Greetings among Naxi and Kham Tibetans on Yunnan's high plateau

Abstract

The act of greeting, both verbal and nonverbal, is a universal phenomenon of human communicative behavior. Every speech community devises such interactive behavioral patterns, the "common formula for social intercourse" (Bloomfield 1933). Turner (1973), however, claims that this act of greeting is semantically "empty, to accommodate and acknowledge a hearer [rather] than to carry a message" (p. 212). In the same line of thought, Searle (1969) states that salutations are insincere and have no propositional content. Consequently, greetings or salutations, in spite of their universal occurrence, have received very little attention by Western linguists and students of social behavior. By contrast, greetings in Tibeto-Burman are meaningful, context-sensitive, sincere, highly personal, even region-specific.