Talk:Small talk

Nice article
Nice article. I feel well informed without being overwhelmed by specialist detail. I found the discussion of cultural and gender differences in the kinds of small talk that are acceptable to be especially interesting. My compliments to the editors of this article.—Blanchette (talk) 19:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear! Max (talk) 15:25, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm just impressed that there's even page for "small talk." And that there's a talk page for "small talk." Oh, Wikipedia, will your wonders never cease? dkamouflage (talk) 19:57, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Let's make small talk on the small talk talk page. Morning, dkamouflage. 38.106.112.10 (talk) 12:21, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Definitional problems / inconsistency
The intro defines small talk as any non-necessary or non-transactional conversation, including "conversation for its own sake." Wouldn't that definition include a lot of the "biggest," most meaningful conversation, such as on one's deepest fears and hopes, or on the meaning of life? To me that is the opposite of "small talk," which is so called because it covers trivial matters, and is seen as pointless, something that we engage in only to avoid the social discomfort of not talking. At least, that's what I think of when I hear the phrase. After all, it is pejorative.

Maybe I am misreading because a later section gives the usual examples of small talk: the weather, sports, etc.

And yet under "Gender Differences," women are described as using small talk to share secrets and strengthen emotional bonds. Again, seems like the opposite of small talk.

But if we go back to "Purpose," it says that small talk has seemingly "little useful purpose," and is a "ritual" and "a strategy for managing interpersonal distance." (emphasis added) Bottom line I see two definitions of small talk going on here... one "small" and one "big"...  Or am I mistaken? 174.63.85.80 (talk) 06:25, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

People using animal sounds as small talk
I deleted the following section:

"Some couples use different non-human, mostly pet-related sounds (like soft barking or meowing) in greeting and some other situations instead of small talk."

I found this quite ridiculous, and since it had no reference, I went ahead and deleted it.Thorsager (talk) 22:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Origin of term in Malinowski
The swedish version of this page appears to be saying that the saying was invented by a polish anthropologist (working in the UK) called Malinowski. Is this true, any one--2001:708:110:201:216:CBFF:FEBD:2D9C (talk) 12:39, 25 March 2014 (UTC)?

Image used to represent smalltalk
Recent edits to the article brought back a drawing that 'demonstrated' small talk, but it was such a rough example that I couldn't help but feel it hurt the quality of the article. In my opinion, Simon Glücklich' Paar im Gespräch, meanwhile, serves as a better illustration of smalltalk in action, and so I reverted the article back. If readers need an example for what smalltalk actually is in practice, the contents of the article accurate describe that. 142.170.76.132 (talk) 07:26, 31 October 2023 (UTC)


 * (Made some late-night typos in this argument, it's late here, but the point still stands) 142.170.76.132 (talk) 07:30, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Countersignaling
I think that in the gender differences section, what's mentioned as 'signalling'

"...the men are signalling that they are comfortable enough..."

is actually an example of Countersignaling, which may be interesting to link to for readers. AnUnusedWikiUsername (talk) 03:12, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Writing Workshop
— Assignment last updated by Liveeatsleep (talk) 19:03, 16 April 2024 (UTC)