Call(s) for papers: IPrA 2023 Panels
Panel 1: "Storytelling about and over food"
IPrA 2023 Panel (June 9-14, 2023, Brussels BELGIUM)
We invite contributions for an IPrA panel on how storytelling is used to support assessments, categorize/identify food, and negotiate identities in spontaneous videotaped conversations about/over food. We welcome multimodal/conversation analytic/discursive analyses of storytelling (in a variety of languages) as a contextualized social and cognitive activity that contribute to the linguistics of food.
This panel focuses on how storytelling about/over food is used to support assessments, categorize/identify food, and negotiate identities. According to Lakoff (2006:143, 165) “[w]hat we can and cannot eat, what kinds of edibles carry prestige, how much we are expected to know about what we eat … are aspects of individual and group identity” and “‘minor identities’ like culinary preferences and sophistication contribute significantly to our sense of ourselves”. However, if identity is viewed as discursively constructed meanings constituted by the interactive performance of a multi-faceted dynamic mix of identities (Butler 2004, Bamberg, De Fina & Schiffrin 2012, Brunner 2021), these “identities are not created by the food that they eat per se. Rather, … [they] are established, shaped and shared through the talk about food” (Koike 2014:182) and used to negotiate interpersonal relationships (Karatsu 2012).
Interaction over food prompts frequent multimodal storytelling using the food as a joint locus of attention. Building on research on storytelling in interaction (Sacks 1992, Labov 1973, Jefferson 1978, C. Goodwin 1984, Maynard 1987, M. Goodwin 1990, Norrick 2000, Szatrowski 2010, Karatsu 2012), the panelists investigate:
The data come from focus groups on food in English and conversations during Taster Lunches in English, Japanese, and German. In English focus groups participants use stories to soften their negative stances by positioning themselves as “others”, create distance and avoid taking responsibility for food evaluations. In German Taster Lunches, food is used as a starting point for stories that anchor speakers’ evaluation and establish their (non-)expertise. Storytelling expresses individual/joint stance(s), showcases identit(ies), and can place food in a personal, historical, or fictional setting and express humor. Stories in English and Japanese Taster Lunches relate to the appearance, taste, smell, shape of the food, use of eating utensils, eating order, etc., while others are triggered by an amusing association with something in the meal/conversation. The stories often refer to aspects that are important in participants’ culture/social groups (Bourdieu 1984, Ochs & Shohet 2006). Stories about past food experiences support food evaluation. Congruent responses and second stories confirm evaluations and create shared identities, while stories that support differing evaluations lead to varying identities.
Results contribute to the growing body of research on multimodal stories told in interaction by elucidating how stories related to food and eating are triggered and developed in interaction through language, the body, and the food, and are employed to negotiate individual/group identities and interpersonal relationships. They also contribute to cross-cultural understanding, food development and marketing.
Accepted Presentations:
Stancetaking as storytelling in focus groups on food
Jon Coltz (Saarland University, Germany)
Food and storytelling in German Taster Lunches
Stefan Diemer & Marie-Louise Brunner (Trier University of Applied Sciences, Germany)
Storytelling about/over food in Japanese and English Taster Lunches
Polly Szatrowski (University of Minnesota, USA)
DEADLINES: Please send abstracts (500 words not including references) with references to Polly Szatrowski <szatr001@umn.edu> by October 1, 2022. We will review your abstract prior to the deadline for you to make a panel selection and submit your final abstract via the IPrA website (https://ipra2023.exordo.com/) on November 1, 2022. Information on the final submission process is available at http://pragmatics.international/page/CfP
Panel 2: "Dude food and chick beer: Linguistic and semiotic perspectives on nutrition as a gendered cultural practice"
IPrA 2023 Panel (June 9-14, 2023, Brussels BELGIUM)
Theresa Heyd (University of Greifswald)
Sofia Rüdiger (University of Bayreuth)
Janina Wildfeuer (University of Groningen)
Kristina Bedijs (Studienzentrum der EKD für Genderfragen)
Food and drink, and consumption more generally, is deeply linked to cultural practice, and to the negotiation of social status and other aspects of social identities. This connection is entrenched in classical sociological theory (Veblen; Bourdieu), and has been increasingly explored in linguistics in recent years. Thus linguistic approaches to food practices (Rüdiger and Mühleisen 2020; Tovares and Gordon 2020) have highlighted how social status and categories of belonging are talked into being around practices of food and drink consumption (e.g. Silverstein 2003 on wine talk and status anxiety; Cotter and Valentinsson 2018 on bivalent class indexing in specialty coffee discourse; Mapes 2020 on palatable eliteness; Schneider 2020 on third wave coffee and cosmopolitan discourse).
