phatic
nounEtymology From Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “spoken”) - from φημί (phēmí, “I say”) - + -ic. Probably formally influenced by emphatic, which predates this term.
1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences A phatic utterance.
phatic
adj/ˈfætɪk/
Etymology From Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “spoken”) - from φημί (phēmí, “I say”) - + -ic. Probably formally influenced by emphatic, which predates this term.
1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
- You needn't be angry about the insincerity of shopkeepers' how-are-you greetings. Well-adjusted people understand that the question is phatic in the context and that that's usually no problem.
- Some dialects of a language may use a certain term or phrase in a phatic way, even if other dialects don't.
2 more examples
- Generally speaking, statements in WE are expected to be of a tautologous nature, thus fulfilling the essential phatic nature of speech.1978, Anthony Burgess, 1985:
- Dispensing with phatic chitchat, he began straightaway to tell the story of his “people.”2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 467:
- Derived terms
- nonphatic, phatically, phatic communion
- Related terms
- phaticity, phaticness, formulaic, rhetorical