Linguistic strategies prompting interactions in recipes from Mandarin Chinese food blogs
-
Chi-hua Hsiao
Chi-hua Hsiao is a linguist with specialization in discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and computer-mediated communication. She is interested in the linguistic dimensions of social life and how human experience is constructed through talk and interaction. One of her research interests is how communicative norms and technological affordances of every virtual environment foster or restrain interactions in particular ways. She has published her works in
Pragmatics and Society, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Language Science , andJournal of Pragmatics . Address of correspondence: Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Tunghai University, No.1727, Sec.4, Taiwan Boulevard, Xitun District, Taichung 40704, Taiwan, Email: chsiao@thu.edu.tw
Abstract
This study investigates linguistic strategies used in recipes from Mandarin Chinese food blogs that prompt interactions between writers and readers. Using analytical concepts such as contextualization cues and frames to analyze 122 recipes collected from five popular food blogs in Taiwan, this study explicates two research questions. First, what linguistic strategies do writers frequently employ as contextualization cues to prompt interactions from readers? Second, how do these contextualization cues help readers choose frames when responding to writers? The findings show that writers of popular food blogs often adopt three linguistic strategies to engage readers’ discussions on recipes: narrative orientations, speech acts, and direct reported speech from family members. Three implications arise from interactions in the context of food blogs. First, writers usually adopt manifold contextualization cues to establish the frames of recipes intended by them. Second, the ways writers and readers use language to discuss food and create coherent discourses on food construct food blogs in Taiwan as an online community. Finally, recipes may reflect social phenomena, i.e. in Taiwan, more and more people, especially female caregivers in their families who are concerned about health, started to cook after serious breaches of food safety.
About the author
Chi-hua Hsiao is a linguist with specialization in discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and computer-mediated communication. She is interested in the linguistic dimensions of social life and how human experience is constructed through talk and interaction. One of her research interests is how communicative norms and technological affordances of every virtual environment foster or restrain interactions in particular ways. She has published her works in Pragmatics and Society, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Language Science, and Journal of Pragmatics. Address of correspondence: Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Tunghai University, No.1727, Sec.4, Taiwan Boulevard, Xitun District, Taichung 40704, Taiwan, Email: chsiao@thu.edu.tw
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Srikant Sarangi, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable suggestions which helped me to improve this work. Funding for this research was provided by Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [Grant Number MOST 106-2410-H-029-034]. Any mistakes and omissions are my own.
References
Austin, John. 1962. How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon.Search in Google Scholar
Baym, Nancy. 1998. The emergence of on-line community. In Steven Jones (ed.), Cybersociety 2.0: Revisiting computer-mediated communication and community, 35–68. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.10.4135/9781452243689.n2Search in Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana & Elite Olshtain. 1984. Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realization patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics 5. 198–212.10.1093/applin/5.3.196Search in Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1982. Integration and involvement in speaking, writing and oral literature. In Deborah Tannen (ed.), Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy, 35–53. New Jersey: Ablex.Search in Google Scholar
Chen, Mei-Fang. 2013. Consumers’ health and taste attitude in Taiwan: The impacts of modern tainted food worries and gender difference. British Food Journal 115(4). 526–540.10.1108/00070701311317829Search in Google Scholar
Cotter, Colleen. 1997. Claiming a piece of the pie: How the language of recipes defines community. In Anne Bower (ed.), Recipes for reading, 51–71. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press.Search in Google Scholar
Danet, Brenda, Lucia Ruedenberg-Wright & Yehudit Rosenbaum-Tamari. 1997. “Hmmm … Where’s that smoke coming from?”: Writing, play, and performance on Internet Relay Chat. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 2(4). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00195.x (accessed 15 November 2016)).10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00195.xSearch in Google Scholar
Diemer, Stefan, Marie-Louise Brunner & Selina Schmidt. 2014. “Like, pasta, pizza and stuff”—New trends in online food discourse. Cuizine: the Journal of Canadian Food Cultures 5(2). https://www.erudit.org/revue/cuizine/2014/v5/n2/1026769ar.html#no24 (accessed 29 October 2016)).10.7202/1026769arSearch in Google Scholar
Diemer, Stefan & Maximiliance Frobenius. 2013. When making pie, all ingredients must be chilled. Including you: Lexical, syntactic and interactive features in online discourse—A synchronic study of food blogs. In Cornelia Gerhardt, Maximiliane Frobenius & Susanne Ley (eds.), Culinary linguistics: The chef’s special, 53–82. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/clu.10.02dieSearch in Google Scholar
