ABSTRACT
Greeting is the recognition of an encounter with another person as socially acceptable. Parting, in social sense, is the recognition that the encounter has been acceptable. Both concepts involve a postulate of a positive social quality in the relationship. Encounter of a physical kind may take place without such social relationship - as by two persons rubbing shoulders in a bus. They recognize the physical presence of each other, but the encounter is not socially acceptable; they do not speak; the existence of each is not incorporated into the social universe of the other. It needs some exchange of signs, as by a word or a nod, to create a social relationship. Forms of greeting and parting are symbolic devices - or signs if they are just specifically descriptive — of incorporation or continuance of persons in a social scheme. A greeting or parting sign is often represented as conveying information or expressing emotion - an announcement that one has come or is about to go, a statement of pleasure at someone's arrival or sadness at his departure. Granting that this may often be so, the informational or emotional content of the sign may be highly variable, even minimal. What is of prime relevance is the establishment or perpetuation of a social relationship, the recognition of the other person as a social entity, a personal element in a common social situation. This is indicated by reverse behaviour, what used to be called 'cutting' a person who is already known but found objectionable - the refusal of a greeting to him on passing him in the street or meeting him in society. This refusal is a tacit denial of him as a social entity in what would normally be a shared situation. So too, when two people are 'not on speaking terms' they do not greet each other and so reduce the area of their common social relationship to as small a compass as possible. As with all social relationships,
3°° reciprocity is important; an expectation in greeting is that it will elicit social recognition in return.
