Chapter published in:
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. 189–208

Chapter 10
Formality and informality in cooking shows

Paula Deen and the development of a genre

| University of Bayreuth

Televised cooking shows have emerged as a genre with an established format in the entertainment industry. This chapter will look at cooking shows as a communicative event with a predictable sequence of acts and a set overt (instruction) and covert (entertainment) goal. This highly focussed and potentially formal communicative event (Irvine 1979) typically relies on strategies of informality, that by now have become a convention of the genre, in order to distract from its directive ‘lesson’ character. In a comparison of several cooking shows by US Southern celebrity chef Paula Deen, I will pay attention to changes in conventions of formality and informality which can be observed over time. Particular emphasis will also be placed on the linguistic features which are indexical to Paula Deen’s US Southern persona.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Food voyeurs or watching what we cook and eat
  • 2.From recipe to cooking show: Development and diversification in food preparation genres
  • 3.Performing the recipe: The establishment of the cooking show as a communicative event
  • 4.Changing patterns of formality and informality in cooking shows as communicative events
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 June 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.47.10muh
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