The Fine Art of Small Talk
“The goal of small talk is not to exchange information, but it still has an important communicational function.”
Small talk is an informal type of communication that we engage in when we meet a person. We can have small talk when we meet a person who we didn’t know from before, when meeting a colleague or acquaintance at work or university or even with a friend, as an introduction to some bigger talk. Many people say that they hate small talk, but they don’t realize that small talk is not meaningless. As opposed to a proper conversation, the goal of small talk is not to exchange information, but it still has a communicational function. To be more precise, it is called the phatic function of language. While other functions like the informative or the entertaining function focus on sending information through the communication channel, the phatic function is there simply to keep the communication channel open. People are social beings and we like to be in good relationships with other people.
Modern humans bond mostly through conversation. But when two people are in the same room or walk next to each other and have nothing to talk about, they will feel that their bond is becoming weaker. This is why an awkward silence feels unpleasant. In other words, small talk has a bonding function and if the relationships with the people around you are important to you — especially in…
