Small talk is a big deal: A discursive analysis of online off-topic doctor-patient interaction in Traditional Chinese Medicine

This study aims to examine the small talk of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) during online medical consultation (OMC). With the textual and audio doctor-patient conversations collected from Chunyu Doctor, an asynchronous and synchronous e-health platform in mainland China, this study systematically analyzed 432 pieces of TCM consultations. Results indicate that TCM doctors actively initiate small talks in online scenarios to acquire holistic information for diagnosis and boost patients’ face for rapport management, both of which further contribute to patient-centeredness in Chinese OMC. Importantly, TCM doctors attach great importance to small talk, while patients perceive it with insufficient attention. To some extent, this study contributes to existing knowledge of small talk by examining its informative and interpersonal functions under the online circumstance of TCM in Oriental scenarios.