2.1Organization

Japanese commercial recipes share the following structural properties: (1) the dish name, (2) a photo of the finished product, (3) a list of ingredients under the heading zairyoo ‘ingredients,’ and (4) cooking instruction in numbered steps, generally under the heading tsukurikata ‘directions’ (lit. ‘how to make’). The name and the photo provide a quick reference to the essential information about the dish. The spatial division between the ingredient list and step-by-step procedures (i.e., bipartite structure, Norrick 1983Norrick, Neal R. 1983 “Recipes as Texts: Technical Language in the Kitchen.” In Sprache, Diskurs und Text, Akten des 17. Linguistischen Kolloquiums, Brüssel, 1982, eds. by René Jongen et al., 173–182. Tübingen: Niemeyer. ; Cotter 1997Cotter, Colleen 1997 “Claiming a Piece of Pie: How the Language of Recipes Defines Community.” In Recipes for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories, ed. by Anne L. Bower, 51–72. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.) as well as the use of headings make it clear where to find specific information. The use of numbers, in place of conjunctive expressions (e.g., sono ato ‘after that’) and demonstratives (e.g., kore ‘this (one)’), removes the need to carefully follow the sentences for comprehension and helps readers avoid losing their place while glancing at the steps. Together, the common organizational features of commercial recipes contribute to the visual clarity of the text and aid quick access to necessary information.

2.2Vocabulary

Not surprisingly, recipes contain cooking terminology and specialized words related to food and food preparation. Although these words are not register markers per se, as they also appear in other registers such as cooking shows, their topic-specific status is confirmed with the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ).22.Online search site available at: http://​www​.kotonoha​.gr​.jp​/shonagon/ Besides the individual names of ingredients and condiments, cooking tools, and measuring words, specialized words found in commercial recipes can be categorized into three types: (1) nominal and verbal compounds, (2) onomatopoeia, and (3) idiomatic/fixed phrases. Below are some typical examples of each type.

Even though the recipes analyzed in the aforementioned studies are addressed to the general public, many cookbooks and other recipe sources targeted for adults assume the background knowledge of the readers and do not explain these specialized terms (see Diemer and Frobenius 2013Diemer, Stefan, and Maximilian Frobenius 2013 “When Making Pie, All Ingredients Must Be Chilled. Including You. Lexical, Syntactic and Interactive Features in Online Discourse – a Synchronic Study of Food Blogs.” In Culinary Linguistics. The Chef’s Special, eds. by Cornelia Gerhardt, Maximilian Frobenius, and Suzanne Ley, 53–81. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. for the similar tendency in English recipes; cf. Norrick 1983Norrick, Neal R. 1983 “Recipes as Texts: Technical Language in the Kitchen.” In Sprache, Diskurs und Text, Akten des 17. Linguistischen Kolloquiums, Brüssel, 1982, eds. by René Jongen et al., 173–182. Tübingen: Niemeyer. ). Akiyama (2002)Akiyama, Madoka 2002 “Shoku o meguru hyōgen: Resipi no bunshō/buntai ni tsuite [Expressions concerning food: Texts and styles of recipes].” Kokugo Kenkyū 65: 36–46. reports the result of a survey conducted by Kawamata (1975)Kawamata, Ruriko 1975 “ 100-nin no ryōuri yōgo chōsa [Cooking terminology survey of 100 people].” Gengo Seikatsu 286: 58–63. that only 60 percent of the adult study participants understood the meaning of commonly-used cooking terminology such as sen-giri ‘julienne strips’ and mijin-giri ‘mincing.’ The compounds and onomatopoeia both succinctly convey meaning and contribute to the conciseness of the recipe text. The onomatopoeia used predominantly in the context of cooking are related to visual perception. This contrasts with the use of onomatopoeia for describing food texture in the context of having a meal together (see Szatrowski 2011Szatrowski, Polly 2011 “ Shishokukai no gengo/higengo kōdō ni tsuite – 30-sai miman no josei gurūpu o chūshin ni [Verbal and nonverbal behavior in a taster lunch – focusing on a group of women under 30].” Hikaku Nihongogaku kyōiku kenkyū sentā kenkyū nenpō 7: 281–292.). Most of the phrases in the third category are not idioms in that the meaning of the whole is predictable from its parts. Nonetheless, the sequences of the words are fixed both lexically and in their order (e.g., shio koshou ‘salt and pepper’ is a commonly used phrase, but satou shouyu ‘sugar and soy sauce’ or koshou shio ‘pepper and salt’ are not).

