small talk thesis

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The Big Challenge of American Small Talk

• Andy Molinsky

It’s key part of American work culture, so how does a non-American adapt?

You are a new expatriate manager at the American subsidiary of your German firm in Chicago. With a few minutes to spare between meetings, you walk into the mail room to retrieve your mail and get a quick cup of coffee.

• Andy Molinsky is a professor of Organizational Behavior and International Management at Brandeis University and the author of Global Dexterity , Reach , and Forging Bonds in a Global Workforce . Connect with him on LinkedIn and download his free e-booklet of 7 myths about working effectively across cultures .

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Why Small Talk Is a Big Deal

The ability to engage in small talk is an underrated social skill..

Posted January 18, 2020 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

Do you dread trading niceties with retail clerks and assorted other strangers when you are out in public? Do you go out of your way to avoid neighbors and co-workers so that you do not have to engage in idle chitchat about the weather and other equally inoffensive topics? Does your blood run cold when you receive an invitation to a cocktail party?

If this sounds like you, then you have an aversion to small talk .

Small talk is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “Polite conversation about unimportant or uncontroversial matters, especially as engaged in on social occasions.”

Some people hate small talk because they perceive it as a waste of time and as an impediment to a meaningful conversation ; others may hate it simply because they are not good at it.

How you feel about small talk depends to some extent on where you are from. Stereotypically, Americans are more tolerant of small talk than people from other places and expect to encounter it in social situations. Scandinavians, on the other hand , are more comfortable with awkward silences than with awkward small talk, and the British TV show Very British Problems devoted an entire episode to the excruciating tactics that many Brits will resort to in an attempt to avoid small talk.

There are also consistent gender differences in how small talk plays out. While everyone likes to talk about the weather, women are also likely to compliment each other’s clothing and appearance, whereas men are more likely to employ playful insults. In both cases, people are signaling a desire to establish a mutually comfortable level of involvement in the conversation.

Is There a Downside to Small Talk?

Many critiques of small talk reference a demonstration organized by Duke University Psychologist Dan Ariely as evidence that there might be some real advantages from banishing small talk from our daily lives.

Ariely arranged a dinner party for 27 guests with the following rule: No small talk allowed!

All guests were required to arrive at exactly the same time, and the hosts provided index cards with meaningful conversation starters. The guests were required to police their conversations by sounding the alarm and changing direction if they perceived that the conversation was drifting in the direction of small talk. The party turned out to be a rousing success, and those in attendance confirmed that it was one of the most interesting and stimulating social events that they had ever attended.

Small talk haters are also quick to cite a study by psychologist Mathias Mehl and his colleagues , published in Psychological Science in 2010. In Mehl’s study, 79 undergraduate students wore an electronic device that recorded 30 seconds of sound every 12.5 minutes for four days. Afterward, all of the captured conversations were categorized as either small talk or as substantive, meaningful conversation. His participants completed a battery of questionnaires designed to measure happiness and well-being, and it turned out that higher levels of well-being were associated with less small talk and more substantive conversation.

One of the conclusions that many drew from these results was that engaging in small talk diminishes one’s well-being.

However, Mehl repeated the study in 2018 with a much larger sample and a more sophisticated analysis of the data, and this time concluded that small talk does not undermine happiness and that it is associated with more happiness than one usually experiences when one is alone. In other words, it is better to engage in small talk than to engage in no talk at all. The results of the earlier study apparently reflected the strong positive effect that meaningful conversation has on happiness rather than any negative effects of small talk.

Small Talk as a Social Skill

In recent years, small talk has been belatedly recognized as a beneficial feature of everyday life. For example, studies indicate that people are happier when they talk to others , even if it is just strangers on a subway, and even if it is just small talk.

The problem with many previous discussions of small talk was a framing of the issue as a contest between the benefits of small talk versus the benefits of deeper conversation as if people must be forced to engage in only one or the other.

The trick is to be skillful in the use of both types of talk in your social interactions. Rather than being antagonistic to each other, these different types of talk are strategies that work in tandem to create effective relationships.

Yes, of course, you are bound to be disappointed if all of your conversations are nothing more than superficial loops of chatter about things that no one really cares about; but the skilled conversationalist knows how to use small talk as a social lubricant and as a segue to deeper topics. Think of small talk as a tool that negotiates and defines a relationship. It can be a way of synchronizing the level of intimacy felt by each of the partners in the conversation and a way of signaling friendly intentions while simultaneously minimizing awkward, uncomfortable silences.

The actual topics of small talk do not matter very much; its purpose is not to convey information, but rather to serve as an opening act to warm up the audience for the meaty stuff to follow.

In short, being adept with small talk is an important component of your arsenal of social skills. Knowing when to initiate small talk and also knowing when to move on and escalate the level of discourse beyond the mundane will make you a popular conversational partner.

And always be careful not to overstep the level of intimacy inherent in a situation, especially when the small talk strays into the realm of personal topics such as health or physical appearance.

Frank McAndrew, Ph.D., is the Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College.

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Teaching ‘Small Talk’

Small talk refers to communication that primarily serves the purpose of social interaction. Small talk consists of short exchanges that usually begin with a greeting, move to back and forth exchanges on non-controversial topics such as the weekend, the weather, work, school, etc., and then often conclude with a fixed expression such as See you later . Such interactions are at times almost formulaic and often do not result in a real conversation. They serve to create a positive atmosphere and to create a comfort zone between people who might be total strangers. While seemingly a trivial aspect of speaking, small talk plays a very important role in social interaction.

