Coffeetalk: Starbucks™ and the commercialization of casual conversation

Abstract

This article examines how so-called ordinary or casual conversational practices in the contemporary United States are constrained and structured in terms of where, when, how, and with whom people choose and are able to interact socially. The focus of analysis is the middle-class sociolinguistic practice of “coffeetalk” – a term borrowed from U.S. popular culture to signal the naturalized conflation of conversation with the commercialized consumption of coffee, space, and other commodities. The discussion of coffeetalk involves research methods including critical analyses of the marketing rhetoric of coffeehouse corporations; informal interviews with coffeehouse owners, employees and patrons; and the author's observations as a “native” participant in coffeetalk and other commodified modes of middle-class social interaction. By situating coffeetalk within its spatial, temporal and social contexts, this analysis challenges the claim of some sociolinguists that conversation is a “naturally occurring” phenomenon that is ontologically prior to other speech genres. A systematic investigation of the material and social dimensions of seemingly ordinary conversational practices demonstrates that these are inextricably implicated in the political, economic, and cultural-ideological processes of global capitalism, as symbolized by the increasingly ubiquitous Starbucks Coffee Company.