Phatic

A greeting is a type of phatic expression.

You needn't be angry about the insincerity of shopkeepers' how-are-you greetings. Well-adjusted people understand that the question is phatic in the context and that that's usually no problem.

Some dialects of a language may use a certain term or phrase in a phatic way, even if other dialects don't.

Generally speaking, statements in WE are expected to be of a tautologous nature, thus fulfilling the essential phatic nature of speech.

Dispensing with phatic chitchat, he began straightaway to tell the story of his “people.”