Skills involved in mastering small talk include:

• Acquiring fixed expressions and routines used in small talk
• Using formal or casual speech depending on the situation
• Developing fluency is making small talk around predictable topics
• Using opening and closing strategies
• Using back-channeling

Back-channeling involves the use of expressions such as Really?, Mmm, Is that right?, Yeah, etc., and very commonly short rhetorical questions such as Do you? Are you? Did you? . The use of expressions that show exaggeration such as Way out, Awesome, Fantastic is usually a sign that the two participants are friends, as in the following example:

A. Look at what my dad gave me for my birthday. B. Fantastic. A. He got it in Italy. B. Awesome!

Echo responses are another type of back-channelling and involve echoing something the speaker said. For example:

A. So where are you from? B. Chicago. A. Chicago. That’s interesting.

Ways of teaching small talk include:

• Modelling and creating : students study examples of small talk exchanges and create similar exchanges on the same topic.

For example a lesson can start by giving students a model of  a small-talk exchange, such as the following example from a teacher in Japan, that shows a conversation between two friends in Japan who meet in a shopping mall:

A: Hi. B: Oh hi, how’s it going? A: Good, good, fine. B: Are you, er, doing some shopping? A: Yeah, just a few things really, you know. B:Yeah. A: Yeah, …actually I’ve been looking for a present, for Hiroko, but it’s difficult to.. you know.. B: Yeah, umm, what kind of thing? A: Oh, something like, umm, a present… something like… it’s her birthday tomorrow actually. [laughs] B: Tomorrow? A: Yeah, tomorrow. So I’ve looked in Hamaya, like, at the makeup and stuff, but it’s not very exciting. B: Tomorrow? How about Amu Plaza, they’ve got Tower Records and some kind of new shops. A: Yeah. OK, great, Tower Records might be good. I might give that a go. I’ve got to go over to the station, anyway. So, anyway, good to see you and thanks for the tip. B: That’s fine. Say happy birthday to Hiroko from me. A: OK I will. Bye. B: Yeah, bye. A: Bye.

This exchange can be used to highlight some of the features of casual language, such as the use of ellipsis (e.g. doing some shopping? ), phrases such as you know , idioms ( give that a go ), and bye as a closing routine. Like many interactions of this kind, the exchange opens with a friendly greeting, moves towards small talk, and then closes with an exchange of greetings. The teacher provides worksheets in which the students identify the different sections of the conversation and the discourse functions and practice writing their own dialogs using the same discourse features. They later enact role-plays to further practice the appropriate sequence in a small talk exchange.

Other activities to practice small talk are:

• Class mingles : each student has one or two topics on a card. The class mingle, students greet, introduce their topic, make small talk for one or two exchanges, close the conversation, and move on to a different student.
• Question sheets : students have a worksheet with 10 different small talk questions. They move around the class and take turns asking and responding to their exchange in small talk format.

Don’t forget to visit this blog on Thursday 16th January to read the second part in this blog series written by Jack C Richards: “Teaching Conversation”.

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Helping advanced students overcome the language learning plateau, listening activity ideas for adult learners, 6 alternative halloween activities for the classroom, 18 comments.

Thanks for the article, some good strategies here!

I found that if students only have a small bank of small-talk strategies, they sound too robotic, e.g., if they use the ‘back-channeling’ technique for every sentence! So for homework I asked them to ‘sentence mine’ and deconstruct romantic comedies’ small talk, for class mingling practice the next lesson.

There were some great examples!

Thanks again.

Thank you for stimulating to think about the important issues in EFL. Personally I don’t think back-chanelling, echoing or native like experssions can be consciously thought. Pragmatic and Discourse competence needs exposure in that society I guess. We may only provide a various, rich comprehensible input and leave it to grow naturally. Thanks again Kind Regards

Thanks for your rich comment, it really summarizes everything,

Thanks again…

[…] Dr. Jack C Richards is an applied linguist, writer, and teacher trainer. He is the co-author of Speak Now, a four-level speaking course that helps students to communicate with confidence. In this a…  […]

[…] Dr. Jack C Richards is an applied linguist, writer, and teacher trainer. He is the co-author of Speak Now, a four-level speaking course that helps students to communicate with confidence.  […]

[…] are longer exchanges that may follow on from small talk and are the more meaningful type of interaction that results from small talk. They are a more […]

Reblogged this on Mytutorblog's Blog .

[…] Small talk refers to communication that primarily serves the purpose of social interaction. Small talk consists of short exchanges that usually begin with a greeting, move to back and forth exchanges on non-controversial topics such as the weekend, the weather, work, school, etc., and then often conclude with a fixed expression such as See you later. Such interactions are at times almost formulaic and often do not result in a real conversation. They serve to create a positive atmosphere and to create a comfort zone between people who might be total strangers. While seemingly a trivial aspect of speaking, small talk plays a very important role in social interaction.  […]

Reblogged this on hungarywolf .

Although I am not an expert myself I think that “teaching small talk” is nearly impossible. You can only learn and practice it yourself. Of course blog posts like this help to give some ideas to extent your catalogue of ideas. However, I only felt that constanlty challenging myself with small talk situations make me conquer them eventually. I can only advice to practice it consciously. This blog post might give you an idea: https://www.smalltalkprofessional.com/blog/10-5-ways-to-daily-improve-your-small-talk-skills Hope that makes my point clear. Like the article anyway 😉

I’ve been looking for systematic materials on small talk for a long time, especially the part on how to give responses. Thanks for sharing this useful one. Getting to know these phenomenons analysed by linguists is very inspiring and insightful to do further research.

