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Language and Food: Verbal and nonverbal experiences
Edited by Polly E. Szatrowski
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 238] 2014
► pp. 53–76

The structural organization of ordering and serving sushi

This paper explores the overall structural organization of dining activity by analyzing conversations videotaped in sushi restaurants in Japan. It illustrates that a single dining activity at a sushi restaurant has a structural organization that is composed of three phases: (1) an opening, (2) a continuing state of incipient ordering/ talk, and (3) a closing, which has a reference to the single overall unit of dining. These phases are constructed and delimited by conversational practices with bodily orientation through which dining parties demonstrate their orientation to the overall organization. This paper contributes to our understanding of people’s fine-tuned coordination through body and talk by utilizing projection and recognition of the other’s actions as a resource.

Published online: 10 January 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.238.03kur
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[no author supplied]
2015. Sensory Adjectives in the Discourse of Food [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 16], DOI logo

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