However, the gendered dimension of food and drink talk has so far received less attention. In cultural and social theory, approaches such as Contois’ (2018, 2020, 2021) work on food and masculinity have pointed to these connections: ideologies of gender are cast upon practices of eating and drinking, from gendered product ranges and eating places to gendered assumptions and regimes of un/healthy eating, dieting and cooking (see also Bouvier & Chen 2021).
In a similar vein, foodie culture and practices have been shown to perpetuate the performance of stereotypical, classed femininities and masculinities, while also allowing an escape from them, particularly for women (Cairns, Johnston and Baumann 2010). Dichotomous gendered eating practices have also been observed in the context of fitness magazines (Fuller, Briggs and Dillon-Sumner 2012). In addition, cookbooks authored by female chefs emphasize aspects of hegemonic femininity such as care for self and others, while concurrently offering competing discourses of self-fulfillment and independence (Matwick 2017).
In this panel, we aim to gather further perspectives on the nexus between gender and food-and-drinks talk. We are particularly interested in discursive, multimodal, material and embodied ways of doing gendered food talk: How are products made, packaged, marketed and sold? How are eating and drinking spaces discursively styled towards gender binaries? How are gendered characterological figures inscribed into cooking and eating practices? What linguistic and semiotic repertoires are used to construct male and female bodies in the context of eating and drinking? How are gendered food identities of the self discursively constructed and how do these emerge in interactions? These and related questions are the scope of our panel.
We invite all contributions targeting linguistic theory and practice of gendered food and drinks talk. In particular, we welcome contributions addressing pragmatic and discursive, sociolinguistic and multimodal aspects of gender and consumption.
Abstracts (min. 250 and max. 500 words) should be submitted via the IPrA conference website (https://ipra2023.exordo.com/) until 1 November 2022. The submission system will allow you to make a panel selection. More information on the submission process can be found at https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP.
Panel 1: "Storytelling about and over food"
IPrA 2023 Panel (June 9-14, 2023, Brussels BELGIUM)
We invite contributions for an IPrA panel on how storytelling is used to support assessments, categorize/identify food, and negotiate identities in spontaneous videotaped conversations about/over food. We welcome multimodal/conversation analytic/discursive analyses of storytelling (in a variety of languages) as a contextualized social and cognitive activity that contribute to the linguistics of food.
This panel focuses on how storytelling about/over food is used to support assessments, categorize/identify food, and negotiate identities. According to Lakoff (2006:143, 165) “[w]hat we can and cannot eat, what kinds of edibles carry prestige, how much we are expected to know about what we eat … are aspects of individual and group identity” and “‘minor identities’ like culinary preferences and sophistication contribute significantly to our sense of ourselves”. However, if identity is viewed as discursively constructed meanings constituted by the interactive performance of a multi-faceted dynamic mix of identities (Butler 2004, Bamberg, De Fina & Schiffrin 2012, Brunner 2021), these “identities are not created by the food that they eat per se. Rather, … [they] are established, shaped and shared through the talk about food” (Koike 2014:182) and used to negotiate interpersonal relationships (Karatsu 2012).
Interaction over food prompts frequent multimodal storytelling using the food as a joint locus of attention. Building on research on storytelling in interaction (Sacks 1992, Labov 1973, Jefferson 1978, C. Goodwin 1984, Maynard 1987, M. Goodwin 1990, Norrick 2000, Szatrowski 2010, Karatsu 2012), the panelists investigate:
- What kinds of stories about/over food are told by whom?
- What triggers the stories in the interaction?
- How do stories influence the assessment and categorization of food?
- How are the stories contextualized and used to establish, share, and shape identities?
The data come from focus groups on food in English and conversations during Taster Lunches in English, Japanese, and German. In English focus groups participants use stories to soften their negative stances by positioning themselves as “others”, create distance and avoid taking responsibility for food evaluations. In German Taster Lunches, food is used as a starting point for stories that anchor speakers’ evaluation and establish their (non-)expertise. Storytelling expresses individual/joint stance(s), showcases identit(ies), and can place food in a personal, historical, or fictional setting and express humor. Stories in English and Japanese Taster Lunches relate to the appearance, taste, smell, shape of the food, use of eating utensils, eating order, etc., while others are triggered by an amusing association with something in the meal/conversation. The stories often refer to aspects that are important in participants’ culture/social groups (Bourdieu 1984, Ochs & Shohet 2006). Stories about past food experiences support food evaluation. Congruent responses and second stories confirm evaluations and create shared identities, while stories that support differing evaluations lead to varying identities.