Many of the expressions across the three categories have relative meaning; for example, meaning of yowa-bi ‘low heat’ in (1), karit-to ‘crisply’ in (2), and tabe-yasui ookisa ‘easy-to-eat size’ in (3) all depend, not on some absolute value, but on personal judgments based on individual readers’ experience and preferences. At first glance, commercial recipes may seem objective and impersonal, but the cooking instructions also rely on subjective interpretation (see Norrick 1983Norrick, Neal R. 1983 “Recipes as Texts: Technical Language in the Kitchen.” In Sprache, Diskurs und Text, Akten des 17. Linguistischen Kolloquiums, Brüssel, 1982, eds. by René Jongen et al., 173–182. Tübingen: Niemeyer. ; Cotter 1997Cotter, Colleen 1997 “Claiming a Piece of Pie: How the Language of Recipes Defines Community.” In Recipes for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories, ed. by Anne L. Bower, 51–72. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.; and Fischer 2013Fischer, Kerstin 2013 “The Addressee in the Recipe: How Julia Child Gets to Join You in the Kitchen.” In Culinary Linguistics: The Chef’s Special, eds. by Cornelia Gerhardt, Maximilian Frobenius, and Suzanne Ley, 103–117. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. for similar points about English recipes).

2.3Grammar

Similar to other how-to texts, recipe texts contain unexpressed generic human agents, who are supposedly following the procedural instructions. In recipes, discourse develops around actions performed on ingredients. Sentences are rather short but usually consist of multiple short clauses (average of three clauses per sentence). This paper focuses on two grammatical aspects that characterize recipe texts: verb morphology (Moriya 1993Moriya, Michiyo 1993 “Tetsuzukiteki chishiki no bunshō – ryōribun – no shisasuru mono [Implications of procedural knowledge texts – recipes].” Kōza Nihongo Kyōiku 28: 114–130.; Akiyama 2002Akiyama, Madoka 2002 “Shoku o meguru hyōgen: Resipi no bunshō/buntai ni tsuite [Expressions concerning food: Texts and styles of recipes].” Kokugo Kenkyū 65: 36–46.; Strauss et al. 2018Strauss, Susan, Heesun Chang, and Yumi Matsumoto 2018 “Genre and the Cultural Realms of Taste in Japanese, Korean, and U.S. Online Recipes.” In Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on Grammar, Interaction and Culture, eds. by Mutsuko Endo Hudson, Yumi Matsumoto, and Junko Mori, 219–243. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ; Kaneyasu and Kuhara, forthcomingKaneyasu, Michiko, and Minako Kuhara Regularity and Variation in Japanese Recipes: A Comparative Analysis of Cookbook, Online, and User-generated Sub-registers.” Register Studies (forthcoming).) and the topic/contrastive particle wa (Aoyama 1987Aoyama, Fumihiro 1987 “ Ryōri no bunshō ni okeru teidaika no yakuwari [The role of topicalization in recipe texts].” In Keiryō kokugogaku to Nihongo shori: riron to ōyō, 258–303. Tokyo: Akiyama Shoten.; Moriya 1993Moriya, Michiyo 1993 “Tetsuzukiteki chishiki no bunshō – ryōribun – no shisasuru mono [Implications of procedural knowledge texts – recipes].” Kōza Nihongo Kyōiku 28: 114–130.; Naganuma 2006Naganuma, Mikako 2006 “Honyaku ni okeru ‘meishika’ to iu bunpōteki hiyu [Grammatical metaphor of nominalization in translation].” Interpretation Studies 6: 15–28.; Kaneyasu and Kuhara, forthcomingKaneyasu, Michiko, and Minako Kuhara Regularity and Variation in Japanese Recipes: A Comparative Analysis of Cookbook, Online, and User-generated Sub-registers.” Register Studies (forthcoming).).

