Pragmatic analysis of Directives in Food Recipes PJAEE, 17 (6) (2020)

PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF DIRECTIVES IN FOOD

RECIPES
QasimObayes Al-Azzawi, Ali Hussein Abdulameer
University of Babylon , College of education for Human sciences , Department of
English

Email: [email protected],[email protected]
QasimObayes Al-Azzawi, Ali Hussein Abdulameer, Pragmatic analysis of Directives
in Food Recipes-Palarch’s Journal Of Archaeology Of Egypt/Egyptology 17(6),
ISSN 1567-214x

Abstract

Language is human universal tool of communication, food on the other hand is also
considered as a tool of cultural transmission. Both language and food can be explored
by using culinary linguistics. The term culinary linguistics is a field of applied
linguistics which is concerned bout food and food recipes.

The language of food recipes is very rich one. Thus, the current study aims at
exploring the nature of food recipes text more specifically the use of "directives". The
study also hypothesis that directiveness is the most commonly used techniques in the
context of food recipes.

The study will adopt Seale's speech act theory as a model of analysis, due to its close
relevance to the nature of the contexts under investigation. The data of the study
consists of different food recipes that are collected randomly from the most popular
international food site.

The value of the study lies in exploring the nature of food recipes texts, more
particularly the use of directives in these texts. And to find out the role of
directiveness in the food recipes texts. The study find out that directness play a crucial
role in this type ofdiscourse.

Key Words:Culinary linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Food recipes, Directiveness,

Searle's Speech Act Theory.

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Introduction

Food recipes are text type that is mainly concern with preparing food.
Language and food are considered important tools in revealing and
discovering the cultures. Both food and language use the same
mediator which is the oral cavity (mouth). Every language has its way
and traditions regarding its instructions about food. Thus, the study is
mainly concerned with discovering the nature of foodrecipes.
The term Culinary Linguistics, a field of applied linguistics, is
concerned with discovering and studying the texts of food recipes.
The field of Culinary Linguistics is not restricted to one field of
linguistics but rather it is applicable in all the linguistic fields. Like;
morphology and word formation, syntax, the meaning of the
word(semantics), the use and the function of different linguistic
aspects (pragmatics)..etc
CulinaryLinguistics

The term culinary comes from the Greek to mean cook. Culinary is a
synonym for cuisine (Soegiarto,2008: 570). Accordingly, culinary is
considered as the act of transforming cultural traditions and making
cuisine ( Annuk, 2013:139). So, culinary can be referred to as the
exploration of culture through food.

Since every culture has its tradition, every language in the world has
its food terminology and traditions. Eating and speaking are two
important actions of human beings. They can be connected since both
of them take place in the oral cavity (mouth).

The language of food (culinary) is very rich because it contains

different grammatical constructions and patterns. Moreover, it has
inseparable nature from syntax and lexis ( Gerhardt, 2013: 20).
Words and meanings that belong to the field of culinary can be
tackled by sub- linguistic fields like; Semantics and Pragmatics.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is one of the most investigated fields of study in

linguistics. This importance comes from the nature of this field of
study what is based on the relationship between linguistic form and
its user including the context in which this linguistic form has
occurred. In other words, pragmatic deals with the use of language
and the relation between language and language use. Levinson ( 1993
: 3) defines pragmatics as the study of the relationship between the
language of context, which is a
basisinunderstandingthemeaningoflanguage.Whereas,Kreidler(
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1998: 18 ) states that pragmatics is a new branch of linguistics that is

concerned with meaning.

Moreover, Mey (2001: 6) adopts a definition of pragmatics which

is built on the concept of appropriateness, in other words, the study of
"the use of language in human communication as determined by the
condition of society". Whereas, Cameron ( 2001: 68 ) goes on to
define pragmatics as a field of inquiry that is related to how language
can be used to do things and mean another thing in real-world
situations. Regarding this definition, it seems people in the real world
frequently neglect the common-sense maxim " say what you mean
and what you say ". Thus, pragmatics as a field of study has been
generally regarded as the study of either speaker meaning "what
speaker intended by an utterance" or utterance interpretation "what
hearers make of an utterance " ( ibid; Elaf&Hussien 2020;
Alakrash&Bustan 2020; Bustan &Alakrash 2020; Alakrash et al.
2020 ).

