The purpose of the article is to concentrate on the phenomenon of small talk. It attempts to analyze the functions of small talk, the attitudes to small talk and the circumstances which either favour or impede the occurrence of small talk, such as formality, the interlocutors, the topics, etc. The study concentrates on the attitude of Polish, Greek and Spanish female students to the phenomenon of small talk. There are a number of queries in the form of a questionnaire that the informants were exposed to. Based on the informants’ responses, the obtained results will determine the factors which facilitate the occurrence of small talk, the significance of small talk, the functions it serves and the attitude the informants have towards this allegedly trivial and flippant phenomenon.

Communication is one of the most important aspects of everyday life. One of its most characteristic features is its diversity as “it rangers from the mass media and popular culture, through language to individual and social behavior” (Fiske 1990:13). The way we talk depends on a number of factors, such as where a conversation takes place, when, why, how and with whom. Thus, “One person’s language use will vary widely according to the needs of the social context” (Jule 2008:27). One has to learn how to communicate successfully through many situational interactions since both communicative competence and success consist in making appropriate choices in contextual, situational and social settings. It is usually stressed that whereas men’s communication styles are associated with competition and dominance, women’s conversation strategies are based on cooperation and politeness (Trask 1999:183). In the following paper we intend to verify the linguistic data obtained so far and focus on the most principal aspects of communication, which are: turn taking, backchannels and interruptions. The purpose of the analysis is to investigate characteristics of conversation strategies in the speech of both male and female speakers talking to each other and exchanging their views on a particular topic during relatively spontaneous male-female interactions, that is mixed-gender interviews. We will seek to analyze the occurrence of backchannels and interruptions the use of which could be indicative of either support, agreement, involvement or dominance, competition and even hostility on the part of the speakers. The participants consist of randomly selected students at the age of 20-25 who study English at the English Department.

The article investigates the phenomenon of code-switching among bilingual speakers – Polish students studying English Philology who switch to English by inserting English words, phrases and even whole sentences while speaking their mother tongue Polish. The study is based on the questionnaire and aims at determining the various reasons and functions of code-switching (CS), the attitudes and the factors which either facilitate or impede its occurrence. The study demonstrates that code-switching constitutes an indispensable part in the respondents’ daily interactions although their attitudes, functions and factors which determine the incidence of code-switching are miscellaneous and vary considerably.