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Talking about Food: The social and the global in eating communities
Edited by Sofia Rüdiger and Susanne Mühleisen
[IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society 47] 2020
► pp. 79–98

Chapter 5
Language in transnational communities of consumption

Indexical functions of English in Third Wave Coffee Culture

| Europa-Universität Viadrina

In this chapter, I discuss ethnographic and interview data on language ideologies regarding English in a transnational cultural setting that is based on the production and consumption of specialty coffee. In the terminology of the setting, the community is referred to as Third Wave Coffee Culture and the chapter introduces its history and cultural ideologies before analyzing language-related data from its localization in Berlin. Main results are that in this specific setting, English indexes belonging to the cultural community of Third Wave Coffee Culture, irrespective of the national background of speakers, which is tied to the construction of transnational (post-)class positioning. The study overall emphasizes the relevance of studying language use in communities based on consumption in late capitalism.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: English and coffee in Berlin
  • 2.Third Wave Coffee Culture: Literature review and ethnographic insight
  • 3.Language ideologies in Third Wave Coffee Culture
    • Customer interaction, naming and visual cues
    • Menu design
    • Meta-linguistic conversation: Discursive concepts related to English
    • English as transnational lingua franca
    • English as index for community affiliation
    • Normalization of English
    • English and discourses of cultural advance
    • English-German fusions in interviews
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 June 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.47.05sch
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