What an Onion Can Teach Us About Small Talk

by Jennie Parker

Image modified from original by Nick. J. Austin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

​While our focus lies in accent modification, several clients over the years have asked to practice small talk, polite conversation with strangers, colleagues, or other acquaintances. Which conversation topics should be avoided? And which are culturally-appropriate? How can I keep a conversation going? I’m asked these questions often, and I work with clients to help them better understand American cultural expectations and to develop and practice a repertoire of conversational topics.

​It’s first important to point out that appropriate topics for small talk differ around the world. While living in Turkey in my late-twenties, my cheeks turned pink more than once when newly introduced strangers asked me why I wasn’t yet married with kids or when my Turkish roommate’s aunt told me I’d put on weight. I noticed, too, that salaries were talked about more openly among friends in Turkey than in the U.S.  Recently, when I asked a class of refugees from various countries who are living in the U.S. about good small talk topics, religion and side hustle sales pitches were mentioned. Any of these topics could shut down an attempt at small talk with an American.

​I think most Americans would agree that three areas to avoid in polite conversation are religion, politics, and personal finances. Unless you already know a colleague or acquaintance’s religious or political conviction, it’s probably best to avoid those controversial topics if you want polite conversation to continue. Personal finances is probably never an appropriate topic, including salaries and the cost of expensive items, like homes, vacations, and jewelry.  A fourth and a fifth area to approach with caution are family and health. Many people enjoy talking about their family, and having children close in age, for example, can be bonding. But for any variety of reasons, others may be reticent to disclose details about their family. Asking about health, too, may be a welcome subject for some, but may be seen as prying or taxing by others. As any newcomer to the U.S. discovers quickly, when a stranger or acquaintance asks, “How are you?” he or she doesn’t want or expect a detailed response – or maybe any response at all!

​So, we’ve established some topics to avoid or to approach with caution. Next, we’ll take a look at culturally appropriate topics. But, inspired by recent conversations with a client from China, I’d like to take a detour here. I promise it will lead us back. This client confided to me that he has a difficult time maintaining conversations in English with Americans. After digging a little deeper, I found that he has a tendency to “jump” an unspoken protocol of intimacy development, expecting (and divulging) too much, too quickly from (and to) strangers and acquaintances. Let me clarify, when I use the word “intimacy,” I’m referring to emotional closeness, not sexual behavior.

​Let’s take a look at what’s happening at a theoretical level when we engage in interpersonal communication. Social penetration theory, developed by Altman and Taylor in the early 70’s, suggests that as we get to know one another, we’re engaging in a process of mutual self-disclosure whereby our conversations move from shallow, non-intimate topics to progressively more personal ones. This process is likened to peeling back the skin of an onion, where the outermost layers represent broad, superficial topics, and the inner layers represent highly personal ones

​In U.S. culture, some of the outermost layers include biographical data, like major, hometown, job (but not age or weight!), and interests, whereas innermore layers include religion, politics, and fears. These outermost layers serve as good small talk topics: hometowns, schools, jobs, hobbies, movies, books, sports. I’ll add to that list weather and current events, though neither necessarily involves self-disclosure. 

If the small talk evolves into the formation of a relationship over time, the disclosure must be reciprocal and gradually include the innermore layers. Therefore, the breadth (i.e., scope) and depth of the topics increase as a relationship becomes more intimate.  If the self-disclosure starts to become one-sided (that is, only one person is doing most of the disclosing) or if a person jumps too deep into the onion too soon, intimacy levels may move backward, and the relationship could fade away.

Similar principles can be applied to polite conversation: if one speaker is doing most of the disclosing or jumping too deep into the onion, a conversation may break down. I advise clients who need help maintaining polite conversation to volley questions back and forth with their conversational partner; that is, don’t do all the asking or all the answering.

In addition, I remind clients that polite conversation generally covers only the first couple of layers of the onion; it’s not a mission to its center. An exception to this is known as the stranger-on-the-train phenomenon, whereby strangers rapidly and spontaneously reveal personal information about themselves. This is markedly different from social penetration theory, in which the disclosure of information is strategic, and disclosing too much too soon can make listeners uncomfortable. Theories for why the stranger-on-the-train phenomenon sometimes happens include the idea that the strangers feel less vulnerable to judgement or criticism by another stranger or that they experience emotional catharsis by divulging deep thoughts to someone they know they will never meet again.
​
Finally, it’s good to remember that intercultural communication, beyond topic choice and language barriers, has its own challenges: speakers from different countries may have different norms and values and may need to co-construct new meanings. But these challenges can also be part of the joy and excitement of communicating with people from different cultures.