Phraseology and Culture in English

5. Social or individual significance? A tentative conclusion 
Greeting formulae are subject to variation and context-dependent usage, 
regardless of the language variety and also of the speech communities in 
which they are used. Due to their frequent and ritual usage, they may serve 
as indicators of different regional varieties, or else carry information on the 
formality of the context or the degree of intimacy and familiarity of partici-
pants involved in the interaction (e.g., Italian ciao, used in more or less
informal contexts by speakers who are familiar, contrasting with arrive-
derci, used in formal environments by speakers who are less or not at all 
familiar). 
By the same token, conversational contexts are constantly shifting, and 
the switch from formal to informal styles or vice versa entails a variety
of linguistic options and consequences. For instance, Blom and Gumperz 
(1972) explored code-switching procedures involving standard and non-
standard varieties of Norwegian in the small rural town of Hemnesberget 
and found a causal relationship between choice of code and the topic or 
social situation into which a conversational exchange was embedded. The 
interplay of context and language choice was, among others, observed in 
exchanges between clerks and residents in official settings, such as com-

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munity buildings; while greetings and inquiries about private affairs were 
usually conducted in the local dialect (i.e. Ranamål), conversations about 
official, administrative or financial matters were held in standard Bokmål. 
Members of the Hemnesberget community therefore routinely opened in-
teractional exchanges using local greeting formulae only to switch to a 
more standard variety when the topic changed and the context became more 
formal. We have seen a similar code choice above in the case of I. from 
Tristan da Cunha, who in the same frame uses a standard-like how are you?
when addressing an expatriate but the local how you is? formula when ad-
dressing another islander present. Speakers thus display sensitivity towards 
language choice, and their use of language features, as in this particular 
case of various greeting formulae, depends on the evaluation and considera-
tion of factors such as topic, context and participants present in the interac-
tion.
The question is to what extent we can extrapolate and generalize these 
observations. Can we interpret these findings to explore when and how lan-
guage forms attain social significance, and under what circumstances they 
are used as markers of local identity?
7
To what extent can the inherent vari-
able usage of greeting formulae give rise to reinterpretation, so that they are 
used not only with reference to familiarity or topic but also as indicators of 
regional identity? 
All communities, regardless of how much they are integrated or iso-
lated, constantly readapt their speech patterns (Andersen 1988). Recent 
research, however, has clearly shown that increasing contact with other 
dialects and their speakers is a catalyzing factor in processes of dialect 
erosion and dedialectalisation. The various outcomes of such scenarios 
can be investigated post hoc, as evidenced in the literature discussed 
above. It is clear that the most salient features represent the most obvious 
symbols of linguistic differentiation and that they are therefore the first 
candidates to be noted as unusual and non-mainstream, most often by the 
population groups who are not familiar with them. As a result, features 
such as an /oi/ diphthong in “high tide” may erode from Ocracoke Eng-
lish, giving way to a more supralocal standardized norm, a process which 
is often accompanied by stigmatization of the distinctive regional vari-
ants. On the other hand, local features (such as centralized onsets in /ai/ 
and /au/ on Martha’s Vineyard) may alternatively be reinterpreted as lin-
guistic emblems of group membership and thus play a prominent role in 
the emerging construction of insider vs. outsider identities in post-insular 
communities. 

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