英汉寒暄语的差异分析(2)
Under some circumstances, people don’t show any interest in the content or values of what people said. The only aim is to avoid embarrassment brought by silence. When we want someone to help us, we usually start talking by using phatic communion. The usage of phatic communion makes atmosphere natural and helps us get the point of communication. This is the common feature of all kinds of phatic communion from all over the world.
Chinese and English share big differences because of geography, climate, tradition, cultural background, values and religious beliefs. Some learners who start learning English at first or lack communication experience usually use phatic communion in a wrong way. Because they don’t know the difference between Chinese and English in phatic communion, they usually cause some cultural conflicts. All in all, it is essential for us to have a clear understanding of the difference and make some researches about it. The paper probes into the difference between Chinese and English in phatic communion. In the paper of the phatic communion, the purpose of learning differences in phatic communion is to interact with many different people in other foreign countries comfortably.
II. The Background of the Phatic Communion
2.1 Definition and Origin of the Phatic Communion
When it comes to the topic of the phatic communion, we always have some words about the phatic communion. The phatic communion is everywhere in our daily life. The phatic communion has become increasingly important as a close part of socializing speech and as a subject. What is the phatic communion? Generally speaking, the definition of phatic communion is greeting and socializing. Phatic communion is often used to improve one’s ability of eloquence. If people use the phatic communion in communication, it helps to create a harmonious atmosphere and maintain a comfortable relationship with others. It doesn’t involve any factual exchange of information and comments. In addition, it means that people often use some seemingly meaningless expressions, such as the sentence “God bless you”, “Good afternoon” , “What a nice day” and some other sentences. The phatic communion is a kind of device in conversation. And it shares a close relationship with the native language. The phatic communion is an informal type that does not include any functional topics of conversation that we need to address.
The phatic communion is a communicating language. It is universal. It exists everywhere in our daily life. The phatic communion as a verbal language has its own styles and contents. It is related to its culture, which are the origins of the phatic communion. The value of the phatic communion is one of the main aspects of the culture that is close to the phatic communion. The members of the community often use value standards to evaluate people’s behaviors. People’s behaviors are value-oriented. Values as the core of the worldview often reflect people’s attitudes. Values are often driven by the internal dynamics of people’s behaviors. In the past years, Chinese and English analysis on differences in the phatic communion has made improvement. Every country has its own cultures and forms in their expressions. It is necessary to learn how to analyze and explain differences in phatic communion. It will promote the relationship between friends and classmates who work together with us. It is not difficult for us to know that difference in phatic communion is significant.
The term phatic communion was first put forward in 1923. The linguist devoted himself to studying functions of the language at that time. He went to the New Guinea Te Luobu Nendo Island that is located in the east coast. He found that people always like to talk without any purposes of providing or obtaining some information. Sometimes their communications of the phatic communion are only to create a good atmosphere and keep a good social contact. In 1960, a man who put the phatic communion into functions of the language. It is one of functions in language. The conversation of the phatic communion plays an important role in people’s awkward and silent communications. The phatic communion was quickly accepted as soon as possible in the filed of the linguist study in a short time. Because we often use such small expressions to keep a comfortable relationship among people without any purposes. To know the difference between Chinese and English phatic communion is essential.