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‘Small Talk’: developing fluency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking

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James Hunter, ‘Small Talk’: developing fluency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking, ELT Journal , Volume 66, Issue 1, January 2012, Pages 30–41, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccq093

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A major issue that continues to challenge language teachers is how to ensure that learners develop accuracy and complexity in their speaking, as well as fluency. Teachers know that too much corrective feedback (CF) can make learners reluctant to speak, while not enough may allow their errors to become entrenched. Furthermore, there is controversy over the effectiveness of recasts (the most common form of CF) in promoting acquisition. This article explores a methodology, ‘Small Talk’, which aims to resolve some of the tensions between the need to encourage truly communicative language use and the need to develop complexity and to bring focus on forms into the syllabus in ways that can be recognized as valid and relevant by both teachers and learners. It presents some preliminary research on the viability of this CF methodology premised on attention to, and arising from the needs of, the individual learner.

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A Conversation Analysis: The Use of Small-Talk

This research aimed to find out the topic and the function of small talk that was used by the students. The method of the research was qualitative descriptive. This research took place in the English Education of Graduate Program, State University of Makassar. The data collected through recording the interaction of small talk naturally by recording. The result showed that most of the topics discussed during the small talk were about the immediate situation of the talk. The topic of small talk can be either shift to the external situation such as the latest news, economics, hobbies, sports, movies or celebrities, and communicational situations. And from this research, the researcher found some topics like movies and asking for files. Besides that, the function of small talk specifically in class serves as an ice-breaking and silence-filling function.

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This study was aimed to investigate the effect of small talk on the students' speaking performance. This study applied pre-experimental design and quantitative research method to collect the data. The target population of this study was the second grade students of MA. Darul Hikmah. Then, the sample was chosen directly by the researcher, the researcher chose class XI IPS I which consist of 18 students. The research procedures included the steps that covered the pre-test, implementing the technique, post-test, and reflecting. The result of the research demonstrated that small talk affected students' speaking performance. It could be seen from the result of comparing the data between pre-test and post-test showed that D= 172 and D 2 = 2168. Having analyzed the data pre-test and post-test by using t-test formula, the result showed that the value of the test observation (t 0) is 7.35 , and the degree of freedom (df) is 17 obtained from N-1 = 18-1=17. The researcher used the degree of significance or critical value of 0.01. The value of degree of significance is 2.567. If the value of the test observation is compared with each value of degrees of significance, the result was 7.35 > 2.567. Sudijono (2004) said that if the result of calculation t 0 (t-observation) is higher than t t (t-table), the hypothesis was accepted. In other word, the research hypothesis was accepted that small talk affected on students' speaking performance.

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The paper concerns with investigating classroom interaction especially the classroom language used by teacher and students in teaching learning process in one Junior High School in Indramayu. Teacher's talk signals the classroom language that is used by the teacher in the classroom throughout the class periods. Meanwhile, students' talk signal classroom language that is used by the students. The study employs qualitative interaction analysis method involving fifty nine students and two teachers in two different classrooms. The data are gathered through non-participant observation and video recording. Classroom observations were conducted to gain the data concerning classroom interaction in teaching learning process. The data collecting was separated into twelve categories and analyzed using Flint (Foreign Language Interaction analysis) system adopted from Moscowitz that is widely used to investigate classroom interaction. The findings of this study showed that there are various verbal interactions used in classroom interaction. The data showed that the use of classroom language motivate students to speak and encourage the students to share their idea. But the data also showed that there are many obstacles in using classroom language. So it needs more effort from teachers and students to make classroom language familiar in the classroom.

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This study investigates the occurrence and role of small talk in a number of different social activities, based on video-recorded corpus data from the GSLC (The Gothenburg Spoken Language Corpus) which represents a broad range of different social activities. The study builds on findings from studying communication in different social activity types and compares them with respect to the occurrence, content and role of small talk. The purpose is (i) to describe the characteristics of small talk in general and (ii) to investigate whether and, in that case, in what respects the nature of small talk varies depending on the social activity where it occurs. General types of small talk are found, which can occur in most activity types, for example talk about the weather, the family or the activity at hand. Other types of small talk depend on activity specific factors, such as how formal or informal the activity is, the background and activity roles of the participants, factors in the enviro...

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Brett & Kate McKay • March 6, 2019 • Last updated: September 25, 2021

How to Make Small Talk

This article series is now available as a professionally formatted, distraction free paperback or ebook to read offline at your leisure.

Are you already kind of dreading meeting your freshman dorm roommate for the first time, wondering what you’re going to say?

When you spot an acquaintance in a store, do you hope they don’t see you, pretend you don’t see them, and try to covertly duck into another aisle?

Does the idea of walking into a party where you only know one person fill you with dread?

Do you keep trying to summon up the courage to talk to the cute girl who makes your lattes at the local coffee shop, but whenever you get up to the counter, all you can muster is your order?

When you’re assigned to a table filled mostly with strangers at a wedding, do you talk only with your date, or sit hunched over your phone all night?

