The normative order of sensing: enacting the tasting sheet in tasting training sessions
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Lorenza Mondada
Lorenza Mondada is professor of linguistics at the University of Basel. Her research deals with social interaction in ordinary, professional and institutional settings, within an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic perspective. Her specific focus is on video analysis and multimodality, integrating language and embodiment in the study of human action. She has published extensively in
Journal of Pragmatics, Discourse Studies, Language in Society, Research on Language and Social Interaction, Journal of Sociolinguistics and hasco-edited several books (for Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, Benjamins, Routledge), as well as developed her approach of sensoriality in the bookSensing in Social Interaction (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Abstract
Tasting sessions are a social activity in which the senses and the sensorial features of the tasted objects are the main focus of the participants, who do not only experience taste but also aim at precisely describing it. For doing that, they use pre-formatted tasting sheets and pre-existing standardized repertoires of descriptors. This paper investigates the relations between bodies and sensations, linguistic expressions and the normativity of lexical repertoires. While the literature has insisted on the sensorial lexicon of diverse languages and its specialization within expert domains, the very way in which the sensing body, language, and the normativity of standardized categories are precisely articulated in tasting practices remains understudied. Using an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic approach, this paper demonstrates how participants in training tasting sessions achieve practically, bodily and materially the association between the sample tasted, the sensing body and the use of lexical repertoires. Artefacts and tools like tasting sheets and lexical lists are situatedly mobilized in a way that enhances the senses but also socializes and standardizes them. On the basis of cheese tasting sessions video-recorded during training workshops of professional tasters in Italy and Italian-speaking Switzerland, the paper demonstrates how the normative order of sensing is achieved through the imbrication of the use of tasting sheets within the sensory examination of samples – thus showing how body, materiality, language, and artefacts are normatively constrained, practically managed and bodily aligned in the tasting session.
Award Identifier / Grant number: 100012_175969
About the author
Lorenza Mondada is professor of linguistics at the University of Basel. Her research deals with social interaction in ordinary, professional and institutional settings, within an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic perspective. Her specific focus is on video analysis and multimodality, integrating language and embodiment in the study of human action. She has published extensively in Journal of Pragmatics, Discourse Studies, Language in Society, Research on Language and Social Interaction, Journal of Sociolinguistics and hasco-edited several books (for Cambridge University Press, De Gruyter, Benjamins, Routledge), as well as developed her approach of sensoriality in the book Sensing in Social Interaction (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Appendix: Transcription conventions
Talk has been transcribed following Jefferson’s conventions (2004]) and embodiment following Mondada’s conventions (2018]).
A1: General features
Overview of basic transcript elements:
| RIC: | Speaker identification (pseudonym or category) |
| bea | Participant doing the embodied action (identified when (s)he is not the speaker; for the speaker, the embodied annotation is placed on the lines(s) immediately following the transcribed turn, without any identification in the margin) |
| ???: | Speaker identification unsure |
| => | Phenomena in focus are highlighted in various ways, |
| -> | with arrows in the left margin |
Organization of multi-linear transcripts:
The first line of the transcript is dedicated to the original language and presented in bold black.
The second line is dedicated to translation, and is presented in italics.
The third and following lines describe embodied conduct. They are in normal font.
A2: Conventions for transcribing talk
Talk is transcribed using the conventions developed by Gail Jefferson (2004).
| wo[rds ] | Onset and end of overlap (simultaneous talk), at the start of |
| [word]s | an utterance or later |
| word= | Latching (no intervening beat of silence) between TCUs or |
| =word | between turns by different speakers |
| (0.6) | Elapsed time (pause or silence); Length is timed relative to the delivery of the preceding talk or based on absolute measures. |
| (.) | Micro-pause (less than 0.2 s) |
| no:, no: | Lengthening/stretching of the sound before the colon |
| (: = 0.1 s) | |
| >word word< | Accelerando/rushed/compressed talk: increase in tempo relative to surrounding talk |
| <word word> | Rallentando/stretched-out talk: slowing down in tempo relative to surrounding talk |
| wo- word | Hyphens mark an abrupt ending through oral or glottal |
| ´ | cut-off (glottal closure) before a word is complete. |
| (word) | Transcriber’s uncertain hearing |
| (war)/(wer) | Transcriber’s alternative hearings |
| ( ) | Unintelligible stretch of talk |
| ((laughs)) | Description, not transcription: Additional transcriber comments and descriptions are provided in double parentheses. |
A3: Conventions for transcribing embodiment
Embodied actions are transcribed using the conventions developed by Lorenza Mondada (cf. Mondada 2018). For a full version (updated 2022) and a tutorial see: https://www.lorenzamondada.net/multimodal-transcription.
| * * | Descriptions of embodied actions are delimited |
| + + | between two identical symbols (one symbol per participant) and are synchronized with corresponding stretches of talk. |
| ∗---> | The action described continues across subsequent lines until |
| --->∗ | the same symbol is reached. |
| >> | The action described begins before the excerpt’s beginning. |
| --->> | The action described continues after the excerpt’s end. |
| .…. | Action’s preparation |
| ---- | Action’s full extension is reached and maintained. |
| ,„„ | Action’s retraction |
| fig | The exact moment at which a screen shot has been taken is |
| # | indicated with a specific sign showing its position within turn at talk and with a figure number on a separate line. |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Research Articles
- Genre-structural analysis of Arabic accident news reporting
- Marked Themes in academic writing: a comparative look at the sciences and humanities
- Automated football match reports as models of textuality
- The normative order of sensing: enacting the tasting sheet in tasting training sessions
- The influences of proficiency and gender on Uyghur-Mandarin children’s advice-giving
- Expanded and non-conforming answers in standardized survey interviews
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Editorial
- Research Articles
- Genre-structural analysis of Arabic accident news reporting
- Marked Themes in academic writing: a comparative look at the sciences and humanities
- Automated football match reports as models of textuality
- The normative order of sensing: enacting the tasting sheet in tasting training sessions
- The influences of proficiency and gender on Uyghur-Mandarin children’s advice-giving
- Expanded and non-conforming answers in standardized survey interviews
