Greetings essay

Every society values greetings, and this has been true throughout the development of the human race. This study examines the significance of greetings and the variations in how culture affects different greeting styles. In comparison to societal influence on greeting, I will also analyze the uniqueness of the communicative processes involved, especially in light of social norms, expectations, and situational differences.

The behavioral expectations of any greeting process or ritual have been examined by Goffman in his work. The examination of the numerous greeting scenarios discussed in this book is guided by this analysis as well as Del Hymes’ rules from the Ethnography of Speaking. These works help to understand the ritualistic aspects of the greeting process as well as the influences of societal norms and expectations on this process. Cultural differences also provide a suitable benchmark upon which the analysis can inspect how greetings vary between different cultures the world over.

Goffman describes greetings and farewells as the boundaries between which group activity such as conversations take place. This is uninfluenced by cultural, individual and lingual differences as without these interchanges any social interaction becomes futile. The description invokes much interest on the intricacies of most social interactions.

To appropriately illustrate these intricacies in social interactions, this study has employed a transcribed short conversation in a group of teenagers that have met in a sporting event. The conversation is then analysed against Del Hymes’ guidelines to establish these aspects in human interaction and how they are influenced by societal norms.

Two teenagers are seated closely together on a park bench; a boy and girl. They are joined by a pair of boys around their age and a candid and jovial conversation ensues among the four of them. Below is a transcription of this interaction. Names do not belong to the actual speakers and are just tools to help identify the speakers.

Jake: Hey guys, (fistbumps with Tim and shakes Sharon’s hand)surprised you’re not up a tree kissing yet.

Sharon: Stop it Jake. We’re just talking.

Tim: yeah. Besides, what have the two of you been up to all morning?

Jake: skating.

Steve: yeah. Jake met this guy who knows a fancy rink upstate.

Tim: and you did not bother to tell us?

Steve: you skate? (he and Tim burst out laughing) since when?

Tim: forget it. Any of you wanna go to the movies?

Jake: (smugly) does Hawkins roll around on a quad?

Steve: quoting the smartest character in a TV show doesn’t make you smart, Jake.

Jake: I mean yes, Steve. Showoff.

Sharon: alright guys. Geez, you can fight later. (sarcastically) and then kiss on a tree and make up.

Jake: not funny, Sharon.

Tim: from where I’m standing; very funny.

Steve: let’s just go to the movies, guys. Before someone says something stupid.

From the above conversation, it is evident that the participants do not follow conventional communicative norms that require a conversation begin with a greeting. This is quite common among younger people as they tend to engage in inspiring humour and awe rather than establishing a rapport among each other. Subjects oscillate between humorous jabs at each other to informative accounts of their daily activities with little regard to greetings. To their interactions, a simple ‘hey’ works just as well as an elaborate secret handshake.

Despite this, greetings involved between this social group majorly consist of physical contact. Such contact is exhibited in handshakes and fistbumps shared between them during the period of the conversation. This enables the group to experience a sufficient level of physical contact necessary in enhancing the relationship between them. This is accomplished without crowding their daily conversations with greetings and farewells that provide little information to the process of communication.

Using Del Hymes’ guidelines, this study attempts to scrutinise the aspects of the above conversation transcript against the S.P.E.A.K.I.N.G. guidelines described by Del Hymes. S.P.E.A.K.I.N.G. is an acronym developed from Del Hymes’ work that describes the scene, participants, ends, act sequence, key, instruments, norms and genre. Individual analysis of these aspects as employed below is essential to fully comprehend the intricacies of social interaction and the effects a greeting has upon these interactions.

Scene or setting

This describes the time and place that the interaction takes place in. Understanding this aspect provides insight on the mood of the interaction and the influence of the external environment on daily human interaction. The scene from the above interaction is that of a sunny afternoon in the park. These environmental aspects influence the mood of the conversation hence the extensive use of humor.

Participants

This aspect entails the speaker and the audience of any interactive process. Understanding the participants and the relationships between them is important as it sheds light on how these relationships influence interaction. The four participants in the above conversation are friends. Beyond this, Tim and Sharon seem to have a much more intimate relationship as portrayed by her efforts to defend him as well as their initial isolation from the group. Steve and Jake also seem to share a greater level of familiarity between each other that is evidenced by the humorous jabs between each other. The lack of a formal or conventional verbal greeting transaction such as “Hello” or ”Good Afternoon” could be attributed to this familiarity between them that causes disintergration of social norms between many young people.

Ends or goals

This aspect highlights the overall as well as the specific intentions of every interaction. Such goals may include, but not limited to passing a message or just leisure talk around random subjects to pass time. Understanding the goals of a communicative interaction helps to clarify the mood of the interaction as well as understand the type of communication or narrative surrounding a particular interactive process. The above interaction between the four teens is aimed at establishing the leisure activity for the following hours. Being a casual interaction with little formal requirements, the conversation is laden with humour and little focus on expressing the aims of the communication.

Act sequence

This describes the activities of the transaction and the order of these activities. To fully comprehend this aspect is essential as it helps to understand the situation under which the interaction takes place. This is important as it describes the general state of the participants during the interaction that involves the mood, health and education level of these participants. From the above interaction, the events that lead up to the interaction involve fun activities like skating while soon afterwardsout to watch a movie. This suggests that their interaction is entirely leisurely and the condition of the participants is jovial which is even expressed in their humour.

