Very interesting distinction between phatic and referential language. Thanks from me, too, for these terms.
You say phatic language is about maintaining the connection. If I understand this correctly then there's a role for it also with people one does know well. If you prefer referential conversation and meet someone who's completely restricted to that part of language, you may initially enjoy the conversations a lot. But, after some time (this could be months or years), despite their referential content they may appear increasingly "empty": you realise you're still completely replaceable as a conversation partner by a random new person.
These terms come from Roman Jakobson's model of the functions of language. (Jakobson is the legendary structuralist linguist of whom it was said that he spoke 36 languages, each with a foreign accent.) The model had six functions; the others were emotive, conative (issuing a command), metalingual, and poetic.
The bit about using phatic language mostly with people one doesn't know well is not from Jakobson. I made it up, and it's probably wrong. I didn't go over that sentence 20-50 times :).
It was just that I recently had this thought that language could be divided into a "smalltalk" component, where the content is replaceable but not the conversation partner, and an "info" component, where the partner is replaceable but not the content. I have no clue about linguistics but I vaguely remember that this may correspond to competing theories how language evolved. "Phatic language is about maintaing the connection" seemed to fit perfectly.
But as there are four other components according to Jakobson, I should be careful. Added Jakobson to my reading list.
You say phatic language is about maintaining the connection. If I understand this correctly then there's a role for it also with people one does know well. If you prefer referential conversation and meet someone who's completely restricted to that part of language, you may initially enjoy the conversations a lot. But, after some time (this could be months or years), despite their referential content they may appear increasingly "empty": you realise you're still completely replaceable as a conversation partner by a random new person.