for how little cause – is given in an early informal experiment carried out in a standard office setting by Ferguson and described in his 1976 discussion of politeness formulas. Recalling how he

deliberately failed to reply to his secretary’s Good morning on two consecutive days, he found that the second day ‘was full of tension. I got strange looks not only from the secretary but from several others on the staff, and there was a definite air of “What’s the matter with Ferguson?”’ (Ferguson, 1976: 140). A more complex deviation from the norm – in which it is the subjects themselves who are encouraged to reject the phatic style in favour of an information-oriented one – is examined in an investigation by the Couplands & Robinson, which studies replies from 40 elderly people at a day centre to the routine enquiry How are you? The deviation here rests on the fact that the respondents are as likely, on the grounds of their age and

consequent health difficulties, to reply to the question literally rather than phatically. However, this encouragement is not enough to make the neuronormal subjects completely abandon their need to size up their interlocutor and establish a comfortable interactional style: their responses emerge as interestingly subtle, showing too much variation and ambiguity to be classified outright as phatic, but characterised in many examples by a ‘systematically’ phatic orientation.

‘Interviewees find many overlapping strategic means to hold back, at least initially, the full force of their negative health experiences… they tend to opt for multiply qualified statements and hedges and rapidly shifting judgments of their own well- being’ (Couplands & Robinson, 1992: 225-6).

It is in pursuit of some further types of subtle variation that this chapter’s instances of naturally-occurring and informally-captured speech are examined.