We’ve talked about the basics of good conversation before (see here and here ), but today we want to discuss the little dance you have to do before you get to plunge into that deeper level of communication: small talk. Small talk is the back and forth you have with strangers and acquaintances and even family members that you rarely see.

I wanted to cover this topic as part of our “31 Basic Life Skills in 31 Days” series because I have interacted with a lot of young men who couldn’t engage in small talk to save their lives – really nice, earnest guys all, but their interactions with those beyond their circle of friends was painfully awkward. And while this form of communication may be “small,” it’s really a big deal when it comes to your personal and professional success, and your overall happiness. So before we discuss how to make it (and learn three, count ‘em three, handy acronyms to improve your conversational skillz), let’s talk about why it’s so crucial.

Why the Ability to Make Small Talk Is So Important

It’s easy to dismiss small talk as idle chit-chat, or superficial or pointless, and claim to only be interested in “real” conversation. But how do you get to the point of having a deeper conversation with someone in the first place? Someone you just met would be weirded out if you just walked up to them and asked, “Why do you think God allows bad things to happen to good people?” Conversation is a ladder, with small talk serving as the first few rungs. You can’t leap-frog up the ladder. That would be like trying to sprint before warming up, or cook a steak without defrosting it, or merge onto a highway without building up speed on the on-ramp, or…well you get the idea.

Think about it. How did all of your current most important non-familial relationships begin? Most likely with a bit of small talk one day. Asking about a homework assignment in chemistry class or commiserating about the pain you were in while doing bear crawls down the football field. And now you’re best buds.

Small talk is the portal through which every person you will ever meet will enter your life. That’s huge when you ponder it. You never know who you’re going to encounter in a class, at a coffee shop, at the gym, at a wedding; they could be your future business partner or boss, your future best friend or wife. You simply never know when someone you meet will send your life in a new direction. But if you can’t initiate these relationships, your circle of contacts and intimates will never expand past the current roster of friends whose Facebook updates and tweets you can’t take your eyes off of in order to meet the gaze of those sitting right next to you.

How to Gain the Ability to Make Small Talk with Anyone, Anywhere

The first step in becoming an expert small talker is to start seeing yourself as the host , as opposed to the guest , in any situation. The host acts as a leader. He’s active, not passive, and takes the initiative in talking with people, guiding the conversation, filling in awkward pauses, introducing people, and making others feel comfortable and welcome.

How do you become the consummate host wherever you go? Your hosting duties can be broken down into two categories: Approaching Others and Being Approachable.

How to Approach Others

Initiating conversation with strangers.

We often feel self-conscious engaging a stranger in small talk, butmost people are feeling as shy and insecure as you are. It’s a great comfort and relief when someone takes the initiative to talk to them, saving them from standing alone by the punch bowl while they feel awkward and conspicuous. People love to talk (especially about themselves), and are typically flattered when someone is paying attention to them.

Look for someone who seems approachable, who’s by himself and isn’t talking to someone else or working on something. Make eye contact, smile at them, and then go up to greet them.

But what then? Anyone who’s had their small talk disintegrate after an exchange of “What do you do?” may worry that their attempt to initiate conservation will fizzle into awkwardness. But when you know what you’re doing, you can sail right over any potential slumps.

The ARE method of initiating small talk .Communications expert Dr. Carol Fleming offers a three-part process to kick off a conversation: Anchor, Reveal, Encourage (ARE).

Anchor. This is an observation on your “mutual shared reality” that extends the first little thread of connection between you and another person — the lightest of pleasantries about something you’re both seeing or experiencing.

• Dr. Landis is hilarious.
• The set list tonight has been fantastic.
• This weather is perfect.

Don’t get caught up thinking that such comments are too superficial, and search in vain for something truly clever to say. Fleming calls such exchanges “friendly noises,” and you both know they’re not meaningful, but just a gradual and polite way to segue into a “real” conversation.

Reveal. Next, disclose something about yourself that is related to the anchor you just threw out.

• I’ve tried to get into Dr. Landis’ class for three semesters, and this is the first time I was able to land a spot.
• There’s a much bigger crowd here than there was at their show last year.
• I’ve been waiting for a break in the heat to go hike Mt. Whilston for the first time.

By opening up a little more, we extend to the other person a few more threads of connection and trust, while at the same time providing them fodder to which to respond.

Encourage. Now you hand off the ball to them by asking a question:

• Did you have a hard time getting into the class?
• Did you see that show?
• Have you ever done that hike?

Keep building the conversation . By employing the effective ARE method, you’ll successfully have exchanged a few pleasantries, but these tender threads of small talk can easily disintegrate and blow away at this point…when the dreaded awkward pause shows up.

So you want to weave those light threads into an increasingly sturdy rope. You do this by offering follow-up comments and questions that continue to build the conversation. Let’s take a look at how our three example conversations might progress:

You: Dr. Landis is hilarious. I’ve tried to get into his class for three semesters and this is the first time I was able to land a spot. Did you have a hard time getting into the class?

Person: Yeah, I actually sat on the stairs for the first few classes, and just hoped some people would drop out. Luckily they did, and he added me.

Once the person has answered your initial question, you can use a follow-up comment or question – each designed to prompt a response. Giving a comment takes more skill, as you have to craft one that will continue the back and forth. Ideally, you should form both a comment and a back-up question in your mind so that if they respond with only a laugh or an uh-huh, you’re ready to get things moving again.

A clever/humorous comment is one option for your follow-up:

You (said jokingly): I’m thinking you had something to do with their disappearance!