Fisher, Mary F. K. 1983. With bold knife and fork. New York: Paragon.Search in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1974. Frame analysis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1979. Footing. Semiotica 25. 1–29.10.1515/semi.1979.25.1-2.1Search in Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. 2007. Interactive footing. In Elizabeth Holt & Rebecca Clift (eds.), Reporting talk: Reported speech in interaction, 16–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Grice, Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech arts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gumperz, John. 1982. Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511611834Search in Google Scholar
Gumperz, John. 1992. Contextualization and understanding. In Alessandro Duranti & Charles Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon, 229–252. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gumperz, John. 2001. Interactional sociolinguistics: A personal perspective. In Deborah Tannen, Deborah Schiffrin & Heidi Hamilton (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis, 215–228. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9780470753460.ch12Search in Google Scholar
Herring, Susan C. 2001. Computer-mediated discourse. In Deborah Tannen, Deborah Schiffrin & Heidi Hamilton (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis, 612–634. Oxford: Blackwell.10.1002/9780470753460.ch32Search in Google Scholar
Herring, Susan C. 2004. Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online behavior. In Sasha A. Barab, Rob Kling & James H. Gray (eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning, 338–376. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511805080.016Search in Google Scholar
Kenix, Linda Jean. 2009. Blog as alternative. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14. 790–822.10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01471.xSearch in Google Scholar
Labov, William & Joshua Waletzky. 1967. Narrative analysis. In June Helm (ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts, 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lakoff, Robin. 2006. Identity à la carte: You are what you eat. In Anna De Fina, Deborah Schiffrin & Michael Bamberg (eds.), Discourse and identity, 142–165. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511584459.008Search in Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of pragmatics. London: Longman.Search in Google Scholar
Matwick, Keri & Kelsi Matwick. 2014. Storytelling and synthetic personalization in television cooking shows. Journal of Pragmatics 71. 151–159.10.1016/j.pragma.2014.08.005Search in Google Scholar
Norrick, Neal. 1983. Recipe as texts: Technical language in the kitchen. In E. Jongen et al. (ed.), Sprache, diskurs und text, 173–182. Tubingen: Niemeyer.10.1515/9783111351254.173Search in Google Scholar
Norrick, Neal. 2011. Conversational recipe telling. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 2740–2761.10.1016/j.pragma.2011.04.010Search in Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor & Lisa Capps. 2001. Living narratives. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1994. Approaches to discourse. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Search in Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1996. Interactional sociolinguistics. In Sandra McKay & Nancy Hornberger (eds.), Sociolinguistics and language teaching, 307–328. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511551185.014Search in Google Scholar
Searle, John. 1976. Speech acts. London: Syndics of the Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Stefanone, Michael & Chyng-Yang Jang. 2008. Writing for friends and family: The interpersonal nature of blogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13. 123–140.10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00389.xSearch in Google Scholar
Su, Hsi-Yao. 2003. The multilingual and multi-orthographic Taiwan-based internet: Creative uses of writing systems on college-affiliated Bbss. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2003.tb00357.x (accessed 8 May 2017).10.1111/j.1083-6101.2003.tb00357.xSearch in Google Scholar
Sutherland, Sean. 2016. A beginner’s guide to discourse analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-137-40289-9Search in Google Scholar
Vandergriff, Ilona. 2013. Emotive communication online: A contextual analysis of computer-mediated communication (CMC) cues. Journal of Pragmatics 51. 1–12.10.1016/j.pragma.2013.02.008Search in Google Scholar
Vásquez, Camilla. 2012. Narrativity and involvement in online consumer reviews: The case of TripAdvisor. Narrative Inquiry 22(1). 105–121.10.1075/ni.22.1.07vasSearch in Google Scholar
© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Announcement
- ‘You’ll need help from your adult assistant’: Readership accommodation in children’s recipes
- Being an ‘older parent’: Chrononormativity and practices of stage of life categorisation
- Linguistic strategies prompting interactions in recipes from Mandarin Chinese food blogs
- Sequential organization of hinting in online task-oriented L2 interaction
- A corpus-based study on the functions of antonym co-occurrences in spoken Chinese
- “May I tell you something?”: When questions do not anticipate responses
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Announcement
- ‘You’ll need help from your adult assistant’: Readership accommodation in children’s recipes
- Being an ‘older parent’: Chrononormativity and practices of stage of life categorisation
- Linguistic strategies prompting interactions in recipes from Mandarin Chinese food blogs
- Sequential organization of hinting in online task-oriented L2 interaction
- A corpus-based study on the functions of antonym co-occurrences in spoken Chinese
- “May I tell you something?”: When questions do not anticipate responses
