General editor's Preface

Abstract

It is a measure of the smallness of the consideration given generally to small talk that its importance as evidenced in this new contribution to the Language in Social Life Se1·ies has had to wait some time for recognition. Perhaps people have confused small talk with unimportant talk. Until this book, we have not had a comprehensive and considered account of its ubiquity, its significance to the theory and practice of several related disciplines including interactive sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, communication theory, the ethnography of speaking and cross-cultural pragmatics, its potential for illuminating differences of social orientation towards discourse, nor have we had any systematic and studied evaluation of its place in the explanation of participants' transactional and relational goals.