Person (laughs): Oh, for sure! I tell ya, people are dying to get in here.

You: Are you taking this class for your major or just because you want to?

You: The set list tonight has been fantastic. There’s a much bigger crowd here than at their show last year. Did you see that one?

Person: No, I didn’t actually didn’t discover this band until a few weeks ago.

There’s no good comment to give here that would keep the conversation going, so a follow-up question is most appropriate.

You: Oh yeah? How did you find out about them?

You: This weather is perfect. I’ve been waiting for a break in the heat to hike Mt. Wilston. Have you ever done that hike?

Person: No, I haven’t.

Instead of being clever, another option for your follow-up comment is to share a little more about yourself.

You: It’s one of my favorite hikes. It only takes about an hour and a half to get to the top from the trailhead and the view is awesome.

Person: Well the most I’ve hiked is up the hill on campus, but that does sound pretty doable.

You: I think me and a couple of friends will be doing it tomorrow. If you’re interested in coming along, let me know. I’m in 3B.

Whether you follow-up with a comment or question, be sure to alternate between the two options. Strike a balance: too many questions fired one right after the other will make the conversation feel more like an interrogation, and too many comments won’t give the other person a chance to talk. That’s no good, as your interest in what they have to say is what endears you to them.

So tip the scale more heavily towards questions. Once they respond to one question, you ask clarifying questions about their answer. Start with questions that can be answered with one or two words, and then build on those to expand into open-ended questions that won’t put them on the spot, but will allow them to reveal more or less about themselves, depending on their comfort level. Use questions that begin with phrases like:

• Tell me about…
• What was the best part of…
• How did you feel about…
• What brought you to…
• What’s surprised you most…
• How similar/different is that to…

Here are some effective small talk chains, with the common, but less open-ended questions marked through, and a better alternative following it:

• Where are you from? →  Did you live there all of your life?  What was it like to grow up there? → What brought you here? → Are any of your family members close by? →   How many siblings do you have? Tell me more about your family. → Is it tough being away from them? → What do you miss most about your hometown?
• What are you majoring in? → What made you decide to choose that major? →  How do you like it? What’s been the best class you’ve taken so far? → Tell me more about it. → What was the most interesting part of the class? → Do you think you might write about that for your thesis?
• What do you do? →  Do you like your job? Describe a typical day at work. → How has the economy affected business? → Why has your company thrived while others have taken a beating? → Would you recommend a young man like myself going into the field? → Do you know anyone who might be looking for an intern?

Initiating Conversation with Acquaintances

Starting some small talk with an acquaintance – someone you only chat with a bit at church each Sunday, a coworker you see around the office sometimes, an old friend you don’t keep in very good contact with but run into occasionally – requires a different approach than breaking the ice with a stranger. In an encounter with an acquaintance, you’ll likely start with a question, but how you craft that question is important.

Ask open-ended questions. Here’s how it usually goes: How was your weekend? How’s your day going? How have you been? Whatadya been up to? Fine. Fine. Good. Not much…cue the crickets! Questions like these are conversation killers — they only prompt a one or two word response, and are basically used by most people as rote hellos in passing, not as questions where an actual answer is expected.

So you have to follow up:

• How was your weekend? Good. What did you do?
• How’s your day going? Good. What’s been the best part so far?
• How have you been? Good. What’s been going well for you?

If the acquaintance gives another abbreviated response, you can say something like, “What else? I really want to know.” People are used to going through the motions with folks, and are looking for permission to talk a little about themselves. But if they remain reticent, they may simply not want to talk, and you should always respect that.

Catching up with an acquaintance has unique pitfalls: you know only an outline of his life, but you don’t know what’s changed in it since the last time you talked. So you want to frame your questions with care and keep them neutral to avoid “stepping in it:”

• Have you landed a job yet ? (turns out he’s still unemployed) → What’s been going on with the job search lately?
• How’s Jen? (she just dumped him) → Bring me up to date about you and Jen.
• I heard you took a trip out to Cali last month. That must have been awesome! (he had to go to California because his dad died) à What brought you out to California last month?
• How long have you two been dating ? (they haven’t discussed whether they are actually dating yet) à How did you two meet?

What Do I Do If I Have Trouble Coming Up With Questions or Things to Say?

Observe. Some of the easiest and best questions simply come from observing people and their surroundings:

• I see you got your Ph.D from the University of Washington. Why did you pick that school?
• Ah, you’re reading The Great Gatsby ? That’s my favorite book. How are you liking it?
• I can’t help but notice you’re a fan of the Jets. Who do you think their starting QB is going to be?
• Tell me about this picture. Are you running a marathon? Who’s running with you?
• How do you like your Jeep Wrangler?
• Where did you get your hair cut? I’m looking for a good barber.

Listen. You can start a conversation by building on something someone said that wasn’t directly addressed to you, but you were privy to.

For example, in smaller classes in college, sometimes the professor will have everyone introduce themselves on the first day of class. If there’s someone in the class you’d like to get know more, you can later start a conversation by saying something like: You mentioned you were from Colorado. What part?

Or after a business presentation, go up to the speaker and say: I thought you made an interesting point about the benefits the traditional newspaper offers over the online version. What do you think is the future of print?

Compliment. A good way to kick off some small talk is to tie a compliment and a question together:

• That’s a really nice fountain pen. Is it hard to learn to write with one?
• I was really impressed with the patience you showed with those kids today. How do you stay so calm when they’re bouncing off the walls?

