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Phatic units of language and the theory of speech genres

Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The article discusses approaches to the description of the phatic communication domain and the connection between the concept of phatics and the theory of speech genres. The proposed consideration of the concept of phatics is based on the fundamental difference between the approaches to phatics by B. Malinowski and by R. Jakobson. Reliance on the function of contact maintenance makes it possible to identify a separate group of linguistic means that formalize speech subgenres of microdialogue. These means are considered as the domain of phatics 1 (F1). They serve exclusively to maintain the process of communication and are “superimposed” on the informative component of the microdialogue. The means of F1 are subdivided into linguistic units and rhetorical devices. The area of phatics 2 (F2) includes small talk, i. e. discursive structures that are fundamentally different from the linguistic means of area F1. The article focuses on the typology of linguistic units of phatics 1. Alongside the already well-known and well-described units, such as vocatives and etiquette formulas, the group of F1 units also includes dialogic discursives (introductory words marking the speech act and increasing the impact on the interlocutor, such as: would you be so kind, don’t be silly, I’m telling you, etc.), tag questions (isn’t it?, okay?) and communicatives (short stereotyped responses: sure, no way, you bet, deal, not a chance, etc.). All these units have special discourse-pragmatic properties that are strictly connected with the speech subgenres they formalize. Due to their properties, F1 linguistic units can become the object of specialized lexicographic description.
DOI: 10.18500/2311-0740-2025-20-3-47-231-238
Language: English
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4414982216
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