Phatic labour: lessons from a Japan-Based University

Abstract

In this study, we return to the idea of phatic labour in English-language classrooms, with a focus on a modern university in Japan that follows an 'uber-style' model. We would like to show that standard approaches to Second Language Acquisition (SLA) often miss the relational work that makes classroom participation and learning possible. We draw on ideas from pragmatic ontology, meaning-in-use, and theories of immaterial labour to treat phatic labour as the intentional work teachers do to shape classroom interaction. This work is often fluid and invisible. It can include how we organise classroom time and space, or how we guide students' attention so that moments in class become meaningful and educational. We also look at flow theory and the idea of communities of practice to see how this kind of labour helps create learning environments where students can stay engaged and build habits. Our aim is to clarify how phatic labour affects both teaching workload and student learning, and to suggest an alternative to language teaching strategies that ignore the social context. We hope to offer a fuller picture of what makes language learning effective and argue that SLA needs to take phatic labour seriously, especially in classrooms shaped by market forces.