SMALL TALK? ARE YOU GOOD AT - Outline
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Liverpool IATEFL 2019 Workshop 09.04.2019
Golechkova
ARE YOU GOOD AT
SMALL TALK?
Tatiana Golechkova
tgolechkova@nes.ru
New Economic School, Moscow
IATEFL Liverpool 2019
Outline
• small talk: features
• skills involved
• classroom activities
2
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Liverpool IATEFL 2019 Workshop 09.04.2019
Golechkova
Video
• Are Penny and Priya good at small talk?
• Why / why not?
The Big Bang Theory
season 4 episode 19 19:55-20:55
3
Small Talk: features
• relatively short
• friendly
• superficial and “aimless”
• formulaic and predictable
• minimal emotional involvement
4
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Small Talk
• relatively short
• friendly
• superficial and “aimless”
• formulaic and predictable
• minimal emotional involvement
5
Cultural differences: research
• German (O’Reilly, 2003)
• Japanese (Iwata, 2010)
• Russian (Fenina, 2005)
… and others
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Small Talk:
Sociolinguistics and Pragmatics
• phatic communication (Malinowski, 1923)
• metacommunication (Beinstein, 1975)
• minor, informal, unimportant and non-serious
verbal exchanges (Coupland, 2003)
• interpersonal, not goal oriented, value rational
interaction (Maynard & Hudak, 2008) 7
Small Talk: functions
• silence-filling
• ice-breaking
• easing into a difficult activity
• establishing rapport
• developing social networks 8
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Small Talk: functions
•acceptance into a community
- employment (Holmes, 2005)
- immigration (Yates & Major, 2015)
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Small Talk, High Stakes
•acceptance into a community
- employment (Holmes, 2005)
- immigration (Yates & Major, 2015)
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Small Talk: features
• formulaic
• friendly
• superficial
• serves to establish rapport
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Small Talk: skills
• formulaic start and finish
functional language
• friendly choice of topics
being cooperative
• superficial topic shifts
• rapport show interest 12
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Small Talk: skills
• formulaic start and finish
functional language
• friendly choice of topics
being cooperative
• superficial topic shifts
• rapport show interest 13
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FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE: starting
Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Andy.
Hello. It’s Andrew, isn’t it? It’s nice to finally meet you.
You’re not the Andrew Jones, who gave a talk on …, are you?
You must be Andrew. I’ve seen your picture on the website /
in the programme etc.
Hello. I’ve been to your talk / saw you at the … lecture, but I
didn’t have a chance to speak to you.
Hi! Are you enjoying the conference? I’m Andy, by the way.
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FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE: finishing
I’m afraid I must be off
I think I should get going
Is that Jo over there? Excuse me, I really must go and speak
to him
Is that the time? I really must be going now, my next
meeting / session is starting in 5 minutes
Please excuse me, I have to get back to work / make a phone
call
Anyway, I won’t keep you any longer / I'll let you get back
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to
your work
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FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE: finishing
It’s been nice / pleasure talking to you
Enjoy the rest of the evening / the conference/ your stay
Anyway, it was good seeing you. I'll talk to you more later.
Maybe see you later? / Catch you later
See you around
We’ll be in touch
Let me give you my card. Please get in touch if I can help
you in any way 17
Small Talk: features
• formulaic start and finish
functional language
• friendly choice of topics
being cooperative
• superficial topic shifts
• rapport show interest 18
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Small Talk: TOPICS
• general: weather, news, sports, trends
• in common: events, location, people
• personal: work, family, hobbies, plans,
holidays
culturally variable
(Belous202010)
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Small Talk: features
• formulaic start and finish
functional language
• friendly choice of topics
being cooperative
• superficial topic shifts
• rapport show interest 22
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Small Talk: topic SHIFTS
• to find mutual interests
• to avoid oversharing
• to avoid prying and interrogating
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FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE
By the way ….
Anyway …
That reminds me …
Oh, before I forget …
Speaking of … Italy / holidays, …
I’ve heard …is that true?
On that note …
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Situation
You are on the train to New York sitting
opposite one another. You are not acquainted.
