This paper considers how the notion of phatic communication can best be understood
within the framework of Relevance Theory. To a large extent, we are exploring a
terminological question: which things which occur during acts of verbal communication
should the term ‘phatic’ apply to? The term is perhaps most frequently
used in the phrase ‘phatic communication’, which has been thought of as an
essentially social phenomenon and therefore beyond the scope of cognitive pragmatic
theories. We suggest, instead, that the term should be applied to interpretations and
that an adequate account of phatic interpretations requires an account of the
cognitive processes involved in deriving them. Relevance Theory provides the basis
for such an account. In section 1, we indicate the range of phenomena to be explored.
In section 2, we outline the parts of Relevance Theory which are used in our account.
In section 3, we argue that the term ‘phatic’ should be
applied to interpretations, and
we explore predictions about phatic interpretations which follow from the framework
of Relevance Theory, including the claim that phatic interpretations should be
derived only when non-phatic interpretations are not consistent with the Principle of
Relevance. In section 4 we consider cases where cognitive effects similar to those
caused by phatic interpretations are conveyed but not ostensively communicated.