In the coming months I'm going to write my bachelor's thesis on the reception of Bronisław Malinowski's concept of phatic communion (in English and in Estonian) during the five decades of its existence (1923-1972), with a special focus on the sources that predate Roman Jakobson's conception of the phatic function of speech (1956/1960). The material, or relevant selections from secondary sources, I've already formed into a compendium, Phatic Notes 1923-1972: A Quotebook for Researchers.
The aim of this work is essentially to synthesize the material somehow. It is not enough to have all of it gathered together. It is necessary to bring out what is relevant. The preliminary purpose of this work is to examine:
- What questions does Malinowski's text pose?
- What questions have proved salient in secondary literature?
- What questions have remained unexamined?
The most valuable of these is the third because it is easy enough to see how Malinowski's text has been used, what portions are most quoted, what ideas have gained currency, etc. But the preferable outcome would be to have a clear sight of what is most difficult in Malinowski's text, what portions of it have remained completely ignored and unexamined, and why some of his ideas have not gained as much currency.
This work must be finished by next spring so I'd better get started, and work with it until it takes no effort to write the final thesis. Thus, this will be the first in an extensive series of posts dealing with this subject in a way that is not really habitual in this blog. I don't usually write things myself but merely comment. I'll have to get out of this habit for a while and do some writing myself, so that I don't end up writing a thesis that is merely a heap of quotes.
Thus, I'll begin with Malinowski's text and attempt to bring out the questions that are posed by it. What's really in it? Let's see. I'll reflect briefly upon each of the 9 paragraphs that compose the section on phatic communion. This is something which I've put off for a while. One idea I had was to structure the thesis after these paragraphs but there's a chance that some ideas repeat in different paragraphs and some may be completely useless. It would be better if I could bring out the native questions, or formulate Malinowski's propositions in the form of questions, to see later how these have been answered after him.
Procedurally, while I've linked to previous posts containing the very same text, the 9 paragraph that constitute the section on phatic communion, I begin each section with the full paragraph for context but use the sentence-numbering system from the 2017 post. Since each paragraph might ultimately form a chapter or subheading in the final thesis, I finally gave them titles that summarize the main point of each paragraph. Thus:
- Another mode of using language
- Polite phrases
- Natural sociability
- The tension of silence
- Gossip
- Phatic communion
- Social atmosphere
- Primitive speech
- Summary
§1. Another mode of using language
The case of language used in free, aimless, social intercourse requires special consideration. When a number of people sit together at a village fire, after all the daily tasks are over, or when they chat, resting from work, or when they accompany some mere manual work by gossip quite unconnected with what they are doing - it is clear that here we have to do with another mode of using language, with another type of speech function. Language here is not dependent upon what happens at that moment, it seems to be even deprived of any context of situation. The meaning of any utterance cannot be connected with the speaker's or hearer's behavior, with the purpose of what they are doing. (Malinowski 1923: 313)
§1.1. According to the very first sentence of the text, phatic communion is "The case of language used in free, aimless, social intercourse" and "requires special consideration". The question, the first one, here is quite obvious: (Q1) "What makes social intercourse free and aimless?" Presumably this is the question that Malinowski's own text aims to answer, and ultimately we can put together a composite answer in his own terms. On the whole, it also poses the opposing question: what kind of social intercourse is not free and aimless? The obvious answer is one that has a purposive character. Here it must perhaps be taken into consideration that the comma separating "social intercourse" from the adjectives "free" and "social" may mean that "social", too, is an adjective, and one can replace "intercourse" with synonyms, amounting "free, aimless, social" interaction, communication, conversation, etc.
§1.2. In the second sentence Malinowski gives representative situations of phatic communion: "When a number of people sit together at a village fire, after all the daily tasks are over, or when they chat, resting from work, or when they accompany some mere manual work by gossip quite unconnected with what they are doing". While sitting around the fire and talking, they aren't doing anything in particular. They are nothing doing, just sitting around and talking, their workday is over. In the next example, they are working but what they're talking about has nothing to do with the work they're doing, it is "unconnected". When Malinowski next writes that "here we have to do with another mode of using language, with another type of speech", he is contrasting phatic communion to the uses of language he examined right before, which did have to do with work, co-oordinating unified action, with speech connected with what was being done at the moment.
This is enough to pose several questions. For one, it is the first instance of the word "gossip", which deserves special emphasis. A whole section, if not a full article, could be written about Malinowski's ordeal with gossip. Due to this prominence, let our second question be just that simple: (2) "What is gossip?" Hopefully a search through his writings will yield something like a definition. Secondly, this quality of being unconnected to work, accompanying as a recreational activity, as a way of staving away boredom and tedium, deserves attention but since it recurs later on in the form of questions Malinowski himself poses, let it stand for the moment. It is sufficiently clear, for the moment, that phatic communion is distinguished from the practical use of language. It is patently impractical.
§1.3. The third sentence continues on the theme of unconnectedness: "Language here is not dependent upon what happens at that moment, it seems to be even deprived of any context of situation". The take-away here is that in other modes of using language, in other types of speech functions, language is dependent upon what happens at that moment. There are fancy terms out there to designate this aspect. Language that accompanies work may, for example, be called "context-dependent". In phatic communion, language is independent of the context, has no bearing upon what is going on at the moment. Special emphasis should be laid on his "crucial conception" (see §7.2) of "context of situation", so that we may ask: (3) "What is the context of situation?" There is a sizeable literature addressing this exact question.
§1.4. The fourth sentence is the third iteration of this very point: "The meaning of any utterance cannot be connected with the speaker's or hearer's behaviour". We've already established this with the term unconnectedness, which may be qualified here as semantic unconnectedness (though "irrelevance" could be preferable). The point being that when people gossip while working, they're not talking about the work itself but about something completely unconnected with the present situation, about something else happening elsewhere or at another time. The take-away could be a tentative temporal orientation towards the past and the future, ignoring the present, in which either nothing is happening or some manual work is occurring. Here an association is possible with people telling stories about their lives (their past experiences, reminiscences) or future plans (expectations, anticipations).
The last clause here is especially important: the meaning of any utterance cannot be connected "with the purpose of what they are doing". The keyword here is purpose. The word recurs three more times within the text, and one of those says that utterances in phatic communion are "purposeless" (cf. § 5.1). For all intents and purposes (no pun intended), the "purposeless" is synonymous with "free, aimless, social" - emphatically all three, as "social", too, is in a sense purposeless, and more-or-less the whole crux of the matter. This comes to the fore when formulated as a question: (4) "What is the purpose of social intercourse?" I'll presently leave open the possibility that I'll examine forms of intercourse more widely and attempt to qualify specifically "social" intercourse.
