Small Talk: (Language In Social Life)

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. *Each chapter in the book argues a perspective on small talk which is supported by analyses of interactional data in specific settings. These 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, the university research seminar, the hospice meeting, and the medical consultation. *The book also looks at service encounter interactions at the hairdresser, at the supermarket checkout, and during the driving lesson, as well as small talk by politicians, in film scripts and literature, and in automated telephone systems.*The contributors show how a range of methodological approaches, spanning Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, Interpersonal Communication and Conversation Analysis, can be used to build a new representation of small talk.

Table of Contents:
PART 1: LOCATING SMALL TALK THEORETICALLY 1. Doing collegiality and keeping control at work: small talk in government departmentsJanet Holmes 2. Institutional identity work: a better lensKaren Tracy and Julie M. Naughton 3. Mutually captive audiences: small talk and the genre of close-contact service encountersMichael McCarthy 4. Silence and small talkAdam Jaworski PART 2: PROCEDURAL ASPECTS: PARTICIPANTS ORIENTATIONS TO AND ORGANISATION OF SMALL TALK 5. Calling just to keep in touch: regular and habitualised telephone calls as an environment for small talkPaul Drew and Kathy Chilton 6. Talk about the weather: small talk, leissure talk and the travel industryNikolas Coupland adn Virpi Ylanne-McEwan 7. Social rituals, formulaic speech and small talk at the supermarket checkoutKoenraad Kuiper and Marie Findall PART 3: SMALL TALK, SOCIABILITY AND SOCIAL COHESION 8. Gossipy events at family dinners: negotiating sociability, presence and the moral orderShoshana Blum-Kulka 9. Small talk and subversion: female speakers backstageJennifer Coates PART 4: PROFESSIONAL AND COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS 10. Sociable talk in women's health care contexts: two forms of non-medical talkSandy L. Ragan 11. Small talk in service dialogues: the conversational aspects of transactional telephone talkChristine Cheepen

Review :
"All of the essays in this collection emphasize the complexity of small talk, they also stress the important role that small talk has in interpersonal relations particularly in conversatons between strangers and institutional settings." "Sara Mills, Sheffield Hallam University"