Nominations of molecular cuisine dishes: Lexical, syntactic and semantic analysis

Abstract

Non-traditional foods of molecular cuisine are a new category of foods and experience for consumers. The objective of this study was to conduct the structural and semantic analysis of the names of dishes of this new scientific field and avant-garde culinary practice. The main idea was to reveal the trend and trace the dynamics of naming dishes and to define the degree of reflecting the essence of molecular cuisine in the names of dishes. The study of empirical material taken from current collections of recipes and restaurant menus using a set of linguistic analysis methods has allowed authors to identify models of the syntactic organisation of nominations; characterise the primary way of connecting their components as oxymoron; highlight a number of keywords that arrange these nominations on the basis of cooking technology into several subject groups; postulate the predominance of phrase-names with transparent semantics over names with an opaque inner form including eponymous nominations; outline the ways of further studying the names of dishes of this cuisine from comparative, translational and linguistic-cognitive points of view.