A majority of verbs in recipes are lexically transitive or used transitively with the causative suffix (s)ase (e.g., futtou-sase-ru ‘make (water) boil’). Sentence finally, most recipes consistently use the plain form of the verbs, though some cookbooks consistently use the polite form. The consistent use of plain forms with no overt subject is comparable to that of imperative forms in English recipes; both forms are agency- and time-neutral in the context of recipe texts (see Wharton 2010Wharton, Tim 2010 “Recipes: Beyond the Words.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 10 (4): 67–73. for the use of imperatives in English recipes). At the sentence-medial position, verbs frequently end in one of the two continuative forms available in the language: a verb suffix te (e.g., kit-te ‘cut’) or a verb suffix i/e (e.g., kir-i ‘cut’). The choice between the two clause-linking forms is related to the relative degree of discontinuity or disintegration between the two situations described in the te or i/e ending clause and the immediately subsequent clause within the local context (Ono 1990Ono, Tsuyoshi 1990 “ Te, I, and Ru Clauses in Japanese Recipes: A Quantitative Study.” Studies in Language 14 (1): 73–92. ). The degree of disintegration is measured in regard to (1) the number of new participants (ingredients, condiments, or tools) in the second clause, (2) temporal (dis)continuity between the two clauses (simultaneous, immediate, lapse), (3) change of place, and (4) whether or not the comma punctuation (、) appears between the first and the second clause. In the Example (4) below, the te clause (katakuri-ko o mabushita kajiki o tsuyo-bi de yai-te ‘fry the starch-coated marlin over high heat’) has no new participant in the subsequent clause (hi o tousu ‘cook’), has a simultaneous temporal relationship with the subsequent clause (frying and cooking occur simultaneously), has no change of place, and no comma is used. The i/e clause (abura o nessh-i, ‘heat oil’), in contrast, has one new participant in the subsequent clause (katakuri-ko o mabushita kajiki o tsuyo-bi de yai-te ‘fry the starch-coated marlin over high heat’), has an immediate temporal relationship with the subsequent clause, has no change of place, and a comma is used.

In commercial recipes, the i/e form is associated with a higher degree of discontinuity than the te form, especially with respect to the number of newly mentioned participants in the subsequent clause and the prevalent use of a comma after the i/e clause (Ono 1990Ono, Tsuyoshi 1990 “ Te, I, and Ru Clauses in Japanese Recipes: A Quantitative Study.” Studies in Language 14 (1): 73–92. ; Kaneyasu and Kuhara, forthcomingKaneyasu, Michiko, and Minako Kuhara Regularity and Variation in Japanese Recipes: A Comparative Analysis of Cookbook, Online, and User-generated Sub-registers.” Register Studies (forthcoming).). Although the functional division between the te form and the i/e form followed by a comma in the medial position is a tendency and not an absolute pattern, the systematic use of the two forms contributes to the faster processing and comprehension of the procedural text.

The second characteristic grammar of commercial recipes is the use of the topic/contrastive particle wa in the preparation stage of the cooking procedures. When ingredients require preparation, such as washing, peeling, and cutting, before they can be combined with other ingredients, the ingredients that need preparation are typically marked with the particle wa, as in the following Example (5).

The particle wa is only used in preparation steps; when the same ingredients are subsequently mentioned again, they are no longer marked with wa. In the next Example (6), tofu is marked with wa in the initial preparation step, but in its second mention, it is marked with the object particle o.

The exclusive use of wa for marking ingredients under preparation steps is pervasive and consistent in commercial recipes (Aoyama 1987Aoyama, Fumihiro 1987 “ Ryōri no bunshō ni okeru teidaika no yakuwari [The role of topicalization in recipe texts].” In Keiryō kokugogaku to Nihongo shori: riron to ōyō, 258–303. Tokyo: Akiyama Shoten.; Moriya 1993Moriya, Michiyo 1993 “Tetsuzukiteki chishiki no bunshō – ryōribun – no shisasuru mono [Implications of procedural knowledge texts – recipes].” Kōza Nihongo Kyōiku 28: 114–130.). As reported in Kaneyasu and Kuhara (forthcoming)Kaneyasu, Michiko, and Minako Kuhara Regularity and Variation in Japanese Recipes: A Comparative Analysis of Cookbook, Online, and User-generated Sub-registers.” Register Studies (forthcoming)., the particle wa functions as “a cohesive device between locally contrasting elements” (Clancy and Downing 1987Clancy, Patricia M., and Pamela A. Downing 1987 “The Use of Wa as a Cohesion Marker in Japanese Oral Narratives.” In Perspectives on Topicalization: The Case of Japanese Wa, eds. by John Hinds, Shōichi Iwasaki and Senko K. Maynard, 3–56. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 49), where contrasting elements are various ingredients that make up a dish. The use of wa also helps to visually distinguish the preparation steps from the rest of the processes, especially when the preparation stage is dispersed across several numbered steps. Thus, it functionally resembles other organizational and grammatical features: sorting out different types of information, and in turn enhancing visual clarity of the text and supporting quick access to particular information.

