I.S. Shevchenko. The correlation of the informational and phatic functions a problem of ecolinguistics. In traditional linguistics, the referential (informational) and phatic (contact) speech functions constitute a dialectical unity as the base of linguistic communication. The former is aimed at obtaining new, essentially important information, the latter provides a process of information exchange per se, creates the feeling of social solidarity. In the phatic discourse of included and autonomous types, the phatic and the informational functions correlate according to synthetic and analytical combination models. Implementinng politeness strategies, mainly negative politeness, phatic utterances stimulate the exchange of cognitive meaningful information. Viewed in ecological linguistics, in particular, its sociolinguistic and cognitive approaches, the balance of the informational and phatic functions serves a factor of communication optimization. This allows us to consider the interface ‘the phatic – the informational’ as a regulatory factor of discourse ecology.
Key words: communication, discourse ecology, optimization, phatic (contact), referential (informational), speech functions.