The Language of Food (Quote of the Week)

Tyler Cowen of the always-interesting Marginal Revolution blog tipped me off to the Language of Food blog--a creation of Stanford professor Dan Jurafsky, who teaches an occasional linguistics course under the same name (I'm a nerd, so yeah I checked the syllabus and have been trying to track down some of his assigned readings).

Jurafsky has some fascinating insights into the way we talk about, market, and derive names for the foods we eat (and the processes we use to create them). What's the difference between "roasting" and "baking"? Why do we come up with names like "Rocky Road" and "Mississippi Mud" for our ice creams? And what the hell does "all natural" mean? These are the types of questions that Jurafsky aims to tackle on his blog, and I for one found some of his posts to be fascinating (if somewhat academically wonky).

Here's an excerpt from his most recent post, which considered the language used in the marketing of potato chips:

The political season is well upon us and that means a lot of politicians talking about strugglin' and rollin' up our sleeves, especially when speaking to working class audiences. Since the pioneering work of sociolinguists like Bill Labov, linguists have studied the ways we chose variants, like "-in" to project a working class authenticity but "-ing" to project an educated or professional persona...

This use of linguistic variables to mark identity and authenticity occurs in the language of food as well. Josh Freedman, a young political researcher, was an even younger freshman in my Language of Food seminar at Stanford four years ago when he became interested in how the language of food advertising reflects socio-economic class...

Josh and I looked at 12 bags of potato chips, 6 more expensive (Boulder, Dirty, Kettle Brand, Popchips, Terra, Season's, averaging 68 cents per ounce) and 6 less expensive (Hawaiian, Herr's, Lays, Tim's, Utz, and Wise, averaging 40 cents per ounce). We coded up all the advertising text from the back of the chips and then examined how the words differed between the two classes of chips.

What factors characterized expensive chips? You may be surprised to learn that potato chips are a health food; almost all chips (expensive or not) emphasized the healthiness of their products by using phrases like "low fat", "healthier", "no cholesterol", or "lowest sodium level". But these health-related claims  occur on expensive chips 6 times as often as on inexpensive chips (6 times per bag versus once per bag). This difference in health language is not, as far as we can tell, due to actual differences in the chips. No chips in our sample contain trans fats, but only 2 out of the 6 inexpensive chips talk about it. By contrast, every one of the 6 expensive chips mentions the lack of trans fats.

Expensive chips also turn out to be much more natural. Phrases such as "natural", "real", or "nothing artificial" are 2.5 times more likely to be mentioned on expensive bags (7 times on each expensive bag but under 3 times on each inexpensive bag).

Finally, expensive chips are 5 times more likely to distinguish themselves from other chips, using comparative phrases like "less fat than other leading brands", "best in America", "in a class of their own". or "a crunchy bite you won't find in any other chip". Where text on the inexpensive chips focuses on the chips themselves, ads for expensive chips emphasize their differences from "lesser" chips...

In his famous book "Distinction", sociologist Pierre Bourdieu showed that our position in society heavily influences our tastes, whether in food, music, film, or art.  He argues that "hip" or "fashionable" tastes are just a away for the upper class to display their high status, to distinguish themselves from other classes. Taste, says Bourdieu, is "first and foremost... negation... of the tastes of others". The fact that expensive chip advertising is full of comparison (less fat, finest potatoes) and negation (not, no, never, don't) suggests that Bourdieu is right, that the notion of upper class taste in food advertising is defined by contrast with tastes of other classes; what it is to be upper class is to be not working class.  

Potato chips as a vehicle for drawing societal metaphors and understanding class distinctions? Now that's a nerdy concept I can get behind. "Taste... is first and foremost... negation... of the tastes of others". That's so simple and yet so profound. In fact... I'm going to make it my Quote of the Week. So there.

[Language of Food]  
(h/t Marginal Revolution)

How much does speech reveal about our beliefs?

I ran across an interesting blog post this morning from Barry Ritholtz, a market strategist whose blog (The Big Picture, which I link to on the right panel of this blog) is a consistently solid source for non-mainstream market insights. He noticed that there were significant differences in the way market action (specifically, the bond market) was being described within the investment community:

Consider the following overheard phrases, each of which come from traders, fund managers, and strategists:

The first two reflect a certain belief in the rationality of markets: “Bonds are pricing in a deflationary outcome” is how one strategist described it. Another...said that “the fixed income market is discounting a double dip.”

But a fund manager described it quite differently, relying on language of sentiment: “Traders fear an economic slowdown.”

The actual language used suggest clear theoretical underpinnings:  The first two speakers are likely adherents of the efficient market hypothesis. They consider market action to reflect the collective knowledge of all participants...The second is a behavioral economics approach.

Barry is dead on. The words we choose--not necessarily what we say, but how we say it--can be incredibly revealing as to the assumptions and beliefs that we operate under. His post reminded me of a Wall Street Journal article from last month, which examined the linkages between language and culture:

Take "Humpty Dumpty sat on a..." Even this snippet of a nursery rhyme reveals how much languages can differ from one another. In English, we have to mark the verb for tense; in this case, we say "sat" rather than "sit." In Indonesian you need not (in fact, you can't) change the verb to mark tense. 

In Russian, you would have to mark tense and also gender, changing the verb if Mrs. Dumpty did the sitting. You would also have to decide if the sitting event was completed or not. If our ovoid hero sat on the wall for the entire time he was meant to, it would be a different form of the verb than if, say, he had a great fall. 

In Turkish, you would have to include in the verb how you acquired this information. For example, if you saw the chubby fellow on the wall with your own eyes, you'd use one form of the verb, but if you had simply read or heard about it, you'd use a different form.

 The Journal article went further:

For example, in Pormpuraaw, a remote Aboriginal community in Australia, the indigenous languages don't use terms like "left" and "right." Instead, everything is talked about in terms of absolute cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), which means you say things like, "There's an ant on your southwest leg." To say hello in Pormpuraaw, one asks, "Where are you going?", and an appropriate response might be, "A long way to the south-southwest. How about you?" If you don't know which way is which, you literally can't get past hello.

I found this to be fascinating. The Pormpuraawans, it turns out, have an incredible gift for sense of direction. Without being told, they know at all times which direction they are facing, without need for a compass. This focus impacts much of the way they view the world, including such seemingly unrelated topics as the passage of time. (If you have time, read the whole Journal article, linked to below. It really is interesting.)

The lingering question is whether the language itself is to credit for the Pormpuraawans' sense of direction, or if the language evolved to reflect their lifestyle. Do we consciously decide the way we speak based on our beliefs? Or does our native language shape those beliefs without us even realizing it?

Either way, as any relocated northerner who's been mocked for using the word "wicked" in Virginia (who, me?) would know, we can give away a lot of information about ourselves without realizing it, simply by the words we choose. It can also help us to understand others, and where they might be coming from.


[The Big Picture] 
[Wall Street Journal]