Key or tone

This aspect entails the tonal articulations of the interaction. These tonal articulations help to understand the mood of the interactions and the intensity of these articulations helps to identify points of emphasis in the interactive encounter. The above interaction under scrutiny indicates a jovial and playful tone that is evident even in the verbal as well as physical interaction between them.

Instrumentalities

This involves various lingual and non-verbal cues and tools essential in any communicative process. Such tools may include grammar standards required in formal interactions and melodic register that is useful in interacting with children. Understanding the instrumentalities of social interaction sheds more light on the type of communication and complements other aspects such as scene. It even helps resolve differences in individuality between participants. Since it mainly comprises of teenagers, the interaction above portrays the use of shortened forms of phrases and even some colloquial jargon such as slang. This is indicative of the level of familiarity between the participants and also somehow justifies the absence of a formal greeting as would be the case in a much more formal setting.

Norms

As the name plainly suggests, this aspect highlights the various societal expectations towards behaviour and even use of language during social interactions. These social norms define boundaries of interruption, level of collaboration and even the amount of information shared between participants of a social interaction. In the above conversation, the opening line illustrates one such norm that expects a boy and a girl to engage in intimate activities; much less under a tree. This norm goes on to affect the conversation subsequently in the jokes and jabs thrown between each other. Furthermore, the participants displat a form of non-conformity to some social expectations regarding the necessity of a verbal greeting in every interaction. Despite this, greetings still remain important in human interaction and the participants engage in physical greeting activities that, in a way, compensates for the lack of verbal acknowledgment.

Genre

This aspect of human interaction describes the type of narrative surrounding the events of an interactive process. Different disciplines employ terms that have certain specific meaning to the particular genre. Genre in human interaction is influenced by the participants and the setting as these are the formative structures of an interactive process. Businessmen in a boardroom will discuss business policies and use various econimic and financial jargon that has general meaning to other audiences but has certain specific importance to that particular demographic. The above interaction portrays a casual leisurely genre; full of fun, friends and much chatter around non-specific topics. The casual nature of this interaction is exemplified by the lack of a comprehensive verbal greeting. This fact is becoming more evident as a trend among millenials to stray from social convention as indicated by the transaction.

The above analysis on social interaction clearly depicts the importance of greeting rituals in social interactions. Greetings form the foundation upon which subsequent interaction is built upon. It is also evident from the analysis that younger generations tend to stray from social expectations due to the level of freedom in our present society. This helps to understand trends in communication among younger people and also helps extrapolate trends in societal expectations with regard to norms such as greetings preceding interactions as they will form the society of the future. It also helps to understand potential communicative tools that are only realised from general social interaction.

Culture is a key aspect of human life. The influences of culture have extensive transcedence upon human interaction on every scale. One of the few things that all cultures share the world over is the existence of greetings in every different language and culture. Furthermore, greetings also transcend cultures as people of different culture and language can share a simple greeting ritual such as a handshake or a salute. This transcedence also contributes to the evolution of greetings. A perfect paragon for this transcedence would be the evolution of new language forms such as slang and the East African version of slang, commonly known as ‘sheng’. These arise from the combination of words from two different languages and this ”borrowing” of vocabulary influences greetings especially among the youth. The variations in cultural expectations also dissolve upon the use of physical gestures and contact such as salutes and fistbumps respectively. This is evident from the short conversation transcript above and is true for most young people in the global scope.

Another important factor to consider when investigating the intricacies of greeting rituals is gender differences. The sex of one or all of the participants is a key determining factor on the direction the conversation takes and, more importantly, influence the choice of appropriate greeting. Handshakes are an acceptable greeting for all social groups and is used by people of both sexes. However, some greetings such as fistbumps are generally considered a male affair with very few exceptional cases where fistbumps can be exchanged across sexes depending on familiarity between the particcipants. Other greeting activities such as kissing and hugging are also shared commonly by people of opposite sex who have an intimate relationship. More recently, this fact has evolved to include same sex couples that share a similar intimacy among them. These evolutionary factors influence the type of greeting exchanged between any two people all over the world.

Geographocal location is also an important factor that influences the use of various forms of greetings among them. European aristocratic settings brought to our time greeting forms such as the curtsy and the customary kiss on the back of the hand. These were aimed at establishing the boundaries of rank among nobles and had extensive influence on the culture of the region. Modern technology has lately bridged that gap between ranks and has led to the interaction of numerous cultures that has caused the evolution of many cultural greeting rituals towards the development of a singular and globally acceptable set of greeting rituals for particular situations.

Conclusion

A greeting is an important tool for any human interaction that helps make one known to the audience. It helps establish a good rapport with the audience. Using guidelines by Del Hymes, this study analyses the various aspects of a communicative process and their relationship with the concept of greetings. It is evident that greetings form an important part of our social interactions but this fact does not prevent the evolution of this communicative tool. This is evident from the variations in conventional greetings with some going as far as getting rid of verbal greetings almost entirely. This information thus sheds more insight on daily human interactions.

Bibliography

Goffman, Erving. ”The neglected situation.” American Anthropologist 66, no. 6_PART2 (1964): 133-136.

Hymes, Dell. ”The Ethnography of Speaking.” Anthropology and Human Behavior. 13, no. 53 (1962): 11-74