In terms of speech acts, the main concern of the research paper,

Allerton et al. (1979, p.280) state that pragmatics attempts to interpret
the propositional content of sentences and utterances in terms of their
performatives, illocutionary acts, and situational context. That is, the
linguist should process the lexis, grammar concerningcontext.

Mey (2009) illustrates the significance of pragmatics in his words

denoting that pragmatics researches comprise ''the factors that govern
our choice of language in social interaction and the effects of our
choice on others".
The main areas of pragmatics for Yule ( 1996: 129-133 ) are the
following :
A -Entailment

Entailments is "the relationship between two sentences where the

truth of (A) requires the truth of ( B)". In other words, something that
is bond with what follows from what is asserted in an utterance.

For example A – The lawyer was murdered. (

entails ) B – He is dead.
The statement " The lawyer was murdered " does not only reveal that
" he is dead" but also it reveals it istrue.

B – Implicature

The term conversational implicature is used to define the

additional unstated meaning that has to be assembled if a
conversation is to process.

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For example, Jane had a baby and got married.

The example means that Jane had the baby before the wedding.

C – Presupposition

Something the speaker assumes to be the case before making an

utterance.

For example: Do you need to watch it once

more? Presupposition: you have already watched
it once at least. D – speech act
A speech act is the study of how we do things with utterances. The
basic speech acts are :

1 - Locutionary act: is an action of encoding a message into words,

that is an act of producing meaningfulutterances.
2 - Illocutionary act: the speaker's intentions or the communication
face behind every utterance.

3 - Perlocutionary act: are the effects the utterances have on the

listener or the reader.

E – Deixis

Deixis is one of the most important linguistic phenomena that

consideration of language could not ignore. It is, in a way, the
anchoring of language in the real world. This anchoring is achieved
by pointing of variables along its dimension ( May2001: 54). This
topic will elaborate in detail in the next section.

Searle's Taxonomy of SpeechActs

John Searle (1975) introduces a taxonomy of speech acts in five

categories. Finch (2005, p. 173) states that these five types are
considered in terms of their illocutionary force (functions). Finch
introduces Searle’s words concerning the basis

of his taxonomy: If we adopt illocutionary point as the basic notion

on which to classify uses over language, then there are rather a
limited number of basic things, we commit ourselves to do things, we
express our feelings and attitudes, and we bring about changes
through the utterances.

Searle (1975, p. 356) lists five essential types of speech acts

according to their illocutionary force (functions in language). These
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types are:

A- Representatives who commit the speaker to the truth of a

proposition, for example, affirm, believe, conclude, or deny.
Flowerdew
(2o13) explains that representatives relate to the states about events in
the world like assert, swear, define or report, etc. For example,

- These flowers are sobeautiful.

B- Directives are those the speech acts by which the speaker attempts
to get the hearer to do something. Directives refer to what the speaker
wants. These are typically requests, commands, suggestions. For
example,

- Can you pass thesalt?

C- Commissivesare those speech acts that commit the speaker to do

future actions like promises, offers, threats, and refusals. For
example:

- I'll be there ontime

D- Expressivesare speech acts reflecting the psychological state of the

speaker. They indicate what the speaker feels like joy, pain, sorrow,
thanking, apologizing, congratulation and welcoming, etc. For
example,

YESSS! (joy).

E- Declaratives are those speech acts denoting an immediate change

in the institutional state of affairs (to change something in the world
via an utterance). To perform this speech acts, the speaker should
have an
institutional role or authority, in a specific context. Examples of these
acts include excommunicating, marrying, declaring war, firing from a
job, nominating, announcing the winner or a suspect as 'guilty' or
'innocent' by a judge, and so on. It is worth mentioning that Searle`s
(1975) taxonomy of speech acts is adopted for the analysis in the next
section.

Methodology

The methodology is defined as a method or a plan of using

techniques or procedures “to gather and analyze data related to some
research question or hypothesis” (Crotty, 1998, p. 3).The analysis
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will be based on a certain pragmatic perspective more specifically the

speech act theory of John Searle (197-). According to Searle,five
types of speech act categories are (representative, directives,
commissions, expressive, and declarative).

