“How are you?”: Negotiating phatic communion

Why “how are you?” is usually not a question, and why whether it is one gets negotiated on the spot.

Coupland, J., Coupland, N. & Robinson, J. D. (1992). “How are you?”: Negotiating phatic communion. Language in Society, 21(2), 207–230.

Type

Journal article

Find it

doi.org/10.1017/s0047404500015268

Checked

Against the abstract, 15 September 2026

Why it is on the list

Phatic communion is Malinowski’s 1920s term for talk whose job is the relationship rather than the information. Coupland, Coupland and Robinson argue it is better understood as negotiated than as a fixed, empty type: the same “how are you?” can be a greeting or a real enquiry, and the setting decides. Their data is older patients answering a scripted “how are you?” at the start of medical interviews, which is exactly the setting where the question might be meant. Read it for the idea that the handshake has rules, and the rules include a negotiation about which rules apply.