Results contribute to the growing body of research on multimodal stories told in interaction by elucidating how stories related to food and eating are triggered and developed in interaction through language, the body, and the food, and are employed to negotiate individual/group identities and interpersonal relationships. They also contribute to cross-cultural understanding, food development and marketing.
Accepted Presentations:
Stancetaking as storytelling in focus groups on food
Jon Coltz (Saarland University, Germany)
Food and storytelling in German Taster Lunches
Stefan Diemer & Marie-Louise Brunner (Trier University of Applied Sciences, Germany)
Storytelling about/over food in Japanese and English Taster Lunches
Polly Szatrowski (University of Minnesota, USA)
DEADLINES: Please send abstracts (500 words not including references) with references to Polly Szatrowski <szatr001@umn.edu> by October 1, 2022. We will review your abstract prior to the deadline for you to make a panel selection and submit your final abstract via the IPrA website (https://ipra2023.exordo.com/) on November 1, 2022. Information on the final submission process is available at http://pragmatics.international/page/CfP
Panel 2: "Dude food and chick beer: Linguistic and semiotic perspectives on nutrition as a gendered cultural practice"
IPrA 2023 Panel (June 9-14, 2023, Brussels BELGIUM)
Theresa Heyd (University of Greifswald)
Sofia Rüdiger (University of Bayreuth)
Janina Wildfeuer (University of Groningen)
Kristina Bedijs (Studienzentrum der EKD für Genderfragen)
Food and drink, and consumption more generally, is deeply linked to cultural practice, and to the negotiation of social status and other aspects of social identities. This connection is entrenched in classical sociological theory (Veblen; Bourdieu), and has been increasingly explored in linguistics in recent years. Thus linguistic approaches to food practices (Rüdiger and Mühleisen 2020; Tovares and Gordon 2020) have highlighted how social status and categories of belonging are talked into being around practices of food and drink consumption (e.g. Silverstein 2003 on wine talk and status anxiety; Cotter and Valentinsson 2018 on bivalent class indexing in specialty coffee discourse; Mapes 2020 on palatable eliteness; Schneider 2020 on third wave coffee and cosmopolitan discourse).
However, the gendered dimension of food and drink talk has so far received less attention. In cultural and social theory, approaches such as Contois’ (2018, 2020, 2021) work on food and masculinity have pointed to these connections: ideologies of gender are cast upon practices of eating and drinking, from gendered product ranges and eating places to gendered assumptions and regimes of un/healthy eating, dieting and cooking (see also Bouvier & Chen 2021).
In a similar vein, foodie culture and practices have been shown to perpetuate the performance of stereotypical, classed femininities and masculinities, while also allowing an escape from them, particularly for women (Cairns, Johnston and Baumann 2010). Dichotomous gendered eating practices have also been observed in the context of fitness magazines (Fuller, Briggs and Dillon-Sumner 2012). In addition, cookbooks authored by female chefs emphasize aspects of hegemonic femininity such as care for self and others, while concurrently offering competing discourses of self-fulfillment and independence (Matwick 2017).
In this panel, we aim to gather further perspectives on the nexus between gender and food-and-drinks talk. We are particularly interested in discursive, multimodal, material and embodied ways of doing gendered food talk: How are products made, packaged, marketed and sold? How are eating and drinking spaces discursively styled towards gender binaries? How are gendered characterological figures inscribed into cooking and eating practices? What linguistic and semiotic repertoires are used to construct male and female bodies in the context of eating and drinking? How are gendered food identities of the self discursively constructed and how do these emerge in interactions? These and related questions are the scope of our panel.
We invite all contributions targeting linguistic theory and practice of gendered food and drinks talk. In particular, we welcome contributions addressing pragmatic and discursive, sociolinguistic and multimodal aspects of gender and consumption.
Abstracts (min. 250 and max. 500 words) should be submitted via the IPrA conference website (https://ipra2023.exordo.com/) until 1 November 2022. The submission system will allow you to make a panel selection. More information on the submission process can be found at https://pragmatics.international/page/CfP.