§2. Polite phrases
A mere phrase of politeness, in use as much among savage tribes as in a European drawing room, fulfils a function to which the meaning of its words is almost completely irrelevant. Inquiries about health, comments on weather, affirmations of some supremely obvious state of things - all such are exchanged, not in order to inform, not in this case to connect people in action, certainly not in order to express any thought. It would be even incorrect, I think, to say that such words serve the purpose of establishing a common sentiment, for this is usually absent from such current phrases of intercourse; and where it purports to exist, as in expressions of sympathy, it is avowedly spurious on one side. What is the raison d'être, therefore, of such phrases as 'How do you do?' 'Ah, here you are,' 'Where do you come [|] from?' 'Nice day to-day' - all of which serve in one society or another as formulæ of greeting or approach? (Malinowski 1923: 313-314)
§2.1. I've condensed the title. The original reads as a diminutive: "A mere phrase of politeness", as opposed to any other type of phrase. Malinowski's use of "mere" (it occurs 7 times) is problematic: it is used to emphasize how small or insignificant someone or something is. Just like "small talk", Malinowski implies that phrases of politeness are insignificant, or literally meaningless: they fulfil "a function to which the meaning of its words is almost completely irrelevant". This can be taken several ways. One is that polite phrases are meaningless as such, import no new information. Another hinges on the qualification "of its words", meaning that the individual words in a phrase of politeness do not contribute to the overall meaning of the phrase, in which sense we could talk of so-called holophrases (William Dwight Whitney's term, if I'm not mistaken). This is the sense in which so-called "phatic utterances" are, in Gardiner's terms, set phrases. Below, Malinowski brings concrete examples. For the time being, we can ask, almost rhetorically: (5) "What is the meaning of a polite phrase?"
The intermediary clause in Malinowski's sentence also raises some questions. It says that a mere phrase of politeness is "in use as much among savage tribes as in a European drawing-room". This phrasing reoccurs when Malinowski addresses "the primitive mind" (§4.3). Interestingly, here he is saying that phatic communion can also be found among the higher classes of society - presumably poor people don't have "drawing-rooms" to entertain guests in; while there he draws an equivalence between savages and "our own uneducated classes". The European drawing-room is presumably the hotspot of the educated classes. This is one of those aspects which are seldom addressed in this text, as the implication here is blatantly classist. At least in the second instance. In the first he appears to be saying that everyone, whether savage or civilized, use phrases of politeness, which is true enough. Thus, we can ask very generally: (6) "What is the European drawing-room?" It is tempting to add "anyway?" at the end.
§2.2. Then Malinowski gives some examples, three to be exact: (1) "Inquiries about health" because that is what "How are you doing?" and many greetings in European languages amount to (e.g. Estonian "Tere" is a contraction of "Tervist" - "Good health!"); (2) "comments on weather", which was a classic even before Malinowski, as in John Mahaffy's book on the art of conversation, e.g. "fine weather we're having today", etc.; and (3) "affirmations of some supremely obvious state of things", which is a continuation of the weather-motif but expanded to include anything that is, like the weather, immediately recognizable. The last one is especially important because the "supremely obvious state of things" does not require affirmation - the state of things is obvious, and affirming it is a waste of breath in a sense.
These three examples are followed by a theoretical point: "all such are exchanged, not in order to inform, not in this case to connect people in action, certainly not in order to express any thought". As to informing, inquiry about another's state of health is indeed not that. Comments on weather and some obvious state of things equally does not inform, does not provide new information. That these forms of discourse do not "express any thought" is another matter, for thought does not require novelty. A comment on weather or state of things does express a thought, even if that thought is not a striking one. "I think the weather might turn" or "I think it may start to rain" do express a thought, even if it is a simple one. So the question here is (7) "How are comments on weather or an obvious state of things thoughtless?"
The really problematic part here is that this mode of discourse does not "connect people in action", because this is counteracted by Malinowski himself when he questions if language functions in such cases as "a mode of action" (cf. §7.1). By asking about another's state of health you are indeed not providing information or expressing a thought but you are doing something, it is a mode of action, and moreover does connect people in action, the action of talking. Obviously the kind of action he means here is work - these are unconnected with practical activity. Yet the contradiction is obvious. To put it in the form of a question: (7) "How is social intercourse not a mode of action?" It is a bit facetious but hopefully will aid in formulating what exactly he means by a mode of action later on.
§2.3. The next one is even more problematic: "It would be even incorrect, I think, to say that such words serve the purpose of establishing a common sentiment". Here we are plagued by the perennial problem of defining sentiment. I've gathered some definitions over the years because everyone from Adam Smith to Auguste Comte has had something to say about sentiments. But even if we take the simple definition given by the search engine: "a view or opinion that is held or expressed" we are already in a heap of trouble. Does a comment on weather or affirmation of some supremely obvious state of things not express a view or opinion? Talking about weather, we are giving our view or opinion about it, e.g. "I like this weather". It is very probable that by "sentiment" Malinowski means something more specific, probably from one of his favourite books, Alexander Shand's study of emotions and sentiments. For the time being we have only a vague inkling of what "establishing a common sentiment" even means, whether it implies emotional contagion, sharing of views, coming to the same opinion, or what. So, (8) "How does one establish a common sentiment with another?"
As to "such words" not doing so, he adds: "for this is usually absent from such current phrases of intercourse". The earlier "phrase of politeness" has now become "current phrases of intercourse". While the first implies that they are niceties, the second implies that thay are fads, the phrases that are "current" and may go out of fashion later or not be in fashion elsewhere. There is a whole body of associations: common phrases, popular sayings, idioms, cool words, slang, etc. In other words, it's what the kids are saying. The question is simple: (9) "What are the current phrases of intercourse?" The answer will have to be searched for in the depths of Internet Archive, as to what were held to be "current phrases" in Malinowski's time and before him. As with phrases of politeness, they can be assumed to be set phrases or holophrases whose meaning is associated with the whole cluster of words and not with individual words composing it.
Returning to the question of establishing common sentiments, the final clause of this sentence reads: "and where it purports to exist", meaning "the purpose of establishing a common sentiment", "as in expressions of sympathy, it is avowedly spurious on one side". This is one of the most troublesome portions of the text. Formulated differently, he is saying that expressions of sympathy deliberately appear to aim at establishing a common sentiment but they are openly acknowledged as fake, false, or not what they appear to be. Before, I've connected this with Durkheim's passage about how mourning is a social obligation and people don't really feel what they pretend to feel when they express condolences, because that's how I've read "expressions of sympathy" (expressions of condolence or pity). This phrase could equally be read in a different sense, as sympathy is a notoriously slippery word and could just as well mean sympathetic, i.e. likeable. "I like you" is just as well an expression of sympathy. So the question is simple: (10) "What are expressions of sympathy?"
§2.4. Lastly, Malinowski asks "What is the raison d'être [...] of such phrases". The French term means "Reason for being. The claimed reason for the existence of something or someone; the sole or ultimate purpose of something or someone. (literally "reason to be")" - in other words, why do these phrases exist? The examples he gives are associated with the above-mentioned topics: "How do you do?" is effectively an inquiry about health, "Nice day to-day" is a comment on weather, and "Ah, here you are" is an affirmation of some supremely obvious state of things. The odd one out is "Where do you come from?" which is not a current polite phrase in the West but was in the Melanesian society Malinowski studied. It had a deeper meaning in the psychology of that tribe, as put forth by Gunter Senft. Very briefly, when many adversial tribes live on a rather small island, asking your familiars where they come from and where they are going establishes a sort of social safety net.
