Small Talk

This study presents a new perspective on small talk and its crucial role in everyday communication. The new approach presented here is supported by analyses of interactional data in specific settings - private and public face-to-face and telephone talk. They vary from gossip at the family dinner table and intimate 'keeping in touch' phone conversations to interpersonally-focused talk in institutional settings such as the government office and the university research seminar. Drawing on a range of methodological approaches including Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics Interpersonal Communication and Conversation Analysis the author elevates small talk to a new status as functionally multifaceted but central to social interaction as a whole.