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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. 145–166

Chapter 8
Dinner for One

The use of language in eating shows on YouTube

| University of Bayreuth

In this chapter, I investigate discursive practices in eating shows, so-called Mukbang, on YouTube. Originally a South Korean phenomenon, the object of this study are the globalized, Anglophone, and asynchronous instantiations of these shows. Based on a corpus of English-language eating shows, I demonstrate how the Mukbang performers construct their discourse as a conversation over food which resembles but is also different from traditional face-to-face dinner/lunch conversations. In order to do so, the YouTubers draw on a range of linguistic strategies, such as imperatives, questions, terms of address and nicknames, pronouns, topical choices, and the characteristics of delayed interaction.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.YouTube and micro-celebrity
    • 2.1Eating shows
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.The discursive style of eating shows on YouTube
    • Imperatives
    • Questions
    • Terms of address
    • Pronouns
    • Topical choices
    • Delayed interaction
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 18 June 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.47.08rud
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