While asking why such phrases exist, he further qualifies that they "serve in one society or another as formulæ of greeting or approach". This is more-or-less all that made it into Roman Jakobson's formulation of his phatic function of speech, through Alan Gardiner, and somehow came to signify interactions in which nothing but such polite phrases are exchanged. We already know that phatic communion extends beyond the language used in greetings or approach because (per §1.2) people sitting around campfire or gossiping during manual work are definitely not continually greeting each other. Were we to think that phatic communion includes only greetings, we'd run afoul of the definiton, as (per §1.3) this is a mode of using language in which what happens at the moment is not important, whereas in greetings, another person's approach is what is happening at the moment and the greeting is occasioned by that occurrence.
In all likelihood the "formulæ of greeting" are just an example of current phrases of politeness, and the phrases themselves an example of this mode of speech that does not impart new information, co-oordinate action or express thoughts. There are other difficulties here as well. For example, (11) "Why does a greeting not impart new information?" If a new person is introduced to us and he says "Hi, I'm Mike" or whatever, we do gain new information - we now know his name. What's more, say that the new person instead utters "Hi-ello, I am Michail", we can more-or-less safely assume that the new person might be a Russian. I recall this anecdote about a situation in one of the world wars where the Australians would open fire upon an approaching stranger if the greeting didn't have a proper aussie accent. Minimally, a greeting, like the sneeze in spy jokes, gives away our nationality and/or native tongue.
§3. Natural sociability
I think that, in discussing the function of Speech in mere sociabilities, we come to one of the bedrock aspects of man's nature in society. There is in all human beings the well-known tendency to congregate, to be together, to enjoy each other's company. Many instincts and innate trends, such as fear or pugnacity, all the types of social sentiments such as ambition, vanity, passion for power and wealth, are dependent upon and associated with the fundamental tendency which makes the mere presence of others a necessity for man. [Footnote:] I avoid on purpose the use of the expression Herd-instinct, for I believe that the tendency in question cannot strictly be called an instinct. Moreover the term Herd-instinct has been misused in a recent sociological work which has, however, become sufficiently popular to establish its views on this subject with the general reader. (Malinowski 1923: 314)
§3.1. The title for this paragraph is very tentative. The first sentence reads: "I think that, in discussing the function of Speech in mere sociabilities, we come to one of the bedrock aspects of man's nature in society". At issue here is the plural form of sociabilities. While the singular sociability is simply "the quality of being sociable", synonymous with friendliness, affability, and amiability, the plural form ("sociabilities") might indicate that what he actually means by this word are polite phrases. This is an issue that must be solved with a search in the archive, by finding out what were considered "sociabilities" by Malinowski's contemporaries. Thus, (12) "What are sociabilities?" The context also indicates towards this: he is talking about "the function of speech" in sociabilities rather than sociability. Were the latter the case, it would be a more general matter of the connection between speech and sociability. Instead, he appears to be asking about the function of speech in polite phrases. This can be confusing because of what he says next as a clarification about the bedrock aspect of man's nature in society.
§3.2. Namely, "There is in all human beings the well-known tendency to congregate, to be together, to enjoy each other's company". This would indeed be sociability. The way he formulated this sentence reminds me of that scene in I, Robot, in which robots are found to stand close together in storage containers. For all intents and purposes these are actually three slightly different things. To congregate is "to collect into a group or crowd". The word hints towards another term that is coming up, gregariousness, "fond of company; sociable". Secondly, "to be together" hints that people not only come together (periodically, as in gathering for a festival) but also stay together (as in live in social settings). And thirdly, "enjoying each other's company" can subsume both cogregating and being together, and adds an emotional qualification: sociability is enjoyable. Since this is more general than "polite phrases", the question must now be: (13) "What is sociability?"
§3.3. We now come to one of the most egregious cluster-fucks in this text. Let's begin from its end: he is describing psychological aspects (in the scientific vocabulary of his day, which makes it difficult for us) that "are dependent upon and associated with the fundamental tendency which makes the mere presence of others a necessity for man". The previous sentence laid it out quite clearly that the presence of other people is a necessity (a "well-known tendency"). This is the bedrock aspect of man's nature of society - man's necessity for society, for being in the presence of other people and enjoying their company. Thus far, what he has laid out is all positive - man enjoys company. Good. But then the psychological aspects associates and makes "dependent upon" it are all negative.
The psychological aspects are divided into two: instincts and sentiments. Presumably, the first is up to nature and the second up to nurture. Thus: "Many instincts and innate trends, such as fear or pugnacity" are dependent upon and associated with the necessesity for the presence of others. Fear is a given, but pugnacity requires definition: "the quality of wanting to start an argument or fight, or of expressing an argument or opinion very forcefully". We are left in the dark about what the connection between these qualities and man's social nature. (14) "How is the presence of other people associated with fear and pugnacity?" The obvious answer would be that people seek the company of some people because they are afraid of some other people. You feel safe amongst people you know. What to make, then, of pugnacity? Do people come together because they want to start an argument or fight? Perhaps some do, but I'm not at all sure about this interpretation.
The second set of psychological aspects are even more problematic: man's necessity for the presence of others is also dependent upon and associated with "all the types of social sentiments such as ambition, vanity, passion for power and wealth". Naturally, all of these do require other people for their expression. Ambition being "a strong desire to do something or achieve success", or "an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power", these require a society to be ambitious in. Likewise, vanity, as "excessive pride in or admiration of one's own appearance or achievements", is meaningless without someone to be vain before. Power and wealth require no clarification. The same question arises: do people seek the company of other people to satisfy their selfish needs?
I might have gotten ahead of myself a bit here, but I must remark that on this point Malinowski is effectively mistaken. Not on the substance of it, perhaps, as these desires do indeed require the presence of other people to come to anything. Where he is mistaken is in calling these "social sentiments". According to Alexander Shand, these are actually part of "the self-regarding sentiment" or "the great principle of self-love" (Shand 1914: 57). Specifically: "pride and vanity, avarice or the love of riches, sensuality or the love of sensual pleasures" (ibid, 57). This mistaken notion in Malinowski must be examined very carefully because it is easy enough to spot the error but quite another thing to frame it sensibly according to Shand's great system of sentiments. Thus, (15) "What are social sentiments?"
