“Forms of greeting in English”

Greetings are a social act of communication. As a cross-cultural phenomenon they are present in the customs of all societies, although they differ in form from one culture to another.

According to ethologists, human beings share these behavioural patterns with the apes. For chimpanzees, for example, greetings form an act of appeasement in which they declare good intentions. For Homo sapiens greetings perform a similar function, determining boundaries when we establish relationships; not carrying greetings out properly can end a social relationship before it has even begun. Regardless of the culture to which we belong, we form impressions and judgments based on greetings.

As a means of codifying discourse, greetings indicate the beginning of communication and establish the role that we occupy in it. The verbal and non-verbal language realized in greetings establishes the rank, status and level of intimacy of the speakers.

Greetings universally convey the different degrees of trust or familiarity that link the speaker to the interlocutor. We will focus, naturally, on the most common verbal greetings in English, classifying them into formal, informal and colloquial types:

Due to their ubiquity, many of the aforementioned forms of greeting have even been a source of inspiration for composers, enabling us to call to mind immortal musical pieces. We only need to remember “Hello, Dolly!” by Louis Amstrong from one of the greatest musicals of all time; the memorable “Good morning!” by Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor in “Singin ‘in the Rain”; “What’s new Pussycat?” from the Welsh Tiger, Tom Jones; and even “How do you do?”, from the legendary Roxette.

And as there is no greeting without a farewell − no Yin without a Yang − we invite you to join us again next time when we will look at the different forms of Farewells in English.
 
C. Fernández
 
FUENTES:
Ana María Cestero Mancera (Estudios de comunicación no verbal)
Awarenessargentina (El saludo no verbal)

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Mamen

Secretaria Dirección at Callan School

Mamen es licenciada en Historia por la Universidad de Valladolid. Ha trabajado Técnico de Cultura y programadora de Artes escénicas y en el campo de la arqueología. Implicada desde muy joven en el desarrollo local, cambió de rumbo hace unos años, instalándose en Barcelona para dar un nuevo giro a su vida profesional. Es una apasionada de la literatura, el cine y la ópera.

Mamen has a degree in History from the University of Valladolid. Her passions include literature, cinema and opera.  Mamen has worked as a Culture Technician, a Performing Arts programmer, in the field of archaeology, and she has also been involved in local development since she was very young.
She decided to change course a few years ago, when she settled in Barcelona to begin a new chapter of her professional life.

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