[WS:] Phatic function of speech denotes acts of speech that perform certain social tasks instead of - or rather in addition to - conveying information. For example, if an officiant says "I pronounce you man and wife" his act of speech performs phatic function of changing the social standing of the parties - they are now officially married - as well as conveys information about the new status.
My argument is that phatic function of language is a tacit assumption of idealistic thinking that mental acts have consequences in the material world. For example, if one stops using the words such as "idiot", "moron" or "retard" and replaces them with euphemisms such as "persons with learning disabilities" this is an example of phatic function of language - one that is changing the social standing of the party by merely changing the words that denote this party. Another example is prayer or magic - one utters words that are believed to cause certain things to happen.
As I said before, this is not necessarily bad. Magic performed vital functions in primitive societies - that of symbolic managements of things that could not be materially managed. Malinowski cites an example of fishing expeditions - they provided vital resources to the community yet these societies did not possess adequate navigational know-how to make these expeditions reasonably safe. So from a game theory point of view, this would be a "no way" proposition - high personal cost (risk) and diffuse and uncertain public benefit. Magic rituals fundamentally altered that cost-benefit balance: by mere acts of speech they reduced the personal cost, or rather perception of it, of the venture. Needless to say that our very rational society uses different kinds of magic to the same end - for example "contingency management plans" are basically phatic acts of speech that make risky ventures such as deep see oil exploration or nuclear power generation that lack effective containment technology appear less risky. And this borders on recklessness and unnecessary endangerment of human life, not to mention the natural environment - which is not such a good thing.
I could carry this argument even farther by saying that a great deal of acts of speech that are categorized as "philosophy" or "theology" tacitly employ phatic functions of speech. The act of describing reality in a certain way that is consistent with the dogma or holy scriptures is supposed to make the reality "be" this way. This can be demonstrated by the importance of denouncing heresies in this kind of thinking. Heresies are dangerous acts of speech only if one tacitly believes that using different words or concepts than those prescribed by the orthodoxy will have real, usually undesirable, consequences. So denouncing heresies is really a phatic expression whose functions is to prevent those undesirable things from happening.
The problem with this way of thinking was captured in Karl Marx's definition of religion as the "opium of the masses." It does soothe the pain (a good thing) but also removes the incentive to take real action to alter the real causes of the pain (a bad thing.) Of course, this extends to all forms of idealistic thinking, philosophy, literary criticism etc.
There is also another bad - in my opinion at least - aspect of phatic functions implicit in a great deal of discourse, especially in social science, philosophy, liberal arts etc. It is the use of speech to demonstrate the erudition and thus superior social status of the speaker. It is an intellectual version of what Veblen called "conspicuous consumption" - lavish ostentation whose function is not to meet some genuine needs but rather to affirm high social status of the person engaging in it. Philistine bourgeoisie do that with material possessions, bling, and if they are a bit more cultured - with works of art purchased from other people. Rarefied literati do it with words, whose added bonus is that they cost much less than bling or works of art purchased from other people. They use words not to effectively convey information but rather to demonstrate that they read a lot, have extensive and esoteric vocabulary and thus are smarter and better educated than their peers, not to mention the average Joe Shmoe. Hence the obscure, dense, and difficult to parse prose that is a significant part of social, philosophical and cultural discourse.
Wojtek