§4. The tension of silence
Now speech is the intimate correlate of this tendency, for, to a natural man, another man's silence is not a reassuring factor, but, on the contrary, something alarming and dangerous. The stranger who cannot speak the language is to all savage tribesmen a natural enemy. To the primitive mind, whether among savages or our own uneducated classes, taciturnity means not only unfriendliness but directly a bad character. This no doubt varies greatly with the national character but remains true as a [|] general rule. The breaking of silence, the communion of words is the first act to establish links of fellowship, which is consummated only by the breaking of bread and the communion of food. The modern English expression, 'Nice day to-day' or the Melanesian phrase, "Whence comest thou?' are needed to get over the strange and unpleasant tension which men feel when facing each other in silence. (Malinowski 1923: 314)
§4.1. In this paragraph, the necessity for the presence of others is tied to speech: "Now speech is the intimate correlate of this tendency, for, to a natural man, another man's silence is not a reassuring factor, but, on the contrary, something alarming and dangerous". In other words, when people congregate they also talk to one another. "Natural man" is a synonym for the "savage", a germanism, implying that the savage is uncivilized and uncultured, thus "natural". This is of course bull, and Malinowski himself makes an effort to dispel this myth but not in this text. On the whole, this is one of the most frequently quoted passages, as it is attested to by everyones everyday experience that a stranger brooding in silence nearby is by no means reassuring. When the stranger opens his mouth and strikes of a conversation, on the other hand, fear of him is dispelled. Yet, why is this? (16) "Why is another's silence something alarming and dangerous?"
§4.2. Next, we are given a whole hodgepodge of implications in a rather short sentence: "The stranger who cannot speak the language is to all savage tribesmen a natural enemy." First, notice that that "another man", whos silence is something alarming and dangerous, is a stranger. He is an unknown measure - someone, whom we do not know. It could be argued that any male stranger is a potential threat on an unconscious level. By the stranger remaining silent, he is not revealing if he belongs to the tribe or is an actual enemy of one's tribe. Secondly, Malinowski makes an egregious generalization - the stranger who speaks a strange tongue is a natural enemy to all savage tribesmen. What a grand and expensive survey of all the innumerable extant tribes it must have been to come to this conclusion.
As we'll see in the following posts where I'll be drawing together materials from secondary sources, §4.2 has been particularly important. Malinowski's generalization about all tribes has made little impact but this very sentence has given way to another generalization: instead of language as a unifying factor, others have inserted into its place
§4.3. Immediately following Lucien Lévy-Bruhl's La mentalité primitive (1922), Malinowski next writes that "To the primitive mind, whether among savages or our own uneducated classes, taciturnity means not only unfriendliness but directly a bad character". Taciturnity is "the state or quality of being reserved or reticent in conversation", or being "temperamentally disinclined to talk", "not loud and talkative", "habitually untalkative". It is once more unclear where he got this from, what survey of primitive minds, among the islanders or in Europe, he had conducted to come to this conclusion. I'll retain it as up to question: (17) "Does taciturnity mean unfriendliness and bad character?" Whether, by opposition, taciturnity means friendliness and good character to civilized and educated people, I'll leave aside for the moment.
§4.4. As if to make up for him not really having conducted a thoroughgoing survey about attitudes towards taciturnity around the world, he next adds that "This no doubt varies greatly with the national character but remains true as a general rule". I've met plenty of usages for this pair of words amongst Malinowski's contemporaries and predecessors but have not yet reached clarity as to what it exactly means, so (18) "What is national character?" It is self-evident enough that there are varying attitudes towards talkativeness and untalkativeness amongst the peoples of the world but I'm not aware (yet) if anyone has put this "general rule" to the test. In secondary literature upon phatic communion it is usually taken as a given, and elaborated upon as if it were so. Most likely this was derived from the first pages of Mahaffy's book as quoted by Ogden & Richards.
§4.5. This one is a classic that demonstrates the necessity for an in-depth study of this text. The first part of this sentence is one of the most frequently quoted parts, and the second part so difficult that it was left out of the Estonian translation. The first part reads: "The breaking of silence, the communion of words is the first act of establishing links of fellowship". Breaking the ice, exchanging some words is the first step towards making new friends. Good stuff. But then Malinowski adds that the breaking of silence "is consummated only by the breaking of bread and the communion of food". Oh no! Exchanging some words not enough to establish, well, huh - (19) "What are links of fellowship?" - you must also share your food!? Naturally enough friends do eat together, go out to lunch, take dinner together, etc. But (20) "What is the communion of food?" because it certainly sounds like the Christian sacrament, and Malinowski's particular ethnographic context does not at all support this - he ate his meals separately from the village, and while the villagers cooked their food in a communal pot, each family took their share and ate it separately.
§4.6. Also very frequently quoted, those polite phrases "are needed to get over the strange and unpleasant tension which men feel when facing each other in silence". This introduces something new to the above-given situation with the taciturn stranger, which is not necessarily a close face-to-face interaction. Here, the parties are unspecified "men", presumably of the same tribe or civilized westerners. This ambiguity stems from the whole sentence presenting examples from both cultures: "The modern English expression, 'Nice day to-day' or the Melanesian phrase, 'Whence comest thou?'" The latter is presumably the same "Where do you come from?" but now in Shakespearean diction. The actual case is even worse because it comes from the Old Testament: "And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou" (Job 2:2). Regardless, the thing is up to question: (21) "Do people feel a strange and unpleasant tension when facing each other in silence?" It might seem self-evident but by posing the question I can start gathering evidence in favour or against it.
§5. Gossip
After the first formula, there comes a flow of language, purposeless expressions of preference or aversion, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious. Such gossip, as found in Primitive Societies, differs only a little from our own. Always the same emphasis on affirmation and consent, mixed perhaps with an incidental disagreement which creates the bonds of antipathy. Or personal accounts of the speaker's views and life history, to which the hearer listens under some restraint and with slightly veiled impatience, waiting till his own turn arrives to speak. For in this use of speech the bonds created between hearer and speaker are not quite symmetrical, the man linguistically active receiving the greater share of social pleasure and self-enhancement. But though the hearing given to such [|] utterances is as a rule not as intense as the speaker's own share, it is quite essential for his pleasure, and the reciprocity is established by the change of roles. (Malinowski 1923: 314-415)
§5.1. Whereas the second paragraph addressed "formulæ of greeting or approach" (§2.4), the fifth goes into what comes after. Clearly, "When a number of people sit together at a village fire, after all the daily tasks are over" (§1.2) they are not merely spewing phrases of politeness or current phrases of intercourse at each other but they chat and gossip. Thus, "After the first formula, there comes a flow of language". By this wording I think Malinowski means that it is animated and fast-paced, there is a torrent of words. What they are about is interesting, and repeats some motives that have already passed through. I'll deal with them separately below. For the moment I'll pose a very general question that addresses the "flow of language": (22) "What is chatter?" The common definition points the right way: "to talk rapidly in a foolish or purposeless way; jabber".
The flow of language has three examples: (1) "purposeless expressions of preference or aversion". Harking back to the "free, aimless, social" nature of such intercourse (§1.1) as well as to the unconnectedness (§1.2-4), in this case someone is talking about what they like and don't like, with no obvious connection with what is going on, or any aim of informing or expressing thought. The thing about this is that it's personal, and not so very interesting to the listeners. The other two are in a sense variations of examples given above: (2) "accounts of irrelevant happenings" and (3) "comments on what is perfectly obvious" - which as remix "comments on weather, affirmations of some supremely obvious state of things" (§2.2). The weather is obvious - "easily seen, recognized, or understood; open to view or knowledge; evident". This yields a nearly philosophical question: (23) "Why is the obvious irrelevant?" This question might appear odd but the aim of it is to find out why Malinowski takes meaningless to be nearly synonymous with these terms.
