Cover not available
Part of
Text and Wine: Approaches from terminology and translation
Edited by M. del Carmen Balbuena Torezano and Manuela Álvarez Jurado
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 38] 2023
► pp. 113–130

Non-expert wine discourse interpretation

A pragmatic approach

ORCID logo | University of Cádiz
Analyses of how wine experts use language to describe wine experience abound in academic works from different perspectives. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the processes underlying wine discourse interpretation by general consumers, a large segment of the wine community that often lacks essential specific lexical and conceptual knowledge of the field. In this paper a proposal is built about how non-expert wine discourse interpretation develops. Based on Relevance theory together with a close analysis non-expert preferences and the specific design of the linguistic stimuli, we construct a hypothesis about the inferential nature of wine discourse interpretation and the lines along which this process could develop.
Keywords: wine discourse, wine review, non-expert consumers, Relevance theory, interpretation, inference
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The role of consumer knowledge in understanding wine discourse
  • 3.The rhetorical organisation of wine reviews
  • 4.Non-experts and wine review interpretation: An inferential relevance-based approach
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 November 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.38.09mer
References (24)
References
Alba, J. W. & Hutchinson, J. W. (1987). Dimensions of consumer expertise. Journal of Consumer Research, 13, 411–454. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, J. R. (1983). The architecture of cognition. Cambridge. MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ballester, J., Patris. B., Symoneaux, R. & Valentin, D. (2008). Conceptual vs. perceptual wine spaces: Does expertise matter? Food Quality and Preference, 19, 267–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caballero, R. & Suárez-Toste, E. (2008). Translating the senses: Teaching the metaphors in winespeak. In F. Boers & S. Lindstromberg (Eds.), Cognitive linguistic approaches to teaching vocabulary and phraseology (pp. 241–259). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2010). A genre approach to imagery in winespeak. In G. Low, Z. Todd, A. Deignan & L. Cameron (Eds.), Researching and applying metaphor in the real world (pp. 265–287). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caballero, R., Suárez-Toste, E., & Paradis, C. (2019). Representing wine. Sensory perceptions, communication and cultures. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carston, R. (2015). Lexical pragmatics, ‘ad hoc’ concepts and metaphor. A Relevance Theory perspective. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 22(1), 153–180.Google Scholar
Goodman, S., Lockshin, L., Cohen, E. & Fensterseifer, J. (2008, July). International comparison of consumer choice for wine: a twelve country comparison. Paper presented at the 4th International Conference of the Academy of Wine Business Research, Siena, Italy. Retrieved from [URL]Google Scholar
Latour, K. A., Kathryn, A. & Deighton, J. A. (2019). Learning to become a taste expert. The Journal of Consumer Research, 46(1), 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lehrer, A. (2009). Wine and conversation (2nd ed.). Oxford: O.U.P. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lockshin, L. & Corsib, A. (2012). Consumer behaviour for wine 2.0.: A review since 2003 and future directions. Wine Economics and Policy, 1, 2–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marks, L. J. & Olson, J. C. (1981). Toward a Cognitive Structure Conceptualization of Product Familiarity. In B. Monroe & A. Arbor (Eds.), Advances in consumer research 8 (pp. 145–150). MI: Association for Consumer Research.Google Scholar
Noya Gallardo, C. (2018). Wine blog texts: Syntactic relationships between clauses from the Systemic Functional perspective. In M. M. Rivas Carmona & A. Veroz González (Eds.), Agroalimentación: Lenguajes de especialidad y traducción (pp. 89–110). Granada: Comares.Google Scholar
Paradis, C. & Eeg-Olofsson, M. (2013). Describing the sensory experience. Metaphor and Symbol, 28, 22–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shesgreen, S. (2003). Wet dogs and gushing oranges: Winespeak for a new millennium. Chronicle of Higher Education, 46(26), B15.Google Scholar
Smith, E. R. (1984). Model of Social Inference Processes. Psychological Review, 91, 392–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, E. E. & Medin, D. L. (1981). Categories and concepts. Cambridge: MA Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Solomon, G. (1997). Conceptual change and wine expertise. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(1), 41–60. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. & D. Wilson (1995). Relevance. Communication and cognition (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Vigar-Ellis, D., Pitt, L., & Berthon, P. (2015). Knowing what they know: A managerial perspective on consumer knowledge. Business Horizons, 58, 679–685. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. & Carston, R. (2007). A unitary approach to lexical pragmatics: Relevance, inference and ad hoc concepts. In N. Burton-Roberts (Ed.). Advances in pragmatics (pp. 230–259). London: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (2006). Relevance theory. In L. Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics (pp. 607–632). Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wislocka Breit, B. (2013). The wine tasting sheet as a linguistic genre and its appraisal theory based analysis. RaeL Revista Electronica de Linguistica Aplicada, 1, 71–90.Google Scholar
Woldarsky, V. (2019) Tapping into the emotions of the wine consumer through storytelling: A case study. BIO Web of Conferences, 15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar