From Richard Nordquist,
Your Guide to Grammar & Composition.
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Definition:

Nonreferential use of language to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas; ritualized formulas that prolong communication, attract the attention of the listener, or sustain his or her attention.

Etymology:

Coined by the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, from the Greek, "spoken."

Examples and Observations:

• "Speech to promote human warmth: that is as good a definition as any of the phatic aspect of language. For good or ill, we are social creatures and cannot bear to be cut off too long from our fellows, even if we have nothing really to say to them."
  (Anthony Burgess, Language Made Plain, 1975)


• "Phatic communication refers also to trivial and obvious exchanges about the weather and time, made up of ready-made sentences or foreseeable statements. . . . Therefore this is a type of communication that establishes a contact without transmitting a precise content, where the container is more important then the content."
  (Federico Casalegno and Irene McAra McWilliam, "Communication Dynamics in Technological Mediated Learning Environments." International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, Nov. 2004)


• "How ya doin'?"
  "Have a nice day!"
  "What's your sign?"
  "Sincerely yours"
  "Some weather we're having."


• "Teas, Where small talk dies in agonies."
  (Percy Bysshe Shelley)


• "my body seems to be more cooperative
  lending me a sense of rhythm, of everyday life
  when my mind acts like a scratched record.
  i hide my blood wet hands when you call
  and we talk about the weather."
  (Laura Hartman, "talk about the weather" the 2river view, Fall 2001)

Pronunciation: FAT-ik