In this section, we have identified some of the most typical features of commercial recipes. While organizational and grammatical features are confined to the written recipe register, the specialized vocabulary identified in this section can appear in other food-related registers, both spoken (e.g., cooking shows) and written (e.g., blogs). We will see in Section 4 that only some of these features typically appear in the recipes written by lay native speakers in our writing experiment. Before we present and discuss the findings, the next section describes the data collection method and provides a rationale for the chosen approach.

4.1Organization

At the discourse level, most participants organized their texts based on the procedural nature of the writing task. Half of them (15/30) used a listing format with numbered steps (Example (9)). Close to one-third (9/30) used a passage style, with sentence-initial adverbials such as mazu ‘first,’ sono ato ‘after that,’ and saigo-ni ‘lastly’ (Example (10)).33.The rest used bullet points (3/10) or sentences without any connective expressions (3/30). Most texts with numbered steps did not include any sentence-initial adverbials (13/15), which suggests that the writers of these texts had the functional knowledge of numbered steps in the recipe or how-to texts.

The choice between the listing and the passage formats reflects, to some degree, the participants’ understanding of what the writing task entailed. In the post-task survey (Q1), those who used the passage structure commented that they just thought about the process of making the dish or how to (best) describe the process to someone. Those who used the listing format, on the other hand, commented that they thought about the format or the type of language to use (i.e., list vs. passage). In other words, they gave more thought to the format of their texts rather than the content of their writing alone. Thus, it is not the task (of writing a recipe) itself that determines how participants organize their texts but rather it is their interpretation of the purpose and requirements of a given situation that determines what they attend to and how they use language to meet the perceived needs (see Fischer 2015Fischer, Kerstin 2015 “Situation in Grammar or in Frames? Evidence from the So-called Baby Talk Register.” Constructions and Frames 7 (2): 258–288. ). The passage and listing formats found in the participants’ texts correspond to the two styles (i.e., narrative-like passage and the recipe proper) used in single online food blogs (Diemer and Frobenius 2013Diemer, Stefan, and Maximilian Frobenius 2013 “When Making Pie, All Ingredients Must Be Chilled. Including You. Lexical, Syntactic and Interactive Features in Online Discourse – a Synchronic Study of Food Blogs.” In Culinary Linguistics. The Chef’s Special, eds. by Cornelia Gerhardt, Maximilian Frobenius, and Suzanne Ley, 53–81. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ). Bloggers use the two styles to communicate the same cooking steps twice because each part performs a distinct function; the passage style is more reader-directed and personal while the recipe proper is focused on actions and impersonal, like traditional written recipes (Diemer and Frobenius 2013Diemer, Stefan, and Maximilian Frobenius 2013 “When Making Pie, All Ingredients Must Be Chilled. Including You. Lexical, Syntactic and Interactive Features in Online Discourse – a Synchronic Study of Food Blogs.” In Culinary Linguistics. The Chef’s Special, eds. by Cornelia Gerhardt, Maximilian Frobenius, and Suzanne Ley, 53–81. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ).

Another organizational feature of commercial recipes, the list of ingredients, was used by a smaller number of participants. Seven texts included the ingredient list with the heading zairyou ‘ingredients,’ six of which were those with the numbered steps.44.3 texts introduced the ingredients in sentences rather than a list. Together, 20% (6/30) of the texts resembled the bipartite structure of commercial recipes.

