Not a sentence without it appearing.
Juliette*, 26, assures him.
She lets barely six seconds pass before launching a
"you see"
to her interlocutor.
Same story with Étienne, a forty-year-old, who throws
"you see what I want to say"
at tire-larigot.
“I say it at least 500 times a week.
But I am taking care of myself,”
he laughs.
Listen for any next conversation you have.
You'll see a bloom of these little words bloom every other sentence:
"You know"
,
"huh"
,
"hummm"
.... They seem at first glance not to be of much use.
They even become irritating when a speaker repeats one every three sentences.
What are these words for?
Are they really futile?
” READ ALSO – “The enormous danger is that we get used to certain mistakes”: do spell checkers make us lazy?
Make sure the caller is connected to the same channel
“Without them, communication is very difficult
,” emphasizes Domitille Caillat, lecturer in Language Sciences at the University of Montpellier.
These
"phatic words"
, as they are called in linguistics, have an essential role in our conversations.
"They allow the person who expresses himself to establish a communication channel with his interlocutor, and to ensure that he is always connected to his channel"
.
Say
“ok?”
,
"you know"
(sometimes pronounced
"tsais"
), or
"you see",
helps to ensure the person's attention.
Because what's worse than seeing your interlocutor yawn while you're talking?
“It is to avoid this that we regularly punctuate our speech with these words, to show our audience that we are not doing a monologue”
.
On the phone, for example, when you hear two people talking, the one who is not talking shows his reaction with
"Mmmmh"
,
"ah yes?"
,
“Oh!”
,
“naaan”..
.
Although meaningless, notes Domitille Caillat, these words are essential.
“They are a form of response to show interest.
Thanks to them, the relationship is maintained.”
The
"hello"
is just as important.
It allows you to establish a first contact when you cannot do it visually.
“It is irreplaceable”
, abounds Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni, linguist and specialist in enunciation.
And when communication is broken, the “hello” serves to re-establish the link.”
"In the absence of these little words from his interlocutor, the speaker starts to stammer, his eyes start to go in all directions..."
Domitille Caillat, doctor of language science
Does this mean that it is impossible to hold a conversation without them?
It seems so, in view of the studies that have been carried out on people who do not have the right to react.
The result is striking, as Domitille Caillat relates.
In the absence of these little words from his interlocutor, the speaker begins to stammer, his eyes begin to go in all directions... Proof that their absence is visible.
Imagine a cafe where you would find your friend, who would not react in any way to what you would tell him.
The scene is unenviable...
Gesture is a way to open up to others
These phatic words are not the only ones to nourish communication.
Gesture is just as important.
“It can be facial expressions, looks, a shrug, a tilting head.
If these gestures are not used, the discussion is no longer one
,” insists the lecturer.
The movement of the hands is therefore very useful: it shows the interlocutor that he is being brought into the conversation, even if he is not speaking.
It's a way to open up to others.
Be careful though.
When these words are repeated too much, they become language tics,
“phatics”
, as Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni ironically calls them.
"It's a matter of dosage
," she says.
If the word is invaded by it, it becomes empty of its meaning.
It becomes pure link, without content
.”
Thus tics such as
"suddenly"
or
"in fact"
, which are furiously on the rise, especially among young people.
Here, here...
*Name has been changed
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