Mondada2018h

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Mondada2018h
BibType ARTICLE
Key Mondada2018h
Author(s) Lorenza Mondada
Title The multimodal interactional organization of tasting: Practices of tasting cheese in gourmet shops
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, video, multimodality, multisensoriality, tasting, commercial encounters, ethnomethodology, sequential analysis
Publisher
Year 2018
Language English
City
Month
Journal Discourse Studies
Volume 20
Number 6
Pages 743–769
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/1461445618793439
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
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Howpublished
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Abstract

Taste is a central sense for humans and animals, and it has been largely studied either from physiological and neurological approaches or from socio-cultural ones. This paper adopts another view, focused on the activity of tasting rather than on the sense of taste, approached within the perspective of ethnomethodology and multimodal conversation analysis. This view addresses the activity of tasting as it is interactionally organized in specific social settings, observed in a naturalistic way, on the basis of video recordings. Focusing on video recorded improvised tastings of cheese in gourmet shop encounters, the paper offers a systematic analysis of the way in which tasting is orderly achieved in an intersubjective way. It follows the various steps characterizing tasting, from the invitation to taste, to the grasping of a bit to taste, which is put in the mouth, chewed, and swallowed; it details how an interactional moment offering the taster a priviledged, individual, focused space in which to devote exclusive attention to the object tasted is actively tailored by all parties. By contrast, the completion of tasting is marked by a return to mutual gaze, the animation of facial expressions and nods, and the final production of a judgment of taste. By offering a systematic reconstruction of how these tasting moments are organized, the paper invites to a multimodal approach of sensoriality in social interaction.

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