Text types: Texts for social interaction

Overview

Greetings and closings

We often begin social interactions with a greeting, eg hello, hi, good morning, in fact some very short social interactions consist only of greetings. Occasionally we may need to capture somebody's attention in order to begin a social interaction, and we may do this by calling their name or saying Excuse me. Social interactions usually end with a closing, eg good-bye, bye, see you later.

Greetings

Greetings are short formulaic expressions which acknowledge the other person, or people, we are beginning to interact with. Sometimes a greeting is accompanied or replaced by a gesture such as a nod, a smile or a handshake. We use different greetings in different types of social interaction depending on the level of formality.

Greetings can be informal or formal. The level of formality depends on a combination of the following factors:

	whether the people are of equal status (children greeting each other) or of unequal status (children greeting a teacher)
	whether the people talk to each other often (classmates) or rarely (a customer and a sales person)
	whether the people are personally close (a parent and a child) or distant (a customer and a sales person).

Here is an informal greeting used when two children meet to have lunch together in a cafe. As Lara walks up to Clare, she smiles and waves. Clare smiles back. Lara follows up the greeting by apologising for being late and Clare responds to the apology.

Lara:	Hi
Clare:	Hi
Lara:	Sorry I was late.
Clare:	That's OK.

Here the two children greet each other on the telephone. Lara answers the telephone by saying Hello, but then realises it is her friend Clare. Clare says Hi and also uses her friend's name, Lara. When Lara realises her friend is on the telephone, she changes her greeting to the less formal Hi.

Lara:	Hello
Clare:	Hi Lara. It's Clare.
Lara:	Oh, hi.

Here is a very formal greeting used by a company receptionist answering the telephone. After the greeting the receptionist identifies the company and makes an offer of service.

	Good morning. This is Hong Kong Computer Company. How may I help you?
	Hello. I've got something wrong with ...

For an analysis of a telephone greeting between a school child and the parent of her friends, click here:

Sometimes we need to capture a person's attention to begin a social interaction. There are informal and formal ways of capturing attention. The most common informal way of capturing attention is to call someone's name until the person responds:

Lara:	Mu-u-um!
Lara's mother:	Yes Lara?

If we don't know someone's name, we usually capture their attention in a more formal way, eg Excuse me.

In this social interaction a customer captures the attention of a sales person in order to ask about a price:

Excuse me please. How much is this?

Closings

The closing we use at the end of a social interaction depends on the type of social interaction it is. If the purpose of the interaction is to exchange some information or to buy something, we often close by saying thank you when the exchange is finished:

Can I have these please? Yes of course. This one is ten dollars, and fifty for this. Sixty all together. Thank you.   Thank you.

Sometimes sales people are trained to complete the closing by wishing the customer a good day. The customer will often respond by saying thank you and returning the wish:

	Have a good day.
	Thank you. You too.

For an analysis of a telephone closing between a school child and the parent of her friends, click here:

The social interactions we use for shopping, making a request, or asking for information finish when the transaction is finished. In contrast, conversations continue for as long as the speakers have time to keep on talking. When we want to end a conversation, we usually do it in three stages: 

STAGE 1	We say we have to go now:
STAGE 2	We give a reason:
STAGE 3	We say goodbye:

Note that if we don't use these three stages to close a conversation, the closing can sound very abrupt and even impolite.