PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

This study aims to describe the variety, function, and dynamics of small talk in the communication of the Osing community in Banyuwangi. This study uses a qualitative approach with a communication ethnography framework. The results show that small talk in the communication of the Osing community in Banyuwangi has various forms of patterned speech and is bound by social context, including differences in interaction backgrounds, interlocutors, and communication situations. Small talk appears consistently in daily interactions, both in public and domestic spaces. Small talk serves as a means of opening and maintaining interaction, maintaining harmonious social relations, and expressing empathy, humility, and concern through phatic and expressive speech acts. The practice of small talk shows a shift in form along with generational differences and the development of digital media, especially through the use of short messages, emojis, and visual symbols, without eliminating its basic sociocultural function. These findings indicate that small talk is not just a conversation filler speech, but a communication practice that is pragmatically and culturally meaningful. Small talk functions as a mechanism for maintaining social cohesion, a medium for transmitting local cultural values, and a marker of the collective identity of the Osing community that is adaptive to social and technological changes. These findings are significant in expanding the study of pragmatics and cultural communication by showing that small talk is a strategic communicative practice to maintain social cohesion, reproducing local cultural values, and ensuring the sustainability of the Osing community identity amidst social and digital changes.