Negotiating Epistemic Authority in Disputes in Food Narratives
Abstract
The present study investigates the negotiation of speakers of their epistemic authority at times when they face disputes in food reviews in an Asian context. The study explores how knowledge distribution is constructed among the reviewers and the audiences at the discourse level, despite the emergence of these disputes during interaction. The study draws on the perspectives of interactional linguistics, and a data set taken from YouTube food review videos spoken in colloquial Jakartan Indonesian.
The study finds that the reviewers address the essential information of the dishes and beverages, despite personal preference. The reviewers negotiate their knowledge in such a way so as to build a mutual understanding, and to provide comprehensible information to audiences, as they fulfil their epistemic responsibilities as food reviewers and as those who have direct access to the dishes. In encountering these disputes, the focus of the reviewers then becomes one in which they must attend to their responsibility of providing descriptions based on their experiences, and also presenting their personal preferences. As such, they focus on building ‘unity of message’ to build the trustworthiness of the reviews.
Keywords: Epistemic authority; food tasting; knowledge; colloquial Indonesian, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology