Analysis: The way we greet each other provides a fascinating window into Irish culture, society and language
This article is now available above as a Brainstorm podcast. You can subscribe to the Brainstorm podcast through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
By Chris Fitzgerald, Mary Immaculate College
Imagine you are entering a room of friends, both male and female, and you want to greet them all with one expression so what do you say? 'How's it going everyone’, ‘Hi lads’, ‘Hello all’. Maybe a wordless cock of the head and a smile is sufficient.
The way that we address and greet others in Ireland is one of the aspects of Irish English that distinguishes it from English spoken elsewhere. These words or gestures can be passing salutations or openers of longer conversations, but the way we greet each other provides a fascinating window into our culture and society.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, folklorist Michael Fortune on Irish language and sayings have been absorbed into the everyday vocabulary in Ireland and Newfoundland
Phatic communication is a term used to describe a type of interaction that is not about the exchange of information but does have a social function. As well as small talk, greetings are examples of this and, in Irish English, often take the form of questions.
When we say, ‘how are you?’ as a greeting, we don’t necessarily want to hear about how a person is really doing. This is demonstrated by the common response to this as being a repetition of the question or another variation of the same such as ‘how’s it going?’ By answering the question with a question, we show that it is the act of asking the question that is important, not receiving an answer.
Other common responses such as ‘grand’ and ‘not so bad’ are what is referred to as ‘understatement’ in that they often avoid the reality of a situation in favour of something that can be quickly moved on from. The alternative to this would be to outline various ailments or problems you may have in response to ‘how are you?’, which may prolong an encounter beyond what is acceptable for the context. Worse than this may be a description of how good one’s life is currently, which can be equally unacceptable.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Brainstorm, what we say and how we behave is influenced by cultural norms and can lead to critical (and sometimes funny) incidents
An interesting phenomenon with certain vocatives or terms of address is that they become gender-neutral when they are made plural, and can be used to address groups of people consisting of males and females. Studies that draw on large databases of language suggest that the plural forms lads and guys can be gender-neutral while lad and guy refer to males.
So why do some terms get this treatment and others avoid it? There are a few possible answers to this question. One may be that to be included as ‘one of the lads’ or ‘one of the guys’ might have been seen as a term of endearment so females were included and the terms evolved to be gender-inclusive as a result. It could that be argued that the evolution of these terms to include females marks a kind of gender power dynamic in language, in that it is acceptable for females to be addressed with a previously male-only term, but it is not acceptable for males to be addressed with previously female-only terms.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Brainstorm, why Irish people never say what they mean
Pragmatics is the study of language in context. Understanding the context in which language is used is integral to establishing the meanings of words and expressions. To really understand the language used in a given situation, we need to know contextual information such as the relationships between speakers, the level of formality of the given situation and what it is the speakers want to achieve in a conversation. All of these can influence the greetings people use.
The meanings of words change as the acceptable contexts in which they are used evolve. While we may still hear people say 'guys and gals' or even ‘lads and lasses/lassies’, these terms are becoming less frequent as ‘guys’ and ‘lads’ become more normalised as gender neutral terms. Irish English greetings were once heavy with religious references due to the influence of the Irish language greetings that referred to religious figures, but these are now becoming infrequent.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Brainstorm, what's behind Irish language's religious roots?
Of course, culture and climate inform our greetings and small talk. The weather provides Irish people with a constant topic of phatic communication to draw upon. Small talk about the weather in Ireland has such prominence that it can be embedded into greetings ('how are you? nice day') or even replace them ('horrible day'). We have the luxury of a topic to lean on that is absent in other countries and cultures with more consistent and predictable weather. As well as being a necessary politeness strategy, engaging in this type of small talk has been proven to have a positive psychological impact.
Language evolves according to how young people use it. Though older people may bemoan the use of ‘lads’ to include both genders or the infiltration of ‘guys’ from American English, there is little that can be done to change these developments. Even everyday expressions such as greetings are in a constant state of change. An example of an early English greeting is ‘hail be thou’, meaning ‘be healthy’. Maybe try that greeting the next time you enter a room of friends.
Follow RTÉ Brainstorm on WhatsApp and Instagram for more stories and updates
Dr Chris Fitzgerald is a postdoctoral Linguistics researcher at Mary Immaculate College.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