4.2Vocabulary

Cooking terminology and specialized vocabulary, including those listed in Section 2.2, were used by all but one participant. The most frequently used words and expressions are listed under (11). There are two notable lexical differences between the commercial recipes and the texts produced in the present experiment. First, while verbal compounds are frequently used in commercial recipes, the participants in the present study overwhelmingly used single verbs, except for more lexicalized ones such as ni-komu ‘simmer well’ and ni-tatsu ‘come to a boil.’ This is partly because the assigned dishes in the present study did not require the type of actions that are usually expressed using compound verbs in commercial recipes (e.g., maze-awaseru ‘mix together,’ mawashi-ireru ‘put in in a circular motion’). Another possibility is that these compounds are not part of the productive knowledge of the participants, although they can most likely understand them receptively.

The second difference is that many participants (83.3%; 25/30) wrote dekiagari (17/25) or kansei (8/25) ‘voila’ (lit. ‘(something is) complete’) at the end of their text, while these words were not seen in commercial recipes. In the mind of the participants, these concluding remarks were strongly associated with the topic of cooking and how-to instructions; we speculate that they had acquired such association from wider socio-cultural experiences rather than reading recipes alone. The word dekiagari, in particular, often appears in children’s picture books and how-to books, not just for cooking, but also for origami, crafts, and other kinds of play and daily routines in which children actively engage. What these activities have in common is that they have some finished product at the end. Native speakers had likely encountered dekiagari numerous times when they were children as they read and were being read these types of books. This is similar to how trite phrases such as mukashi mukashi ‘once upon a time’ and madetashi medetashi ‘happily ever after’ are strongly associated with fairy tales. Because these expressions are considered stereotyped and worn-out, professional writers of stories targeted for adults think twice about using them. Although the case of dekiagari and kansei as clichéd words is less obvious, because they are not linked to a particular type of how-to instructions, we tentatively conclude that commercial recipe writers, or more accurately commercial recipe editors (see Section 5), avoid using these words for the same or a similar reason as authors (and editors) avoid fairytale clichés.55.This conclusion is based on our formal analysis of five cookbooks and three online commercial recipe sites, as well as informal analysis of other offline and online commercial recipes (see Kaneyasu and Kuhara, forthcomingKaneyasu, Michiko, and Minako Kuhara Regularity and Variation in Japanese Recipes: A Comparative Analysis of Cookbook, Online, and User-generated Sub-registers.” Register Studies (forthcoming).).

4.3Grammar

As we saw in Section 2.3, commercial recipes show systematic uses of the particle wa and verb medial te vs. i/e form. A majority of the study participants’ recipes, on the other hand, are unsystematic with respect to these grammatical features.

First, as shown in Figure 1, the participants’ sentences in the present experiment’s recipes tend to consist of a smaller number of clauses than those in commercial recipes.66.Data for commercial recipes come from Kaneyasu and Kuhara (forthcoming)Kaneyasu, Michiko, and Minako Kuhara Regularity and Variation in Japanese Recipes: A Comparative Analysis of Cookbook, Online, and User-generated Sub-registers.” Register Studies (forthcoming). and include 30 cookbook and 30 online commercial recipes. Despite the two dishes they were asked to write being quite simple in terms of ingredients and steps, the participants used a larger number of sentences on average than commercial recipes. This is likely because there was no restriction on the length of the recipes in the present study and, other than having to fit what they wrote on a piece of letter-size paper, the participants did not have any communicative or pragmatic motivation to keep their recipes particularly short. On the other hand, in commercial recipes, brevity is an important quality that enhances visual clarity and meets space limitations. The need for conciseness is also associated with the systematic use of te and i/e medial verb forms.

When the participants used multiple-clause sentences in their recipes, they showed a preference for te or i/e medial verb form. Notably, 43.3% (13/30) exclusively used one form or the other (7/13 used only te forms and 6/13 used only i/e forms). Examples (12) and (13) show a series of te forms or i/e forms used within single recipes.

Seven recipes used both te and i/e forms three times or more each (23.3% of all recipes). Among them, five texts (16.7% of all recipes) conformed to the way these forms are used in commercial recipes based on the relative degree of (dis)continuity. (14) is an example of non-systematic use of te and i/e forms. Recall that, in commercial recipes, te forms are associated with lower discontinuity and i/e forms with higher discontinuity. In (14), however, both i/e form (nessh-i ‘heat’) and the te form (ire-te ‘put’) are followed by a comma (a marker of higher discontinuity), and both i/e and te clauses have new participants (ingredients, condiments, or tools) in the immediately subsequent clause, which indicate higher discontinuity (one new participant, abura ‘oil,’ after the i/e clause, and three new participants, tamanegi, ninjin, jagaimo ‘onion, carrot, and potato,’ after the te clause). (15) is an example of the systematic use of the two verb medial forms. In this example, only i/e form (tom-e ‘turn off’) is followed by a comma and has a new participant, kareeko ‘curry mix,’ in the subsequent clause.