§5.2. Here we have another equalizer: "Such gossip, as found in Primitive Societies, differs only a little from our own". Recall that he has already said that polite phrases are "in use as much among savage tribes as in a European drawing-room" (§2.1), they are used "in one society or another" (§2.4), and the "primitive mind" can be found "among savages or our own uneducated classes" (§4.3). This comes to a head in the final paragraph (§9.1). Here we have the second instance of gossip (previously in §1.2), and we are told that gossiping among the savage and the civilized "differs only a little". Yet he doesn't specify how it differs. We are to assume that it simply does. This is as much a cop-out as saying that what is gossiped about "no doubt varies greatly with the national character but remains true as a general rule" (§4.4).
§5.3. actually has something new to say: gossip is universal because there is "Always the same emphasis on affirmation and consent, mixed perhaps with an incidental disagreement which creates the bonds of antipathy." It doesn't say much substantively: when people talk they sometimes agree and sometimes disagree. Wow what an insight! Yet upon closer examination there is still something here. What he is saying about "affirmation and consent", i.e. replying "yes, that's right" and "do go on", for example, is that agreement is the baseline, the default mode, so to say - it is "always the same". Disagreement, on the other hand, is incidental - accidental, unplanned, irregular, by chance, of minor consequence. Disagreement sometimes happens whereas agreeing with the conversation is what always happens.
When an incidental disagreement does occur, it "creates the bonds of antipathy". This is the first occurrence of this motif but it recurs several times in the remainder. A bond is "a thing used to tie something or to fasten things together". When you casually disagree with someone in a conversation, you are now tied to that person in antipathy - "a deep-seated feeling of aversion; hostility, antagonism, animosity, opposition". Perhaps this may be getting ahead of things, but we could question if the opposite is also true: Does constant agreement with someone create the bonds of sympathy? This is a rhetorical question because bonds of sympathy does not occur in the text, instead Malinowski talks about "bonds of personal union" (§9.1), which may be taken in the sense of sympathy. The language of bonds and ties of union is one of those baffling things about this text that I have yet to solve or even find a reasonable way to address. In any case in this particular instance the "bonds of antipathy" comes off as too strong, as in I said I like pineapple on pizza. Jane disagreed with me. It was at that moment that we became mortal enemies for life.
§5.4. specifies why gossip is irrelevant (though not why it is obvious), and says something about the dynamics of the conversation: "Or personal accounts of the speaker's views and life history, to which the hearer listens under some restraint and with slightly veiled impatience, waiting till his own turn arrives to speak." Since the account given is "personal", it is not very interesting to the listener, it is not of general interest but only interesting to the speaker. As to "the speaker's views", we can assume that these indicate sentiments, i.e. views or opinions, or "expressions of preference or aversion" (§5.1). The listener couldn't care less what the speaker likes or dislikes. Likewise with the speaker's "life history". Oh, you didn't like ketchup when you were a child? How fascinating! This has become a pop culture staple: Don't tell me your life story".
The interesting part here is that the hearer is as if locked in, "under some restraint", having to keep quiet until the speaker stops going on about whatever s/he is going on about - the listener doesn't really care. S/he is having trouble hiding his or her anxiousness to take the turn to speak and commence an equally tedious monologue. Both just want to talk, and have to suffer listening to the other person talking to achieve this end. Here we could ask why are Malinowski's conversationalists so selfish? But it it would be a fruitless question since the answer cannot be sought anywhere else, but must be found in Malinowski's own writings and perhaps extrapolated from his own "views and life history". From what I've seen, this sentence is quoted frequently but it is not refuted. Everyone's personal experience of conversations with tedious people has confirmed that this is indeed the case - you have to wait until the other person shuts up and then you can force him or her to wait patiently until you've finished expressing whatever tedious thing you found necessary to put into words at that moment.
§5.5. gives a psychological explanation for this phenomenon, which is sadly once again clothed in the language of "bonds": "For in this use of speech the bonds created between hearer and speaker are not quite symmetrical, the man linguistically active receiving the greater share of social pleasure and self-enhancement". Now we have reason to ask: (24) "What are social bonds?" I've added a qualifier "social" to distinguish it from legal bonds, chemical bonds, and whatever else. We of course know of bonding - "the formation of a close relationship", but the context here indicates something else: "the bonds created between hearer and speaker" suggests that they are more ephemeral, lasting for a very short time, only for the duration of the conversation; and, that they are not equal or equilateral but somehow unequal - "not quite symmetrical". This would not hold for bonding, which is usually considered mutual; we wouldn't exactly say she bonded with me, but I couldn't care less about her - a rope tied to one end but left dangling in the air at the other end is not exactly bound together, not a bind.
Something along the lines of an answer to this mystery of "bonds" is suggested very vaguely by the ending of the sentence. The participant who can talk more than others receives "the greater share of social pleasure and self-enhancement". This makes conversation into a zero-sum game: there is a limited amount of social pleasure and self-enhancement available in any given conversation, and he who monopolizes the conversation and makes it an extended monologue wins it all. Never mind that this is bad manners, and makes for a bad conversation. Certainly it is true to a degree, but why exactly it might be true is up to question: (25) "How does linguistic activity yield social pleasure and self-enhancement?" It almost sounds like Malinowski conflates the two: that self-enhancement is social pleasure, the only real pleasure one can derive from social intercourse - making oneself the master of others, able to talk over others.
§5.6. In the last sentence of this paragraph adds that while the speaker wants to talk, he also wants to be listened. Otherwise he could just as well talk to a wall. "But though the hearing given to such utterances is as a rule not as intense as the speaker's own share, it is quite essential for his pleasure, and the reciprocity is established by the change of rôles". There is something off in this. The word "share" here should probably taken in the same sense as the "share of social pleasure and self-enhancement" in the previous sentence. Let us formulate it as such: But though the [share of social pleasure and self-enhancement given out by] hearing such utterances is as a rule not as intense as the speaker's own share [of social pleasure and self-enhancement taken in speaking], [giving social pleasure and self-enhancement] is quite essential for his [own social pleasure and self-enhancement], and the reciprocity is established by the change of rôles. This nearly makes sense. Otherwise "the hearing" sounds like the listener is not really even listening, but then how can you compare the intensity of hearing and being heard? In the modified version, with "social pleasure and self-enhancement" inserted so frequently, it becomes apparent that the reciprocity is established not only by giving over the turn to speak, but also sharing the social pleasure and self-enhancement by doing so. This makes a lot more sense because Malinowski was, first and foremost, an economist, so it comes as no surprise that there is an economic aspect in his approach to social intercourse. This, I expect, will form one of the main points I'll be examining further in my thesis.
