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The semiotics of migrants' food

Between codes and experience

Bibliographic Data

ID4474466
AuthorsGreco (0000-0002-3664-8613, Università della Svizzera italiana, corresponding author), Sara Greco (1Università della Svizzera Italiana, Via Giuseppe Buffi 13, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland)
Year2016
Volume2016
Issue211
Pages59-80
Publication date2016-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSemiotica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-1998 • E-ISSN: 1613-3692
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/sem-2016-0089
OpenAlexW2369459562
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited10

This paper sets out to analyze cultural semiotics of migrants' food and culinary practices. Moving from the perspective of the Tartu school of semiotics, which views culture both as a grammar (a set of codes) and as a set of texts, food can be characterized as a specific cultural element where grammar and text (code and experience) are woven together. International migrants live one or more ruptures and changes in their status quo due to their adaptation to the receiving country, which puts their cultural habits into questions. In this framework, even "normal" and well-established culinary practices might need to change. In this relation, I claim that it is on the basis of migrants' new experience abroad that it is possible to change culinary grammars. In order to move beyond a descriptive account of change, and understand the reasons why migrants construct a new semiotics of food, this paper also integrates elements from argumentation theory in order to analyze the reasons given by migrants to explain the changes they are making. The analysis proposed here is based on a corpus of interviews to migrating mothers of different origins, all living in the greater London area

Argumentation theory · Code (set theory) · Construct (python library) · Element (criminal law) · Grammar · Linguistics · Order (exchange) · Political science · Semiotics · Semiotics of culture · Set (abstract data type) · Social science · Sociology · Status quo · Computer Science · Culinary Culture and Tourism · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Philippine History and Culture

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    Open Access•Arlette J Ngoubene-Atioky, John Case et al.•Migration Studies•2019

  • The Semiotics of Fast and Junk Food

    Open Access•Marcel Danesi•Signata•2024

  • Goûter et sentir l’exil

    M Carmen África Vidal Claramonte, Anne-Hélène Kerbiriou•Anthropologie et Sociétés•2025

  • Ad Nauseam

    F I M Poppi•Food Culture & Society•2024

  • Okra in translation

    Open Access•Andrea Ciribuco•Language Culture and Society•2021

  • Food and identity

    Open Access•Mengya Zhang, Mengling Zhang•Food Culture & Society•2026

  • Multivoiced decisions

    Greco, Sara Greco Morasso•Pragmatics & Cognition•2013

  • Parental discourse and identity management in the talk of indigenous and migrant speakers

    Open Access•Maria Xenitidou, Greco et al.•Discourse & Society•2014

  • Migration, Motherhood, Marriage

    Open Access•Laura I Sigad, Rivka A Eisikovits•International Migration•2009

  • Qualitative methods

    Open Access•Gail Davies, Claire Dwyer•Progress in Human Geography•2007

  • On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture

    Yu M Lotman, Boris Uspensky et al.•New Literary History•1978

Unique citing works6
Citations per year0,86
Citation span2019 - 2026 (8)
Citation velocitycurrent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 6

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