The second grammatical characteristic of commercial recipes, the use of the particle wa for preparation steps, is found in an even smaller number of the participants’ recipes than the systematic use of te and i/e forms. Only three participants’ recipes (10%) use wa for major ingredients in the preparation steps, which conform to the pattern in commercial recipes. (16) is an example of the conformed use of the particle wa. Thirteen recipes (43.3%) use the object particle o in place of wa. (17) is an example of this type. Eight recipes (26.7%) use wa for at least one ingredient in the preparation stage, but they also contain the use of wa for other purposes, such as introducing ingredients (e.g., zairyou wa… ‘as for ingredients…’), introducing processes (kirikata wa … ‘as for cutting…,’ nikomi-jikan wa … ‘as for simmering time …,’ ajitsuke wa … ‘as for seasoning…’), and describing non-preparatory steps (e.g., yasai wa…itamete ‘as for vegetables…stir fry’). Four recipes (13.3%) skip preparation steps altogether.

The three participants whose use of wa is congruent with commercial recipes also systematically use te and i/e medial verb forms (among the five participants mentioned earlier). In the post-task questionnaire (Q1 and Q2), two of them (writers of RC3 and RS14) mentioned the unique structure and language of recipes; one wrote: “recipes have a certain format and way of writing” and the other wrote, “I wondered if I should write … in the way it is written in cookbooks” (all translations by the authors). Two of them (writers of RS14 and RS15) also mentioned differences between spoken and written language and how they would have used spoken language to describe the procedure if they were asked to write “how one can make the dish” instead of “a recipe for the dish.” To the same question, the writer of RC3 answered “I feel that the assumption is to describe the procedure to someone who does not cook at all or much. Therefore, if I were asked to write ‘how to make’ (instead of a recipe), I would have written it in more detail and more thoroughly.” Based on their answers to Q3 and Q4, the three participants do not have more experience cooking or reading recipes than other participants. However, for reasons that are beyond the scope of this study, they seem to have a higher awareness of recipes as a unique register, and they have production knowledge of recipe grammar.

4.4Summary

Table 1 summarizes the features found in the participants’ recipes. If a text has a feature that conforms to that of commercial recipes, one point is given (shown in parentheses). The overall scores on the right-most column indicate the level of similarity between features of each text and those of commercial recipes in general. The total numbers in the last row indicate the number of texts that share the particular characteristic feature of commercial recipes. The larger number suggests that the feature is more prevalent in the communicative repertoires of the participants. For example, the use of specialized vocabulary related to food preparation is part of most participants’ communicative repertoires (29/30).

The use of specialized vocabulary is topic driven. Organizational features (text organization and use of the list of ingredients), on the other hand, reflect the participants’ understanding of the purpose of the writing task and their knowledge of recipe and how-to text structure. As mentioned earlier, those who used numbered steps commented that they thought about the format or the type of language to use in addition to the content of the text when they first read the writing prompt. Although all participants wrote that they read recipes in their daily lives, they did not automatically apply the general recipe format when they were asked to write a recipe. Numbered steps and the list of ingredients were employed only when they consciously paid attention to the format (and if they correctly remembered the recipe text structure).

Those who use the commercial recipe grammar (systematic use of te and i/e medial verb forms and the use of the particle wa for preparation steps) seem to see recipes as a unique register with a unique set of grammatical features. There are no texts with an overall score of 3 or below (90% or 27/30 texts) that contain the two grammatical features. These grammatical features are likely not part of most participants’ communicative repertoires. Two participants (writers of RC3 and RS14) whose texts contain all characteristic features of commercial recipes (the overall score of 5) have higher awareness and competence in the recipe register. Based on the post-task survey, the higher awareness and competence are not the result of more exposure or experience with the register. An overwhelming majority of the participants did not demonstrate having recipe grammar as part of their communicative repertoire.