• yourself
• situation: Why? Where? What?
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Situation
You are on a train to New York sitting opposite one
another. You are not acquainted.
• Something common: event, location, activity,
occupation
• Acquainted or not
• ? Roles
• ? Topics 26
thinking time before start
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Small Talk: features
• formulaic start and finish
functional language
• friendly choice of topics
• superficial topic shifts
• rapport show interest 27
Listening
Person A
You are the speaker. Tell the other person about the teacher
that made a great impact on you. You have a minute.
Person B
You are the listener. Close your eyes and listen very carefully
to what the other person tells you. Do not interrupt, offer
comments or nod. Focus on listening.
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Strategies:
engaged listenership = active listening
• minimal encouragers = backchannelling (Yngre, 1970)
• sharing feelings
• echoing words
• follow-up questions
• summarising and paraphrasing
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Strategies:
engaged listenership = active listening
• encouragers a. Sounds good/terrible!
I know what you mean!
• feelings b. What did you think of the lecture?
• echoing Interesting in what way?
• follow-up c. A: I’ve bumped into a few problems.
B: Problems?
questions
d. So he gave you some good advice.
• summarising e. Oh, right / I see / Sure / Uh-huh / Ok
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Video
improve the conversation
Priya: Hold the door!
Penny: Oh, hi!
The Big Bang Theory
season 4 episode 19 19:55-20:55
31
Small Talk: Activities
1. spotting problems (Holmes, 2005)
2. FL and strategies drills: gapfills, mingling
3. role-play
4. simulation
5. voice-over
6. revision: warmer, freer practice
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Small Talk
In what contexts would you teach it?
+ virtual agents (Endrass, Rehm & Andre, 2010)
33
References
• Beinstein, J. (1975) Small talk as social gesture. Journal of communication, 25, 147-154.
• Belous, A. (2010). Evolution of Small talk as a genre (Unpublished PhD thesis). Nizhny Novgorod: Nizhegorodsky State
Linguistic University (in Russian).
• Coupland, J. (2003). Small talk: social functions. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 36(1), 1-6.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327973RLSI3601_1.
• Endrass, B., Rehm M. & Andre, E. (2010). Planning Small talk behavior with cultural influences for multiagent systems.
Computer Speech and Language, 25, 158-176.
• Fenina, N. (2005). Genres of Small talk and Social Conversation in English and Russian speaking cultures (Unpublished
PhD thesis). Saratov: Saratov State Legal University (in Russian).
• Holmes, J. (2005). When small talk is a big deal: Sociolinguistic challenges in the workplace. In M.H. Long (Ed.), Second
language needs analysis (pp. 344-371). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Iwata, Y. (2010). Pragmatic failure in topic choice, topic development, and self-disclosure by Japanese EFL speakers.
Intercultural Communication Studies, XIX(2), 145-157.
• Malinowski, B. [1923] (1972). Phatic communion. In S. Hutcheson, & J. Laver (Eds.), Communication in face to face
interaction. Selected readings. Penguin modern linguistics readings (pp. 146-152). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
• Maynard, D.W., & Hudak, P.L. (2008) Small talk, high stakes: interactional disattentiveness in the context of prosocial
doctor-patient interaction. Language in Society, 37(5), 661–688. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404508080986
• O'Reilly, C. (2003). The expatriate life: A study of German expatriates and their spouses in Ireland: Issues of adjustment
and training. In Cross cultural communication (Vol. 11). Frankfurt am Main [etc.]: Peter Lang.
• Yates, L., & Major, G. (2015). "Quick-chatting", "smart dogs", and how to "say without saying": small talk and pragmatic
learning in the community. System, 48, 141-152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.09.011
• Yngve, V. (1970). On getting a word in edgewise. In Chicago Linguistic Society (Ed.), Papers from the 6th Regional
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Meeting (pp. 567-577). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
17Liverpool IATEFL 2019 Workshop 09.04.2019
Golechkova
Thank you for your attention
Tatiana Golechkova
tgolechkova@nes.ru
New Economic School, Moscow
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