When complimenting a woman, stick with a behavior, accomplishment, or article of clothing rather than a body part.

FORM a question in your mind. If you’re at a table with a group of people and the small talk hits a snag, remember the acronym FORM:

• F amily. Tell me about your family. Are your siblings alike or different? What new things is your kid doing these days? How’s your grandpa’s health?
• O ccupation. What are the best and worst parts of your job? How has the economy affected your industry?
• R ecreation. Are you still running these days? Have you gone on any camping trips lately? What’s the latest thing you’ve built in your workshop? Seen any good movies lately? Read any good books?
• M otivation. Where do you hope to be in five years? Do you find your job satisfying? What do you like about your new church?

Make Yourself Approachable

It’s true what Dale Carnegie said: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years trying to get other people interested in you.”

But it’s also nice when others initiate the conversation. Sometimes you’re just not in “host” mode and raring to initiate conversation, but you’re still open for small talk. If you want strangers to strike up a conversation with you, you need to put out the vibe that you’re open to it and that you’d be an interesting person to talk with. You need to be approachable.

In figuring out how to be a more approachable, just take a look around the room. What people attract you, and which do you seek to avoid. What does each set do or neglect to do?

Wear a conversation piece. People often feel the most comfortable in approaching you to ask about some specific item you’re wearing. An arrestingly handsome tie (not a novelty tie), an interesting tie tack, a lapel pin, a unique (but tasteful) ring, watch, or necklace , even a printed t-shirt (I’m not talking Affliction here, you know…let’s say one with “Semper Virilis” on it, for example) worn in a casual setting, can all easily inspire curious questions that spark a conversation.

Exhibit friendly body language. Our nonverbal body language accounts for the majority of how others perceive us. Body language that is warm and inviting will draw others to you and make them feel comfortable conversing.

Arthur Wassmer came up with the last acronym we’ll cover today — SOFTEN — to describe the elements of nonverbal behavior that attract others:

• S mile. A warm, friendly smile puts others at ease. When you’re walking around, display a slight, soft smile. After you make eye contact with someone, give them a bigger, genuine smile.
• O pen posture. Instead of standing at an angle, with your arms crossed or in your pockets, face others directly and hang your arms naturally by your sides.
• F orward lean. When listening or speaking, leaning in shows someone you are paying attention. The more intimacy you build with someone, the closer you can lean, but at first, respect the person’s physical space.
• T ouch by shaking hands. A good hearty handshake , where the web between your thumb and pointer finger meets theirs, conveys confidence and vitality.
• E ye contact. Being able to make eye contact shows you’re confident and builds intimacy with others. We’ve written some seriously great articles on the importance of eye contact and how to do it right , that I highly recommend reading.
• N od.   Whenever you listen to someone speak , nodding, along with other verbal and nonverbal forms of feedback like “uh-huhs”  and “hmmms,” show you’re focused on what the speaker has to say.

Be well-groomed and well-dressed. Not over dressed – that will drive folks away and make you seem uptight. But don some clean clothes that fit well and exhibit your own style and lots of confidence.

And a note about facial hair…it’s a dynamo conversation starter. Everyone wants to comment on my mustache. And beards, while they used to be the mark of the crusty backwoodsman or shifty rebel, are now often read by folks as “approachable” – the look of a super laid-back, good-humored guy.

Offer your name to those you’ve met before. A new acquaintance may not remember it. A former professor may have had thousands of students come through their classes. Trying to figure out your name as you talk, along with the worry that the fact they don’t know it will be revealed, will distract them from focusing on the conversation. So just offer it up when you see them:  Hi, Dr. Smith, Brett McKay from last year’s History 101!

Never give one word answers. A “yes,” or “no” FULL STOP sounds curt. Ever been to this event before? No . Are you a friend of the groom? Yes . Just add a bit to soften it, as it makes you sound more game to talk: No I haven’t. Yes I am.

Expand your answers, even when a “No I haven’t” or “Yes I am” will technically suffice. Examples: No I haven’t, but my friend Michael Davidson finally convinced me to come this year. Do you know him? I think you guys went to the same high school. Or: Yes I am. Chuck and I were fraternity brothers at the University of Alabama.”

The goal here is to provide your small talk partner with more information from which they can make a comment or pose a question that will keep the conversation going. Just think of when the shoe’s on the other foot – the more fodder someone gives you, the easier it is to formulate a good response.

Mirror your partner. People feel more comfortable, and are charmed more, by those who match their behavior, tone of voice, talking speed, and so on. Don’t match your conversation partner tic for tic, but if they speak softly, bring your own voice down a notch; if they’re enthusiastic, act similarly.

Give an accessible description of your job. One of the most common questions for folks to ask is, “What do you do?” If your job is pretty technical, try to put it in layman’s terms, so that they have something to ask you follow-up questions about, as opposed to just saying, “Oh, nuclear fission, huh?”

Have a wide range of knowledge and keep up with current events. By being well-read and keeping up with what’s going on in the world, you’ll always have a bit of knowledge to match the varied interests of those you meet.

Technology has created an interesting phenomenon in which people increasingly crave real face-to-face connection, while at the same time becoming less equipped to facilitate it.

The only way to get better at small talk is to practice. And you have to practice it in situations where it really doesn’t matter, so that you’re ready when it does.

Strike up some small talk with the man behind the deli counter or the person working the register at the grocery store: How’s your day going? How much longer on your shift? What’s been the best part of your day so far?

Instead of ducking out of events that you’re not too keen on attending, go with the express purpose of practicing your small talk skills. Look it as your conversation lab – you don’t care much about what the people there think of you anyway, so feel free to try things out and make mistakes.

Don’t get hung up on “failing.” If someone’s not interested in talking, that’s okay. No harm, no foul. Just move on. Small talk is only annoying when it’s unwelcome, and the initiator fails to pick up on this disinterest. If the person you’re trying to engage gives several short answers, and keeps angling their body away from you, let them get on with whatever they’d rather be doing.

But as the old saying goes, you have to wrestle some gators to make a gator soup. All experiences, good and bad, will help you hone your mastery of small talk, so you can talk to that girl on the shuttle to campus with ease, and you don’t have to wait in your car to avoid walking up the stairs to your apartment at the same time as someone else.

Check out these other resources on AoM about small talk:

• Podcast: Why You Need to Embrace Small Talk
• How to Initiate Small Talk Using the ARE Method
• Small Talk: 5 Questions to NEVER Ask
• My 21-Day Experiment Making Small Talk With Strangers
• Podcast: Why You Should Talk to Strangers

_______________

It’s the Way You Say It by Carol Fleming

The Fine Art of Small Talk by Debra Fine

Talk to Strangers by David Topus

Ye Olde Book of Life Experience

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• Other Literatures in English

Conference small talk – the definitive guide

This post was originally published on the  All things Linguistic blog  about a year ago by Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen started blogging as a linguistics grad student at McGill University, but is now a full-time pop linguist, bridging the gap between linguistics and the general public. She writes  pop linguistics articles for various places  and is currently writing  a book about internet language for Penguin . She also cohosts  Lingthusiasm , a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics, with  Lauren Gawne  of the blog  Superlinguo . I loved this post so much I asked if I could repost it for Thesis Whisperer readers who might have missed it.

The post tackles the tricky subject of making small talk with a speaker at a conference – a topic I’ve thought about writing, but never got to, so I was glad to find out that Gretchen had written a better one. As a regular guest speaker I know that many people eye you off at the conference morning tea, but don’t approach – making it a surprisingly lonely experience. Be kind to keynotes! Read this, muster up your courage and then start the conversation. Trust me, they will be grateful.

The key thing to realize is that most of the time, you know more about the speaker than they know about you, so you need to start the conversation and you get to pick what it’s about .

Even before the talk, the speaker’s name and abstract has been emailed around the department or is in the conference booklet, and after the talk you’ve had somewhere between 20 minutes and an hour to hear them talk about what they’re interested in. If it’s a course, maybe you’ve even had weeks. Maybe you’ve googled them, maybe you’ve read their articles, maybe they’re your academic hero, maybe you just stumbled into the talk but now you find you’re enjoying it, whatever. You know something about them that makes them interesting to you.

The speaker, on the other hand, might not even know the names of anyone in the audience at all (at a conference) or might know only their one or two host(s) (at an invited talk). Or even if they know half the audience, if you’re one of the people they don’t know, then have no particular reason to want to talk with you. And even if they do have a general desire to meet people in their audience (and they probably do), all they have for small talk options with these unknown people are very general questions that can be asked of any linguist, like the classic academic icebreaker “So, what do you work on?” and its relatives “So, are you a student?” and “So, where are you from?” (Note that in an academic context, this means “What university(s) are you affiliated with?” and not “Where did you grow up?”)

Protip: if you’re new to academic conferences and want to seem like a srs linguist, make sure you have an answer to “So, what do you work on?” It’s acceptable to say “[phenomenon] in [language]” as a short answer, but it’s better to have a 30 second summary that gives the other person something more to hook onto, like “I’m looking at constructions like [Example McExampleface] in [language]. You might expect people to say [this thing], but in fact they say [other thing].” This gives them a couple of places to ask follow-up questions from if they’re interested. If someone gives you a “[phenomenon] in [language]” type answer though, a good way to continue the conversation is to ask “So what would that look like?/Do you have an example?/What have you been finding?” 

“What do you work on?” is a perfectly acceptable academic icebreaker for standing around the reception desk / coffee table / buffet line, but if you’ve just seen someone’s talk you can’t ask them what they work on – they just told you! If you hover around silently long enough, they might ask you instead, but you run the risk of someone who does know how to talk with speakers starting a conversation first. Of course, if you’re not actually interested in the speaker, you can leave without chatting, but if you are, there are better options than hovering around silently! Here are some of them:

Unlike the question period, you don’t have to have a formal “question” about the particular talk in order to go up to the speaker and talk with them afterwards. So instead think about how to start a conversation that will be interesting and relevant for both you and the speaker. A good way to think about this of options is to think about why you came to the talk and what you got out of it:

• You like a particular article they’ve written or other thing they’ve done. If you know this in advance, you have time to work out some specific comment(s) or question(s) about it.
• You’re working on or thinking about working on something that’s related to something they’re doing.
• You’d like to ask some specific advice. (Not “how do I become you” but “I’ve done X and Y towards Goal. What would you suggest I do next?” Try not to ask things that are readily googlable.)
• You work in Other Framework or with Other Language and you’d like to talk about how their thing might work with the thing you work on.
• You know of a related study or data that they might find relevant. (Don’t frame this as accusatory “why didn’t you cite this??”, rather as helpful “there’s a paper that might be useful for you”.)
• They mentioned something in the talk that you thought was interesting or got confused about, and you’re wondering if they could tell you a bit more about it. Not “please re-explain your entire talk to me” but “I’m wondering about what you said on slide 17.″ (Especially if they said “I’m not going into this in detail, but feel free to ask me about it later.” Take them up on this!)
• You have some acquaintanceship in common, such as you’re working with their former supervisor or someone they went to grad school with. (”I just wanted to say hi – I work with Profy McProferson.”) You’ll probably still need to follow that up with one of the above topics though in order to turn into a real conversation.

