by Farrah Donaldson

Created on: August 16, 2009   Last Updated: August 17, 2009

In the world today, there are several aspects of life that occur without being noticed. Reason being, these individual aspects seem insignificant in comparison to everything else that happens in a person's daily life. After taking a little time out to observe society, I have noticed that the way people greet each other varies depending on certain factors. In this essay, I will explore some of these factors involved in greetings.

Language is a well-defined object in the heterogeneous mass of speech facts. It can be localized in the limited segment of the speaking-circuit where an auditory image becomes associated with a concept (Saussure, 960-961). This passage begins my essay on greetings from an auditory standpoint or verbal communication.What a particular person says to another person signifies, or represents, different types of relationships. For example, a simple hello may signify that the people involved really don't know each other that well but are just acknowledging each other in passing. Or perhaps, they may have met before, but are not really considered friends, but still have the courtesy to speak to one another.

To continue along the topic of verbal greetings, a simple "hello" might be replaced by any number of other words or phrases, once again depending on the relationship between the people involved. When we speak of the value of a word, we generally think first of its property of standing for an idea, and this is in fact one side of linguistic value (Saussure, 968). This statement by Saussure, brings into account the idea of a word, or in this case a greeting, standing as an idea on its own. Earlier, I mentioned that the word "hello" could be replaced by another word or phrase. I'll use the phrase "what up" as the replacement phrase. This particular phrase represents Saussure's statement perfectly.

"What up" clearly has the ability to stand as a clear idea all on its own. It is a phrase that asks, what's going on with the particular person and or what's going on in the surrounding area. These are two separate but similar ideas created by one simple phase that's used in the form of a greeting. But greetings are not just verbal; usually, the verbal part of the greeting serves as a set up for the actual physical part that usually follows.

The actual physical part of the greeting is what interests me the most. There are several different acts of physical greetings, ranging from a simple handshake to a hug, but they seem to serve different purposes.

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