Open Access‘Hallo hoe gaan dit, wat maak jy?’: Phatic communication, the mobile phone and coping strategies in a South African context
Author(s) -
Fie Velghe
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
multilingual margins
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2663-4848
pISSN - 2221-4216
DOI - 10.14426/mm.v2i1.31
Subject(s) - mobile phone , coping (psychology) , boredom , phone , gesture , psychology , sociology , social psychology , internet privacy , computer science , linguistics , telecommunications , philosophy , psychiatry , computer vision
This paper looks at the ways in which the mobile phone has become a means through which phatic communication is being expressed. More specifically, the paper shows how, in an impoverished community such as the Wesbank township in South Africa, phatic communication and ‘maintaining a connected presence’ are vital strategies of social networking. In a context of severe and desperate impoverishment, loneliness, chronic unemployment and boredom, the exchange of phatic communicational gestures such as a text message or a short phone call forms one of the many coping strategies that the residents in Wesbank employ to face up to the harsh conditions of poverty and insecurity.