It may feel self-promotional to go up to a speaker and say that you work on a similar area, but it’s actually a great idea, as long as you start with a quick version and let them ask questions as interested, don’t just jump right into an extended description. People do talks partly as a shortcut to networking – you could have a bunch of individual conversations with a roomful of people to see who has common research interests, or you could just give a talk and let them self-identify to you after. (Giving talks is, counter-intuitively, a great idea for introverts and socially awkward people! You get a defined role and a bunch of people wanting to start conversations with you about stuff you’re interested in.)

For example, I always want to hear from people who are working on internet language or public outreach projects, but same goes if you’re talking with a speaker about your mutual interest in split ergativity or Bantu languages or whatever. You’ll want to tailor this to what kind of conference you’re at though. If you’re at a big sociophonetics conference, it’s less interesting to come up to a speaker and say “I, like everyone else here, am a sociophonetician” than if you’re at a small general invited talk.

Here’s some more general tips, some of which are  courtesy of twitter :

• Several people mentioned that it can be a good idea to prepare a couple of potential questions or comments, especially if you’re worried about sounding more like a fan than a srs professional.
• That said, as someone who has now been on the receiving end of occasional fangirling, I find it endearing but also I don’t always know what to do with it. It’s super helpful if you can set us on the course of having an actual conversation, rather than putting me into the weird position of “why yes, I agree, I am awesome.” It’s always nice and safe to start with “I enjoyed your talk” but follow that up with something concrete.
• You know your own interests and also mine! I only know mine – tell me which of your interests matches mine and we can have a conversation about that. (”I really liked your thing about X, because I work on Y, and I think a Z approach can be useful for both of us/what we have in common is W/I was wondering how you deal with This Part.”)
• Social awkwardness doesn’t evaporate when someone becomes a famous professor. They don’t hate you. In fact, for most professors, mentoring emerging scholars who are interested in similar topics is one of the highlights of the job.
• Remember that the speaker was once a student just like you, and can remember what it was like to feel intimidated. And the further removed someone is from being a student, the more students they have interacted with along the way. They’re not expecting you to know all the things already. But they can’t read your mind to know that you’re wishing you could talk with them. You have to take that initial step and then they can meet you partway.
• You know the speaker’s name, but they likely don’t know yours, if you’re worrying about whether to talk with them (especially at colloquia/invited talks where people aren’t wearing nametags). Feel free to introduce yourself by name and/or introduce anyone else you know who joins the conversation.

And some advice about what happens once you’ve started that conversation:

• Pay attention to your surroundings and the speaker’s level of interest. It’s great to engage a speaker in conversation but you’re probably not the only one who wants to do so.
• If there are lots of people who want to talk to the person, keep your comments brief or try to convert things into a group conversation, not an extended monologue from you.
• If it’s immediately after the speaker’s talk and they haven’t had time to get water/food/coffee/etc when such things are available, suggest walking to the appropriate location rather than trapping them in a corner without sustenance.
• If you’re talking about your own research, don’t be self-deprecating about it (”Oh I’m working on X but it’s not nearly as cool as your thing”). Even if it’s not going so great right now, there must be some initial reason why you thought it was interesting enough to work on. Find that again.
• If you’re seated next to each other at a dinner table, it’s appropriate to have a longer conversation than if you’re at a standing reception (or keeping the speaker from the reception!).
• As with any conversation, keep an eye out for signs the other person is becoming bored or distracted – it’s better to leave the other person wishing you could have talked longer than to have them hunting for excuses to leave.
• If the person gives you advice, take it! If you meet the person again in 6 months, you want to be able to say “I read that article you suggested and I have X question/it was super helpful/it wasn’t completely related but it did lead me to this other great article” not “oops I spent all this time getting advice from you and didn’t act on any of it.”

Anyone who’s been on either side of the speaker/audience divide want to chime in?

Related posts

Small world – the academic conference trek

Gretchen also suggests this post on how to talk to famous professors

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The Thesis Whisperer is written by Professor Inger Mewburn, director of researcher development at The Australian National University . New posts on the first Wednesday of the month. Subscribe by email below. Visit the About page to find out more about me, my podcasts and books. I'm on most social media platforms as @thesiswhisperer. The best places to talk to me are LinkedIn , Mastodon and Threads.

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• DOI: 10.1016/0378-2166(92)90095-S
• Corpus ID: 140456095

Small talk: Analysing phatic discourse: Klaus Peter Schneider, Marburg an der Lahn: Hitzeroth, 1988. 351 pp. DM 68.00.

• Published 1 October 1992
• Linguistics
• Journal of Pragmatics

One Citation

“have a nice day”: phatic communion and everyday life, 3 references, the structure of casual conversation in english, communicative functions of phatic communion, a framework for representing knowledge, related papers.

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Small talk : analyzing phatic discourse

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