You can make me an admin now.
If you're okay with it, I'd like to add a favicon to this blog:
Edit: Our writing styles are different, but that shouldn't be an obstacle. I notice that your blockquotes are more exotic and complex. Mine are currently so modest because I'm trying to "hammer out" passages that I could use in my paper or thesis. I had two passages written on parachannel and metachannel, so I expanded them into a post. Now I'm trying to drain ideas or structure from your comments for an exposition on metacommunicative cues. But I'd also like to post fun random stuff, so I'll use this (apparently quite meta) post for that purpose. I wrote the following two paragraphs after I tried to search "phatic" on youtube. The results were quite interesting (for me).
"Super 'Phatic" is a brand of strong but slow glue by Delux Materials used for connecting thin strips of material as in constructing model airplanes. The name of this product is obviously inspired by the anthropological term "phatic communion". It is almost like a pun. Likewise, you could very easily draw on this for terminological purposes and discuss phatic communion as "the social glue" aspect of human communication. Cf. Youtube - Super Phatic! Currently with 3,196 views, this advertising video has gained one comment by tifosiman68, saying "It actually smells good." Even this can be paralleled with Jurgen Ruesch's discussion of how communication is pleasurable in itself. In fact, I now think all of Roman Jakobson's six language functions are something pleasurable: there is aesthetic enjoyment and poetic beauty in the message; there is delight in clarifying the code for someone else or oneself; there is gratification in the expression of emotion; there is appreciation of addressing someone; and there is pleasure in being in contact with someone. Oh, and one can definitely relish referring to the context; that is, there is great enjoyment in thinking about stuff.
In an video by something called the Real Social Dynamics (RSD) and it's supposed "Inner Circle", Todd from a reputed online community of pickup artist introduces the topic of phatic communication by defining it as "denoting speech used to express or create and [sic] atmosphere of shared feelings, goodwill, or sociability rather than to impart information". Cf. Seduce the World Through Social Conditioning - The Secret of Phatic Communication. Notice that the last part about not imparting information is a continuation of Ogden and Richard's suggestion that the referential function lapses in phrases of greeting and the first part about shared feelings, goodwill or sociability is Malinowski's continuation of the latter thought. [Sisuliselt, "tere" ei maksa midagi, sest see on mõttetu, aga sotsiaalne - faatiline.]
Todd explains that he learned about phatic communication in a redderick class. "How to Use Social Conditioning in Your Favor" (original capitalization) by "using the preconceived notions of man-woman interaction and [...] dating" and "flipping it on it's head". He is suggesting to use the culturally learned contexts of situations or situational behavioural patterns by actuating phatic communication that is commonunized through communication in that community. In effect he instructs future pickup artists to use the "formulæ of greeting or approach" (Malinowski 1946[1923]: 314). It is noteworthy that the primary definition of formula is "a mathematical relationship or rule expressed in symbols" and the secondary definition "a fixed form of words, especially one used in particular contexts or as a conventional usage" (Google define:formula). Malinowski's plural noun "formulae" is in this context tantamount to verbal forms such as phrases and aphorisms and nonverbal expressions such as signaling greeting, smiling, nodding head, all forms of touching behaviour, etc. Social dynamics appears in this video as a form of communication manipulation. Phatic communication in the sense of cybernetically "steering" the channel is framed as an issue of power, of total control. It is a willful or volitional operation on the social norms of human contact.
Also, I have a different style of writing because English is not my native language. In case this wasn't clear by my name, I'm Estonian. I don't have a good grasp or a great variety of English idioms, which is why my writings may seem stiff and more academic than is necessary. In my "soul searching" blog I make up for it with silly slang and interjections, but since our aim is to write out what we know about phatics, I'll try to contain myself. Also, is "writing out what we know about phatics" a suitable definition of our yarn-spinning?
One argument I'd like to make at some point is that "the definition of the situation" and shared understandings of what is or is not going on is part of phatics. I'd complement this notion with an equally useful one, the definition of the relationship. I know that some researchers have written explicitly on the verbal and nonverbal means of defining the relationship. I'd like to include some of that in phatics.
Edit #2 - Would you be into the idea of reaching out to other people who work with phatics? I'd very much like to extend the invitation to Dipti Kulkarni, the Indian pragmaticist who a few years ago wrote a doctoral thesis on the phatic function in instant messaging. It is possible that there are other people out there dealing with phatics who could benefit from and maybe even contribute to this blog. In short: maybe get some more people involved with our Phatic Workshop? Then it would be more like... Peer produced peer learning!
Seeing as we're theorizing phatics it would be only appropriate that we minimally open the channel with some select few people who may be interested in phatics and the possibility of a phatic turn (that is, e-mail them). Maximally, I think, we could write a public letter of sorts - compose a PDF document with this blog's logo (the favicon) and URL address, with a short statement about what we're doing (maybe even some cursory definitions related with phatics, e.g. phatic labor, μ-function, etc.) and an invite for anyone interested to become a contributor to our public forum of a blog on phatics, and upload it to academia.edu with relevant research interests ("Phatic Communication", 25 followers; "Phatic communion", 5 followers, "Phatics", 1 follower) marked, so that the document appears in those people's feeds.
If you're okay with it, I'd like to add a favicon to this blog:
Edit: Our writing styles are different, but that shouldn't be an obstacle. I notice that your blockquotes are more exotic and complex. Mine are currently so modest because I'm trying to "hammer out" passages that I could use in my paper or thesis. I had two passages written on parachannel and metachannel, so I expanded them into a post. Now I'm trying to drain ideas or structure from your comments for an exposition on metacommunicative cues. But I'd also like to post fun random stuff, so I'll use this (apparently quite meta) post for that purpose. I wrote the following two paragraphs after I tried to search "phatic" on youtube. The results were quite interesting (for me).
