Love at first bite? The occasioning and deployment of food assessments at the dinner table

• In Event: Research in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis: Studies of Ordinary Conversational Interaction

Abstract

Assessments, like all actions, are heavily shaped by social categories - from design, to formation and ascription, to rights, obligations, and constraints (Schegloff 1986, Pomerantz and Mandelbaum 2005, Rossi & Stivers 2021). Assessments are also highly contingent on a speakers’ epistemic access to the referent at hand (Pomerantz 1984, Heritage & Raymond 2005). However, dinnertable assessments do not always follow experiential events – like bites of food - in a mechanical fashion; speakers concurrently manage many types of mealtime activities at the local level. Consider the following:

01 NAN: [( VIV)-] [The chicken is rilly goo:d.
02 VIV: You li[ke it?
03 NAN: [Very very good.
04 VIV: °Okay [good.⬇ ̊
05 SHA: [Yuwuh (.) wish I c'd say dih same about
06 p't[atoes.
07 NAN: [Mm::.

As the above excerpt shows, a positive stance display (01) may be readily produced and upgraded (01, 03) following access, whereas the negative display (05-06) appearing thereafter is mitigated, and even subject to environmental constraints. While existing literature has investigated the production of assessment sequences on the basis of preference and second action design (Pomerantz 1984), politeness (Brown & Levinson 1987), and ecological mealtime proceedings (Mondada 2009, see also: González Temer 2017), I examine the range of local contexts and practices of food assessment events, including overt evaluations, assessment-implicative actions, and other forms of stance displays. Here, I test the range of environments where assessments surface - particularly where social categories and dispreference become relevant. My analysis maps a range of environments which make assessments accountable; (i) initial epistemic access, (ii) as accounts for nth helpings (iii) when directly solicited, and (iv) following prior assessments (05-06). These findings suggest underlying social norms associated with shared meals not previously defined in the literature, and contribute to our understanding of the occasioning of assessments within the framework of social activity.

Author

• Lor Martin, University of California Los Angeles