Small talk: A strategic interaction in Chinese interpersonal business negotiations

Abstract

This empirical research provides an insight into the management of small talk (ST) and its interconnection with interpersonal relations in business negotiations, drawing on the study of its pragmatic allocation, modes and functions in business contexts. By examining ST applications in three interpersonal relationships (business stranger, friend and partner), the author explores how the interactional patterns of ST are associated with communicators’ interpersonal cognitive processes, demonstrating why ST should not be deemed ‘small’ in task-oriented contexts. The findings yield that ST constructs an integral, and even essential, part of business communication for various social and professional purposes. Its allocations, topic typologies and move systems in negotiations are not randomly positioned, selected and developed, but strategically organized and interpersonally related. As a meaningful, politic and intentional activity, ST reflects business people’s social and professional cognition, relational negotiation and interactive frame, forming communicative primitives that are used in the underlying negotiation, the rapport management in negotiation and cultural disciplines for business people.