In linguistics, a phatic expression (, ) is a communication which primarily serves to establish or maintain social relationships. In other words, phatic expressions have mostly socio-pragmatic rather than denotational functions. They can be observed in everyday conversational exchanges, as in, for instance, exchanges of social pleasantries that do not seek or offer information of intrinsic value but rather signal willingness to observe conventional local expectations for politeness. Other uses of the term include the category of "small talk" (conversation for its own sake) in speech communication, where it is also called "grooming talking." In Roman Jakobson's work, the 'phatic' function of language concerns the channel of communication; for instance, when one says "I can't hear you, you're breaking up" in the middle of a cell-phone conversation. This usage appears in research on online communities and micro-blogging. Purpose Phatic communion at first appears to break Grice's conversational maxims, because it denotationally appears to give information that is unnecessary, untrue, or irrelevant. However, phatic communion plays an important role in language and has important connotational meanings that do not break these maxims and needs to be understood as an important part of language in its role in establishing, maintaining, and managing bonds of sociality between participants, as well as creating feelings of solidarity and familiarity, and putting participants at ease. History The term phatic communion ('bonding by language') was coined by anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski in his essay "The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages", which appeared in 1923 as a supplementary contribution to The Meaning of Meaning by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards. The term phatic means 'linguistic' (i.e. 'by language') and comes from the Greek ('spoken, that may be spoken'), from ('I speak, say'). Importance of context Many expressions generally considered to be phatic (see below) may be a genuine request for information in certain contexts. For example, in British English, "How are you?" is a phatic expression used when greeting someone one knows, especially when a participant wants to initiate conversation. However, it can be asked sincerely, and this must be inferred from context, such as when a friend gives bad news, or tone, such falling intonation to show it as a genuine question (as is with w/h-word questions), or speaking more quietly. Authenticity of the question can also be emphasised by the addition of the word "feeling" ("How are you feeling?"). Phatic expressions in various languages