"Super 'Phatic" is a brand of strong but slow glue by Delux Materials used for connecting thin strips of material as in constructing model airplanes. The name of this product is obviously inspired by the anthropological term "phatic communion". It is almost like a pun. Likewise, you could very easily draw on this for terminological purposes and discuss phatic communion as "the social glue" aspect of human communication. Cf. Youtube - Super Phatic! Currently with 3,196 views, this advertising video has gained one comment by tifosiman68, saying "It actually smells good." Even this can be paralleled with Jurgen Ruesch's discussion of how communication is pleasurable in itself. In fact, I now think all of Roman Jakobson's six language functions are something pleasurable: there is aesthetic enjoyment and poetic beauty in the message; there is delight in clarifying the code for someone else or oneself; there is gratification in the expression of emotion; there is appreciation of addressing someone; and there is pleasure in being in contact with someone. Oh, and one can definitely relish referring to the context; that is, there is great enjoyment in thinking about stuff.
In an video by something called the Real Social Dynamics (RSD) and it's supposed "Inner Circle", Todd from a reputed online community of pickup artist introduces the topic of phatic communication by defining it as "denoting speech used to express or create and [sic] atmosphere of shared feelings, goodwill, or sociability rather than to impart information". Cf. Seduce the World Through Social Conditioning - The Secret of Phatic Communication. Notice that the last part about not imparting information is a continuation of Ogden and Richard's suggestion that the referential function lapses in phrases of greeting and the first part about shared feelings, goodwill or sociability is Malinowski's continuation of the latter thought. [Sisuliselt, "tere" ei maksa midagi, sest see on mõttetu, aga sotsiaalne - faatiline.]
Todd explains that he learned about phatic communication in a redderick class. "How to Use Social Conditioning in Your Favor" (original capitalization) by "using the preconceived notions of man-woman interaction and [...] dating" and "flipping it on it's head". He is suggesting to use the culturally learned contexts of situations or situational behavioural patterns by actuating phatic communication that is commonunized through communication in that community. In effect he instructs future pickup artists to use the "formulæ of greeting or approach" (Malinowski 1946[1923]: 314). It is noteworthy that the primary definition of formula is "a mathematical relationship or rule expressed in symbols" and the secondary definition "a fixed form of words, especially one used in particular contexts or as a conventional usage" (Google define:formula). Malinowski's plural noun "formulae" is in this context tantamount to verbal forms such as phrases and aphorisms and nonverbal expressions such as signaling greeting, smiling, nodding head, all forms of touching behaviour, etc. Social dynamics appears in this video as a form of communication manipulation. Phatic communication in the sense of cybernetically "steering" the channel is framed as an issue of power, of total control. It is a willful or volitional operation on the social norms of human contact.
Also, I have a different style of writing because English is not my native language. In case this wasn't clear by my name, I'm Estonian. I don't have a good grasp or a great variety of English idioms, which is why my writings may seem stiff and more academic than is necessary. In my "soul searching" blog I make up for it with silly slang and interjections, but since our aim is to write out what we know about phatics, I'll try to contain myself. Also, is "writing out what we know about phatics" a suitable definition of our yarn-spinning?
One argument I'd like to make at some point is that "the definition of the situation" and shared understandings of what is or is not going on is part of phatics. I'd complement this notion with an equally useful one, the definition of the relationship. I know that some researchers have written explicitly on the verbal and nonverbal means of defining the relationship. I'd like to include some of that in phatics.
Edit #2 - Would you be into the idea of reaching out to other people who work with phatics? I'd very much like to extend the invitation to Dipti Kulkarni, the Indian pragmaticist who a few years ago wrote a doctoral thesis on the phatic function in instant messaging. It is possible that there are other people out there dealing with phatics who could benefit from and maybe even contribute to this blog. In short: maybe get some more people involved with our Phatic Workshop? Then it would be more like... Peer produced peer learning!
Seeing as we're theorizing phatics it would be only appropriate that we minimally open the channel with some select few people who may be interested in phatics and the possibility of a phatic turn (that is, e-mail them). Maximally, I think, we could write a public letter of sorts - compose a PDF document with this blog's logo (the favicon) and URL address, with a short statement about what we're doing (maybe even some cursory definitions related with phatics, e.g. phatic labor, μ-function, etc.) and an invite for anyone interested to become a contributor to our public forum of a blog on phatics, and upload it to academia.edu with relevant research interests ("Phatic Communication", 25 followers; "Phatic communion", 5 followers, "Phatics", 1 follower) marked, so that the document appears in those people's feeds.
please do!
ReplyDeleteOh, and you have \now\ been upgraded to Admin!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteSo funny: who knew we had so much in common with good smellin' glue and college-educated pickup artists. Dare I watch the videos...?
ReplyDeleteI think the "shared understanding" thing is an interesting criterion that matches the requirement of "nested contexts." So, within Context A, which I have access to, I might understand "oh, she's being really nice, maybe she's into me" -- which might be true enough -- and in a larger Context B, which I have incomplete access to, I might understand "Oh, I get it, the reason she was so nice is that she's a police informer."
The one thing I'd change about the wording of the definition is that I'd say "writing out what we learn about phatics"... on the view that what we know is a bit like the wool, while what we learn is a bit like the yarn.
I'd definitely like to do some outreach as well, and I also have someone in mind, Penny Travlou, who is a lecturer in geography at Edinburgh, who has a strong interest in "creativity as a commons." She and I talked about collaboratively writing something/somewhere about that, and if we now have a "place" that's a very good step. I'd be keen to individually write to Penny and you to write to Dipti now, while we're still basically at the ground floor, and involve them in thinking through a wider invitation/letter.
I have some other work-in-progress about workshops, I'll aim to edit it into shape and share it.