A group bonding exercise: Repetition of words and phrases from the punch lines of Japanese stories about food and restaurants

Karatsu, Mariko

doi:10.1075/pbns.238.08kar

In:Language and Food: Verbal and nonverbal experiences
Edited by Polly E. Szatrowski
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 238] 2014
► pp. 185–208

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Repetition of words and phrases from the punch lines of Japanese stories about food and restaurants

A group bonding exercise

Mariko Karatsu

Published online: 10 January 2014

https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.238.08kar

Drawing on research on repetition in storytelling (Jefferson et al., 1987; Norrick, 2000; Georgakopoulou, 2007), I demonstrate how words and phrases in punch lines about food and restaurants can acquire evaluative or symbolic meanings in a storytelling among three Japanese women. I also show how later in the conversation participants use these words and phrases to comment on their taste and to evaluate a story utilizing the original evaluative or symbolic meanings of these words and phrases. This study shows how the ubiquity of talk about food and restaurants allows the participants to use words and phrases from punch lines as a device to show their understanding of one another and suggests how this can be a group bonding exercise in talk-in-interaction.

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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Szatrowski, Polly

2022. How is laughter used to create and reinforce food attitudes in Japanese Dairy Taster Brunch conversations. Journal of Japanese Linguistics 38:1 ► pp. 5 ff.

Yang, Ping

2022. Co-constructing Intercultural Identity in the Work-Integrated Learning: Pre-service TESOL Teachers’ Professional Development. In Theory and Practice in Second Language Teacher Identity [Educational Linguistics, 57], ► pp. 121 ff.

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