§6. Phatic communion
There can be no doubt that we have here a new type of linguistic use - phatic communion I am tempted to call it, actuated by the demon of terminological invention - a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words. Let us look at it from the special point of view with which we are here concerned; let us ask what light it throws on the function or nature of language. Are words in phatic communion used primarily to convey meaning, the meaning which is symbolically theirs? Certainly not! They fulfil a social function and that is their principal aim, but they are neither the result of intellectual reflection, nor do they necessarily arouse reflection in the listener. Once again we may say that language does not function here as a means of transmission of thought. (Malinowski 1923: 315)
§6.1. Affirming that "here we have to do with another mode of using language, with another type of speech function" (§1.2), Malinowski now writes that "There can be no doubt that we have here a new type of linguistic use - phatic communion I am tempted to call it, actuated by the demon of terminological invention". The paragraph goes on to outline why exactly this is "new", i.e. why it is not one of the three functions of speech already recognized by others (broadly speaking, emotive, conative, and referential - per Jakobson's terminology). We'll also skip over the ever-vexing question of etymology. What does "phatic" mean? The consensus, "that phatic derives from the Greek phatos, a form of the verb phanai, meaning "to speak."" (Merriam-Webster) could be upset, but that I'd leave for a later date. For our current purposes the exchange of speech is sufficiently clear.
The sentence goes on with an explanation that is the most quoted portion of the text: "a type of speech in which ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words". If you've made it this far, you can already guess the line of criticism that follows. Let's start with communion. The search engine gives a simple definition: "the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings". By "a mere exchange of words", Malinowski is emphasizing that it is not the type of communion in which intimate thoughts and feelings are shared or exchanged; even if they were, the listener's "slightly veiled impatience" and general inattention to what the speaker is talking about (personal "views and life history") is sufficient to negate it. No, this is an exchange of words only. That is what the word "mere" is doing there - it is a diminutive that reduces the exchange to "mere phrase[s]" (§2.1) "mere sociabilities" (§3.1), exchanged in "the mere presence of others" (§3.3) during "mere manual work" (§2.1). Phatic communion is a small or insignificant exchange of words. We're dealing with "the communion of words" (§4.5).
And what to make of "ties of union"? Since so many have quoted this passage, repeated this formulation word for word, we can expect there to be at least some discussion of this exact phrase. Thus, (26) "What are ties of union?" There is an obvious affinity between union and communion but the exact nature of this affinity is difficult to point out without supplementary material. There are two significant instances within this text that can be related to "ties of union". In the final paragraph it is said that phatic communion "serves to establish bonds of personal union" (§9.1), and in the one we're going to examine next it is said that the situation of phatic communion consists of "the personal communion of these people" (who are aimlessly gossiping together). These instances are suggestive but go little beyond the fact that "ties" and "bonds" are synonymous and that they are somehow "personal".
§6.2. is strictly procedural: "Let us look at it from the special point of view with which we are here concerned; let us ask what light it throws on the function or nature of language". The most that can be taken away from this is that function and nature are synonymous, that the nature of language consists in its functions, in what can be done with it or how it can be used. The overall point here is that it can be used for social purposes, in a way that does not involve conveying meaning, as there is very little "meaning" to be found in greetings and gossip. This he formulates rhetorically, by answering in the negative to his own question about it:
§6.3. "Are words in Phatic Communion used primarily to convey meaning, the meaning which is symbolically theirs? Certainly not!" It should be noticed that he is now addressing individual words and not phrases (sociabilities, or polite phrases) or whole discourses (chat, gossip). Recall that "A mere phrase of politeness [...] fulfils a function to which the meaning of its words is almost completely irrelevant" (§2.1). That is how this otherwise very cryptic "meaning which is symbolically theirs", i.e. meaning which belongs to words as symbols, should be understood: Malinowski is negating the function of word-meanings in phatic utterances and proceeds to the function of sentence-meanings. This is easy enough to illustrate, as has been done numerous times: when someone says "How are you?" it is not a literal request for information about one's current state in life or present state of health. Answering, I'm doing fine, I guess, but my knee is acting up, and I don't have enough money to pay this month's rent, and my aunt says... would be improper, would be to misunderstand the intention of the utterance. Instead, you are supposed to interpret it as a piece of ritual behaviour, and respond automatically with "Fine, thanks, how are you?" This is more obvious in the common East Asian greeting, "Have you eaten rice?" It is just a greeting, not a request for information about your diet. This much Malinowski makes blatant in the following sentence:
§6.4. Words in phatic communion "fulfil a social function and that is their principal aim, but they are neither the result of intellectual reflection, nor do they necessarily arouse reflection in the listener". This way Malinowski is effectively arguing against the old semiotic model of linguistic communication, say that of John Locke, according to which words are associated with ideas, and linguistic communication occurs by words evoking the appropriate ideas in our minds. We are dealing here with "a new type of linguistic use" because words in phatic communion do not behave that way. The speaker is not saying words that stand for ideas in his mind, which are "the result of intellectual reflection". He's not communicating the results of his thinking. It is not some deep thought that he is expressing. By uttering a phrase of politeness or some current phrase of intercourse he is merely being social, saying something (meaningless) because the situation calls for it.
§6.5. "Once again we may say that language does not function here as a means of transmission of thought". To put a fine point on this with a smooth segue into the next paragraph, I must point out that the summary of this text in the index at the beginning of the essay reads "Language, in its primitive function, to be regarded as a mode of action, rather than as a countersign of thought" (Malinowski 1923: 296). By "mode of action" he means that language, in this type of speech, is just something we do, the words that compose it do not transmit thought, are not signs of thought (or ideas in our minds). While uttering greetings I may in fact be thinking of absolutely nothing, or something completely unconnected with the present situation, I'm just doing my part as a social person, a member of the species of talking primates that I am.
Before moving on from this paragraph, special attention should be reserved for the fact that words in phatic communion also "do not necessarily arouse reflection in the listener". We've already seen that the listener is "under some restraint" (not to interrupt us with their own monologue) and impatiently "waiting till his own turn arrives to speak". That whatever we are talking about does not arouse reflection in him is a natural outcome of whatever we are talking about not being a result of intellectual reflection in the first place. That is because "comments on weather, affirmations of some supremely obvious state of things" (§2.2), "purposeless expressions of preference or aversion, accounts of irrelevant happenings, comments on what is perfectly obvious" (§5.1), or "personal accounts of the speaker's views and life history" (§5.4) can be considered thoughts only in the very "loosest sense" of the word in which everything that goes through our minds may be called thoughts (cf. Dewey 1910: 2). To put it bluntly, Malinowski is using the term "reflective thought" in Dewey's sense.
