Polish-British anthropologist who coined "phatic communion" — language as social bond rather than information — out of his Melanesian fieldwork. Cameron and Bob trace the concept from its appearance as an appendix to Ogden & Richards's The Meaning of Meaning (1922), through its influence on Joyce and Duchamp, to McLuhan's own sparing but pointed use of it.
Across the dialogues
Phatic communion — the social glue of language, from Melanesian fieldwork to McLuhan's early essays
"Phatic communion" — language as social bond, not information transfer — is Malinowski's; without grasping the phatic, you cannot understand a society.
"The phatic communion comes from Malinowski. And so here's Malinowski saying that if you don't understand the phatic in a primitive society, you just can't understand that society."
Malinowski's phatic-communion essay entered the canon as an appendix to Ogden & Richards's The Meaning of Meaning (1922), fresh from his Pacific fieldwork.
"The Meaning of Meaning by Richards has an essay by Malinowski as one of its appendices."
McLuhan drew on Malinowski's phatic communion sparingly but pointedly, from early essays (1944 onward) into From Cliché to Archetype.
"And you'll see McLuhan uses phatic communion sparingly, but it's there in early essays."
Connections
McLuhan drew on Malinowski's "phatic communion" from his early essays onward — highlighting the phrase though using it sparingly.
Malinowski's appendix to The Meaning of Meaning influenced Joyce, Duchamp, and I.A. Richards.