Mondada2022a

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Mondada2022a
BibType ARTICLE
Key Mondada2022a
Author(s) Lorenza Mondada
Title Appealing to the senses: Approaching, sensing, and interacting at the market’s stall
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, market, Multimodality, Multisensoriality, Normativity, Shop encounters
Publisher
Year 2022
Language English
City
Month
Journal Discourse & Communication
Volume 16
Number 2
Pages 160-199
URL Link
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813211043597
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Sensorial access to products in shop encounters constitutes a crucial aspect of the appeal to customers. This paper examines sensorial engagements with products in a specific ecology (outdoor markets) with a focus on the possible (pre)opening of a shop encounter. When passers-by stroll from one stand to another, open to local findings, unplanned discoveries, and emergent opportunities to buy, they orient to the sensory appeal of the products, becoming possible customers, stopping in front of a counter and engaging in a social interaction with sellers and other customers. The analysis focuses on multisensoriality in action, studying how customers and sellers treat the sensorial qualities of the products, the relevance of the sensory engagement of the customer with their materiality, and their involvement in the social encounter with the seller, including normative expectations related to sensing and buying. It includes a discussion of how under Covid-19 sensorial access to products was restricted and the sensorial, interactional, normative, and economic consequences of these restrictions. Based on video recordings of market encounters, and on an ethnomethodological and conversation analytic approach of multimodality and multisensoriality, the paper reflects on how appealing to the senses of sight, touch, smell, and taste is methodically orchestrated, and its consequences for the interaction with the seller, the sensorial experience, and the economic transaction.

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