WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.740 “‘Good morning!’ said Bilbo, and he meant it. 2 00:00:02.749 --> 00:00:04.979 “‘What do you mean?’ Gandalf said. 3 00:00:04.979 --> 00:00:05.979 “‘Do you wish me a good morning, 4 00:00:05.979 --> 00:00:08.690 “or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; 5 00:00:08.690 --> 00:00:12.669 “or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?’ 6 00:00:12.669 --> 00:00:15.889 “‘All of them at once,’ said Bilbo. 7 00:00:15.889 --> 00:00:21.520 “‘What a lot of things you do use good morning for!’ said Gandalf.” 8 00:00:21.520 --> 00:00:24.820 What Gandalf is stubbornly ignoring in that conversation, 9 00:00:24.830 --> 00:00:28.800 because there’s no way that a wizard who’s lived in Middle Earth for 3,000 years 10 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:30.960 doesn’t understand “good morning” -- 11 00:00:30.960 --> 00:00:34.970 but anyway, what he’s stubbornly ignoring is that the phrase “good morning” 12 00:00:34.970 --> 00:00:37.490 doesn’t usually convey information at all. 13 00:00:37.490 --> 00:00:39.480 Instead, it serves a social function. 14 00:00:39.480 --> 00:00:40.740 It is a greeting. 15 00:00:40.740 --> 00:00:43.040 Expressions like this are called “phatic expressions”. 16 00:00:43.050 --> 00:00:46.660 They’re phrases where the semantic information 17 00:00:46.660 --> 00:00:50.390 is much less important than the pragmatic information. 18 00:00:50.390 --> 00:00:52.740 And generally, it’s to do with politeness. 19 00:00:53.740 --> 00:00:56.579 “How are you”, “How's it going” and “Hello” are all phrases 20 00:00:56.579 --> 00:01:00.149 that are made up of different words but mean approximately the same thing, 21 00:01:00.149 --> 00:01:03.210 to the point that you can switch them up fairly interchangeably, 22 00:01:03.210 --> 00:01:06.400 as long as they're tonally appropriate and you're used to them. 23 00:01:06.400 --> 00:01:08.130 If you’re an American in Britain, 24 00:01:08.130 --> 00:01:11.570 it might be quite jarring to be asked “you alright?” as a greeting. 25 00:01:11.570 --> 00:01:15.540 For many North Americans, “are you alright” is not a phatic expression, 26 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:19.700 so “Are you all right?” expresses genuine concern. 27 00:01:19.700 --> 00:01:24.030 Also, it probably won’t be “you alright?”, it’ll just be “y'arigh?”. 28 00:01:25.160 --> 00:01:30.080 The other way around: applies to “What's up?”. For most Britons it’s an expression of concern, 29 00:01:30.080 --> 00:01:32.960 not a greeting: it’s not phatic in British English. 30 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:35.939 Phatic expressions change with time. 31 00:01:35.939 --> 00:01:36.970 “How do you do?” 32 00:01:36.970 --> 00:01:39.760 eroded over time to “Howdy do” and then “howdy”, 33 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:43.290 but all those sound dated and formal to most modern listeners. 34 00:01:43.290 --> 00:01:45.510 And these changes happen all the time! 35 00:01:45.510 --> 00:01:49.119 It’s now usual to reply to ”thank you” with “no problem.” 36 00:01:49.119 --> 00:01:51.890 But that’s a bit contentious because for some, usually older, folks 37 00:01:51.890 --> 00:01:54.880 “no problem” is not phatic and it’s impolite: 38 00:01:54.880 --> 00:01:57.110 it should be “you’re welcome” instead. 39 00:01:57.110 --> 00:02:00.690 Which, to many younger folks, also sounds impolite! 40 00:02:00.690 --> 00:02:07.710 We’re going to have these generational differences as long as language continues to change. 41 00:02:07.710 --> 00:02:11.450 So why do we bother with phatic expressions at all? 42 00:02:11.450 --> 00:02:16.050 Why is it rude to just immediately jump to what you actually want to say? 43 00:02:16.050 --> 00:02:19.660 Well, greetings are a way to either acknowledge another person, 44 00:02:19.660 --> 00:02:22.180 to initiate conversation by establishing a relationship, 45 00:02:22.180 --> 00:02:27.250 or they're a verbal sort of handshake to make sure everyone’s paying attention. 46 00:02:27.250 --> 00:02:30.260 Depending on the phatic expression we choose, 47 00:02:30.260 --> 00:02:34.080 we can convey a hierarchical relation or intent. 48 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:35.849 We can use them for saying goodbye. 49 00:02:35.849 --> 00:02:39.500 There are also phatic expressions for “backchanneling”, 50 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:41.830 which is how we express that we are actively listening. 51 00:02:41.830 --> 00:02:46.819 Those serve the pragmatic function of demonstrating that, yes, you are listening, 52 00:02:46.819 --> 00:02:51.210 and that you don't desire to be the one talking at the moment. You're not going to interrupt. 53 00:02:51.210 --> 00:02:54.050 This is why backchannels often happen at the end of sentences; 54 00:02:54.050 --> 00:02:58.680 they are the listener recognizing that they could jump into the conversation at this point, 55 00:02:58.680 --> 00:03:00.970 but they are choosing to continue to listen instead. 56 00:03:00.970 --> 00:03:05.220 Their prevalence varies from language to language, and culture to culture, 57 00:03:05.220 --> 00:03:07.459 which can lead to misunderstandings. 58 00:03:07.459 --> 00:03:11.430 In Japanese, backchanneling is so ubiquitous that foreign businesspeople 59 00:03:11.430 --> 00:03:14.599 sometimes mistake it for agreement, and think that people are saying 60 00:03:14.599 --> 00:03:20.080 “okay, I agree” and not “okay, I understand you, carry on”. 61 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:23.230 Not all phatic expressions are treated equally by everyone. 62 00:03:23.230 --> 00:03:25.300 So look out for them. They are everywhere. 63 00:03:25.300 --> 00:03:28.910 Play around with them and use unusual ones if you want… just… 64 00:03:28.910 --> 00:03:31.629 don’t be Gandalf. 65 00:03:31.629 --> 00:03:34.120 My co-author Gretchen McCulloch’s new book Because Internet 66 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:38.260 includes a bit on why we stress out so much about phatic expressions in email: 67 00:03:38.260 --> 00:03:42.910 whether you should start that message with “Hi” or “Dear Name” or something else entirely. 68 00:03:42.910 --> 00:03:44.540 There are links to her book in the description!