Thedata

The data under investigation are collections of different food recipes

that are downloaded from the world wide web. The samples are taken
randomly to achieve representativeness of the data under
investigation.

The Analysis of theData

Examining the data under the investigation by using Searle's speech

act theory. The following table will present the result of the analysis.

Table (1) The Recurrences of Searle's Speech act Categories.

Category of Speech act Number of Recurrences Percentages
1 .Assertives 2 3.3%
2 . Directives 43 68.2%
3 .Commissives 0 0%
4. Expressive 18 28.5%
5 . Declaratives 0 0%
Total 63 100%

Analysis of Food Recipes

Number of Recurrences Percentages

43

18

0 0 2

0% 28.50% 0% 68.20% 3.30%

5 .Declarative 4 .Expressive 3.Commissive 2.Directive 1.
Asserative

Figure (1) Recurrences and Percentage of Food Recipes

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It is very obvious that " directives" is the most commonly used

technique in food recipes which scores (43 recurrences) with (68.2%)
percentage (See Figure1 and Table 1). The highest use of " directive"
is not a haphazard matter but rather for purpose. Since most of the
food recipes including instructions and directions of how to prepare
the foods. The following examples are taken from the data to
illustrate the use of "directive".

" Brown chicken, turning once, 8 to 10 minutes per side. Remove

chicken to plate and drain off all but 2 tablespoons oil (directives).
Add eggplant to hot pan and cook, stirring, 5 minutes(directives).
Add remaining tablespoon olive oil, along with zucchini, onion, and
garlic (directives). Cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally
(directives)."(1)

"Pour all but 2 tablespoons miso mixture over ribs; turn to coat
directives. Set remaining miso mixture aside directives. Thinly slice
radishes and toss in a medium bowl with the remaining 1 tbsp
vinegar directives. Season with salt and toss again. Heat a large
heavyskillet,
preferably cast iron, over medium-high directives. When the pan is
hot, add 2 tsp. oil and swirl to coat directives".(2)

The second commonly used type of speech act theory is

"expressive" with (18) recurrences and (28.5%) percentages (See
Table 1 and Figure1). This type is used to expresses "threat" in which
the food recipes are expressing the importance of following the health
instructions. The following examples are taken from the data.

" Wash hands with soap and water

(expressive)…" "…do not rinse raw meat
(expressive)"
"Wash hands with soap and water after handling uncooked meat
(expressive)…"

The least used type of speech act is "assertive" with (2 )recurrences

and (3.3%) percentage (See Table 1 and Figure1). Throughout the
data, this type is used to function as a suggestion to the users. The
following example will show the use of this type.

"Add additional vinegar, if desired (Assertive)".

"Refrigerate about 1 hour, turning
occasionally(Assertive)".
The last important fact that is taken from the analysis is that both

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commissives and declarative score zero recurrences. This means that

these types of speech acts are rarely used in the contexts of food
recipes. And this is one of the most important findings of theanalysis.
Conclusion

Food recipes are part of the sub-linguistic field called Culinary

Linguistics. This new field of linguistics is very rich in its data and
methodology. Since the language of food, recipes are very rich one
the study focuses on the directives used in food recipes. The
following figure will show the results of the analysis in a clear way

Figure (2) The Result of the Analysis

Analysis of Food
Recipes
Number of Percentag
Recurrences es

43

1
8
0 0 2
0% 28.50% 0 68.20 3.30
5 4 3.Commissive
% % %
.Declarativ .Expressive 2.Directi 1
e ve .
Asserativ
e
The analysis of the data finds out that the most commonly used type
of speech act theory is "directive" which occurs in(43) and scores
(68.2%) from the overall types used in the data. These high
occurrences are not haphazard but for purpose. Since most of the food
recipes contain directions on how to use the ingredients and how to
prepare the food.

The second highest frequency booked by "expressions" to express

threat because food recipes also include a warning about health
matters. The " expressive" scores (18) recurrences with ( 28.5%)
percentage. The last type of speech act that find out in the analysisis
"assertive" which recurrence (2) times with (3.30%) percentage. This
type of speech act is providing the users with suggestions about the
correct way of following theinstructions.

An interesting finding of the study is that both "declarative and

compressive" types are not used in the contexts of food recipes.
These types of speech acts are rarely used in culinary linguistics.

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