Women’s language in female celebrity chef cookbooks

ABSTRACT

This article explores the gendered language used in female celebrity chef cookbooks. The analysis is a case study of three female celebrity chefs from the American cooking channel Food Network: Ree Drummond, Ina Garten, and Giada De Laurentiis. Relying on an interdisciplinary approach of interactional sociolinguistics, sociology, and feminism, this study identifies how the use of seemingly weak women’s language is used to enhance the celebrity chef’s appeal. Discourses of expertise, politeness strategies, and confessions build trust and rapport between the celebrity chef and the audience. This study complicates previous studies on gendered language and argues that women’s language strengthens the power and authority of female celebrity chefs as influential models of womanhood.

KEYWORDS:

• Cookbooks
• language
• celebrity chef
• femininity
• womanhood
• gender
• sociolinguistics
• discourse analysis
• celebrity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Ree’s blog, ThePioneerWoman.com, was founded in 2006 and attracts more than 20 million page views per month. It was named Weblog of the Year at the 2009, 2010, and 2011 Bloggie Awards.

2. Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory outlines positive and negative politeness strategies that identify the way people balance interdependence and independence in relationships. Positive politeness seeks to minimise the distance between the speaker and hearer with politeness strategies such as compliments, statements of friendship, jokes, and inclusivity. Negative politeness is oriented towards maintaining a distance and deference between the speaker and hearer. Ways to minimise imposition on the hearer include the use of hedges, questions, apologies, and passive constructions.

3. See Table 1 for a listing of the cookbooks analysed in this project.

Table 1. Female celebrity chef cookbook data.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kelsi Matwick

Kelsi Matwick received a PhD and MA in Linguistics from the University of Florida, USA. She has a BA and MA in Iberian and Latin American Studies from the University of Notre Dame, USA. Her research interests are language, gender, and performance in cookbooks. She served as an officer in the US Air Force with a tour in Anchorage, Alaska.

Keri Matwick

Keri Matwick received a PhD and MA in Linguistics from the University of Florida, USA. She has a BA and MA in Iberian and Latin American Studies from the University of Notre Dame, USA. Her research interests are language, multimodality, and performance in cooking shows. She served as an officer in the US Air Force with a tour in Anchorage, Alaska.