Ken Hanly wrote:
>
> You must understand "phatic speech" as something different than those in the
> Austinian tradition.
I use it to indicate speech the primary purpose of which is to recognize the (accepted) presence of another -- hence its content is mostly or wholly irrelevant. I think it a high probability that phatic speech in this sense is one of the preliminary stages in the original development of language.
"Nice day, isn't it" spoken to a stranger is as good an archetype as any of phatic speech in this sense. Closely related to it is friendly irony. Consider the first day of classes, and two students arrive early. The second one, with rain dripping from her, says "It's a nice sunny day, isn't it." A translation of this into informative discourse would be incredibly difficult -- and quite lengthy (cf. Wayne Booth, _A Rhetoric of Irony_ [Chicago, 1974], p. 8). But it serves the function of recognizing the other's presence.
Carrol