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Sweet talking: Food, language, and democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2009

Guy Cook
Guy Cook*
Affiliation:
The Open University, UKg.cook@open.ac.uk
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Abstract

At a time of diminishing resources, the sum of apparently minor personal decisions about food can have immense impact. These individual choices are heavily influenced by language, as those with vested interests seek to persuade individuals to act in certain ways. This makes the language of food politics a fitting area for an expanding applied linguistics oriented towards real-world language-related problems of global and social importance. The paper draws upon five consecutive research projects to show how applied linguistics research may contribute to public policy and debate, and also how, by entering such new arenas, it can develop its own methods and understanding of contemporary language use.

Type
Plenary Speeches
Information
Language Teaching , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 2010 , pp. 168 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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