§7. Social atmosphere
But can we regard it as a mode of action? And in what relation does it stand to our crucial conception of context of situation? It is obvious that the outer situation does not enter directly into the technique of speaking. But what can be considered as situation when a number of people aimlessly gossip together? It consists in just this atmosphere of sociability and in the fact of the personal communion of these people. But this is in fact achieved by speech, and the situation in all such cases is created by the exchange of words, by the specific feelings which form convivial gregariousness, by the give and take of utterances which make up ordinary gossip. The whole situation consists in what happens linguistically. Each utterance is an act serving the direct aim of binding hearer to speaker by a tie of some social sentiment or other. Once more language appears to us in this function not as an instrument of reflection but as a mode of action. (Malinowski 1923: 315)
§7.1. "But can we regard it as a mode of action?" he asks of language. If anyone is jarred by my phrase language is something we do above, keep in mind that unlike Alan Gardiner, Malinowski did not subscribe to the speech/language distinction. Usually it is speech that is viewed as the action, and language the system of signs that actuates the activity of speech. Malinowski, for whatever obscure reason, does not hold to this. In fact, this could be one of the questions: (27) "How can language be a mode of action?" The answer, I predict, will lead deep into his obscure influences (Avenarius and Mach). The common interpretation of this point is that the use of language in phatic communion becomes a form of ritualized activity, most likely due to the influence of Raymond Firth ("Verbal and bodily rituals of greeting and parting", 1972). I personally don't subscribe fully to this view, and am rather interested in Malinowski's own theory of action, which is much more difficult and hence more satisfying to figure out.
§7.2. "And in what relation does it stand to our crucial conception of context of situation?" This he asks as if rhetorically, having already answered it in the beginning: "Language here is not dependent upon what happens at that moment, it seems to be even deprived of any context of situation" (§1.3). Language as a mode of action in phatic communion is deprived of any context of situation, it is not dependent upon what happens at the moment. Easy peasy. Since the phrase "context of situation" only occurs twice in this text (both quoted here), this point requires clarification from the broader context (heh). In the introduction, Malinowski says that his "context of situation" corresponds to Ogden & Richards' "sign-situation", which I'll have to look into more closely: (28) "Are sign-situation and context of situation equivalent?" Skimming the essay yields interesting bits right away: "the situation in which words are uttered can never be passed over as irrelevant to the linguistic expression" (Malinowski 1923: 306), except in the case of phatic communion, as it turns out. This much is affirmed by the very next sentence:
§7.3. "It is obvious that the outer situation does not enter directly into the technique of speaking." This is blatantly some special-pleading nonsense. He himself writes: "Without some imperative stimulus of the moment, there can be no spoken statement" (Malinowski 1923: 307). I've briefly touched upon this issue in my comments on §2.3, above, in that another person's approach is the "imperative stimulus" that calls for a greeting. "In each case, therefore, utterance and situation are bound up inextricably with each other and the context of situation is indispensable for the understanding of the words" (ibid, 307). Phatic communion is no exception - without the participants understanding that their conversation serves a "social function" they would not know how to react, and answer the "How are you" with a lengthy description of all their personal issues, for example.
§7.4. "But what can we consider a situation when a number of people aimlessly gossip together." Aiming at psychological aspects (in the next sentence), some helpful context can be found a few pages before this text. Referring to an analysis of "a savage utterance" in the beginning of the essay, he writes that it gives "a glimpse of a group of savages bound by reciprocal ties of interest and ambitions, of emotional appeal and response" (Malinowski 1923: 310). Here we find some context for the "ties of union" (§6.1), which, as we see, pertain to interest and ambitions and other such emotional aspects. This is of little help, but something along this line I shall have to look for in Malinowski's other writings to make sense of the "ties of union" in this one. Otherwise, the following answer will mean very little:
§7.5. "It consists in just this atmosphere of sociability and in the fact of the personal communion of these people." One of the questions (no. 13) alredy asks "what is sociability?" It would be redundant to ask further "what is the atmosphere of sociability". Even more so because I know already (thanks to Charles Zuckermann) that it is more-or-less Malinowski's equivalent for Durkheim's "collective effervescence". In his review of Durkheim's book, Malinowski asked "is society, in its crowd-aspect, nothing more than the atmosphere in which individuals create religious ideas?" (Malinowski 1913): 529). My current interpretation is still that phatic communion, in some respects, was a response to Durkheim, that the atmosphere of sociability is not one in which the "mental effervescence" (ibid, 530-531) of the people gathered together originates religious ideas. Malinowski's response is this sentence here, that crowd gatherings are about sociability and personal communion rather than the "transmission of thought".
§7.6. The longest sentence in this paragraph is also the most difficult. The "personal communion of these people" who "aimlessly gossip together" "is in fact achieved by speech, and the situation in all such cases is created by the exchange of words". I'll pause here to point out that "the exchange of words", as we've established, is effectively synonymous with "phatic communion". That "ties of union are created by a mere exchange of words" (§6.1) could just as well be expressed by saying that personal communion is achieved by phatic communion. The main point here is that speech, the exchange of words, is what creates "this atmosphere of sociability". Just by someone saying something, a situation is created. This is more-or-less the point of the following sentence (§7.7), which may be got out of the way right here: "The whole situation consists in what happens linguistically". Good. But there is something much more intricate in the rest of this sentence (§7.6).
The atmosphere of sociability is created by the exchange of words and "by the specific feelings which form convivial gregariousness, by the give and take of utterances which make up ordinary gossip". We are once again in need of definitions. Convivial means friendly, agreeable, jovial, festive, as in "a convivial atmosphere" but also "fond of feasting, drinking, and merry company"; "Convivial people or occasions are pleasant, friendly, and relaxed". The Latin word convivium literally means "a feast". There is a connection with the "communion of food" present. (28) "What is conviviality?" The meaning of gregariousness we've already looked at briefly an can be defined in Malinowski's own words as the "tendency to congregate, to be together, to enjoy each other's company" (§3.2).
We may ask (30) "What is gregariousness?" but besides Malinowski's own serviceable definition, it is also quite evident that it originates from the "sociological work" Malinowski hints at in his sole footnote, namely Wilfred Trotter's Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War (1921). There it not only used on every other page but defined as "a quality perceptible only in the characteristics of actual crowds - that is to say, assemblies of persons being and acting in association" (Trotter 1921: 25-26). We could go on quoting Trotter all day because that is where Malinowski appears to derive the most. But the words that particularly set my off is "the specific feelings" which form convivial gregariousness. It is the only instance of "feelings" in this text, as otherwise (even in §7.8 - which we are going to look at next) he refers to "sentiments".
The answer to these "specific feelings" of gregariousness is found on a single page in Trotter. Addressing the term "intercommunication", which he defines as "the ties that bind the individual to his fellows and them to him" (Trotter 1921: 158), he also acknowledges in the same breath that this "is not a very satisfactory word" and proposes instead "herd accessibility" (ibid, 158). Thus "The conception of herd accessibility includes the specific sensitiveness of the individual to the existence, presence, thought, and feelings of his fellow-members of the major unit" (ibid, 158). We've already seen that people are sensitive to "the mere presence of others" (§3.3). Due his own particular reasons (his believs about the intelligence of the natives, perhaps), he does not believe that they "express any thought" (§3.3). But he does allow that they are sensetive to the feelings of those with whom they have established "links of fellowship" (§4.5). Thus, we reach a point that is so cryptic that it is never, in my experience, quoted or addressed:
§7.8. "Each utterance is an act serving the direct aim of binding hearer to speaker by a tie of some social sentiment or other." I cannot express how much trouble this sentence has given me. At the beginning, he wrote that polite phrases do not "serve the purpose of establishing a common sentiment" (§2.3), then that "all the types of social sentiments such as ambition, vanity, power for power and wealth" (§3.3) are associated with man's gregariousness, and now he says that the "ties of union" are actually those of social sentiments, and that language functions in phatic communion as a mode of action because "each utterance is an act serving the direct aim of binding the hearer to speaker". The "ties of union" are, as it turns out here, as if consciously created by the speakers and hearers with every phrase of politeness of gossipy story they tell.
The real crux of the problem here is what to make of the "social sentiment". It only occurs three times, and we've already seen that he either consciously or accidentally misunderstood Alexander Shand's theory of sentiments. How, indeed, does "a tie of some social sentiment or other" , such as "ambition, vanity, passion for power and wealth" (as he understands "social sentiment"), serve "the direct aim of binding hearer to speaker"? How are these sentiments binding? There is something hidden in that "glimpse of a group of savages bound by reciprocal ties of interest and ambitions" (Malinowski 1923: 310; above, emphasis mine). Sadly I do not even know how to formulate a pertinent question about it. This seems like a knot that can be untangled only by a very close reading of the rest of the essay and his Argonauts.
§7.9. repeats that "Once more language appears to us in this function not as an instrument of reflection but as a mode of action". While it may be given that "free, aimless, social intercourse" is not the realm of philosophical "reflection" - for as Dewey shows, "reflective thought" is very narrowly the deliberative search for the ground or basis for a belief - it is probably not true to life in general, as nothing bars an actual exchange of thoughts from taking place in a casual exchange of words between acquaintances. That's one thing. The other thing that's off about this is his obscure theory of action in §7.8 - how language acts by binding speaker and listener by a tie of social sentiment is not at all clear.
§8. Primitive speech
I should like to add at once that though the examples discussed were taken from savage life, we could find among ourselves exact parallels to every type of linguistic use so far discussed. The binding tissue of words which unites the crew of a ship in bad weather, the verbal concomitants of a company of soldiers in action, the technical language running parallel to some practical work or sporting pursuit - all these resemble essentially the primitive uses of speech by man in action and our discussion could have been equally well conducted on a modern example. I have chosen the above from a Savage Community, because I wanted to emphasize that such and no other is the nature of primitive speech. (Malinowski 1923: 315)
§8.1. "I should like to add at once that though the examples discussed were taken from savage life, we would find among ourselves exact parallels to every type of linguistic use so far discussed." It is sad that he didn't do that, as his point might have been so much more apparent. How indeed, would he have gone about denigrating the social intercourse held in an "European drawing-room" (§2.1)? He wrote a few paragraphs ago that "Such gossip, as found in Primitive Societies, differs only a little from our own" (§5.2). Those "exact parallels" might have differed only a little. Alas, we may never know what he thought of the free, aimless, social intercourse of Europeans.
§8.2. adds something but it is sadly metaphorical: "The binding tissue of words which unites the crew of a ship in bad weather". For all intents and purposes "the binding tissue of words" is qust a metaphorical synonym for phatic communion: an exchange of words that binds the "hearer to speaker by a tie of some social sentiment". In this case we can at least speculate that the social sentiment, in a very lax interpretation, is the ship crew's resentment of bad weather. But then this might be a misuse of the term "sentiment". The next example, "the technical language running parallel to some practical work or sporting pursuit" is seemingly not even related to phatic communion, as it is connected with behaviour, "with the purpose of what they are doing" (§1.4). And if "all these resemble essentially the primitive uses of speech by man in action and our discussion could have been equally well conducted on a modern example" then we have no other recourse but once more express regret that he didn't conduct this discussion on modern examples. To be honest, the examples were meagre overall.
§8.3. "I have chosen the above from a Savage Community, because I wanted to emphasize that such and no other is the nature of primitive speech". This one will never not bother me. It appears to say that his ethnographic subjects, the Trobriand islanders, are capable of "free, aimless, social intercourse" only - "such and no other". It reads like he's recapitulating the observation he made on the basis of ethnographic literature in his doctoral thesis before meeting any "primitive people": "The aborigenes are not able to think exactly, and their beliefs do not possess any "exact meaning."" (Malinowski 1913: 213). Scientific racism.
§9. Summary
Again in pure sociabilities and gossip we use language exactly [|] as savages do and our talk becomes the 'phatic communion' analyzed above, which serves to establish bonds of personal union between people brought together by the mere need of companionship and does not serve any purpose of communicating ideas. "Throughout the Western world it is agreed that people must meet frequently, and that it is not only agreeable to talk, but that it is a matter of common courtesy to say something even when [|] there is hardly anything to say" [Chapter I. of the present work, p. 11] - as the Authors remark. Indeed there need not or perhaps even there must not be anything to communicate. As long as there are words to exchange, phatic communion brings savage and civilized alike into the pleasante atmosphere of polite, social intercoures. (Malinowski 1923: 315-316)
The quote from Ogden & Richards is actually Mahaffy's. On the rest I have nothing further to add since it summarizes various aspects already treated more-or-less thoroughly above. For my own summarization, I'd say that the distinction between "pure sociabilities" as phrases and "gossip" as whole discourses should be noticed, lest we talk about "phatic utterances" and completely miss the point that whole conversations can be phatic. We've alse seen that establishing bonds of personal union is so much couched in antiquated psychological jargon that it is practically incomprehensible for modern readers, and that's it. The core of the concept - ties of union, social sentiments, the mode of action - still constitute a puzzle to be solved, and I expect it to be no easy task. In fact the six or seven months I have until I have to present my thesis might not be enough time to figure it out. We'll see. I'd better get to work now that I know what specific portions of this text are most puzzling.
- What makes social intercourse free and aimless?
- What is gossip?
- What is the context of situation
- What is the purpose of social intercourse?
- What is the meaning of a polite phrase?
- What is the European drawing-room?
- How are comments on weather or an obvious state of things thoughtless?
- How does one establish a common sentiment with another?
- What are the current phrases of intercourse?
- What are expressions of sympathy?
- Why does a greeting not impart new information?
- What are sociabilities?
- What is sociability?
- How is the presence of other people associated with fear and pugnacity?
- What are social sentiments?
- Why is another's silence something alarming and dangerous?
- Does taciturnity mean unfriendliness and bad character?
- What is national character?
- What are links of fellowship?
- What is the communion of food?
- Do people feel a strange and unpleasant tension when facing each other in silence?
- What is chatter?
- Why is the obvious irrelevant?
- What are social bonds?
- How does linguistic activity yield social pleasure and self-enhancement?
- What are ties of union?
- How can language be a mode of action?
- Are sign-situation and context of situation equivalent?
- What is conviviality?
- What is gregariousness?
