A comparison of cooking recipe named entities between Japanese and English

In this paper, we analyze the structural differences between the instructional text in Japanese and English cooking recipes. First, we constructed an English recipe corpus of 100 recipes, designed to be comparable to an existing Japanese recipe corpus. We annotated recipe named entities (r-NEs) in the English corpus according to guidelines previously defined for Japanese. We trained a state-of-art NE recognizer, PWNER, on the English r-NEs, and achieved very similar accuracy and coverage to previous results for the Japanese corpus, thus demonstrating the quality and consistency of the annotations. Second, we compared the r-NEs annotated in the Japanese and English corpora, and uncovered lexical, semantic, and underlying structural differences between Japanese and English recipes. We discuss reasons for these differences, which have significant implications for cross-language retrieval and automatic translation of recipes

A comparison of cooking recipe named entities between Japanese and English

In this paper, we analyze the structural differences between the instructional text in Japanese and English cooking recipes. First, we constructed an English recipe corpus of 100 recipes, designed to be comparable to an existing Japanese recipe corpus. We annotated recipe named entities (r-NEs) in the English corpus according to guidelines previously defined for Japanese. We trained a state-of-art NE recognizer, PWNER, on the English r-NEs, and achieved very similar accuracy and coverage to previous results for the Japanese corpus, thus demonstrating the quality and consistency of the annotations. Second, we compared the r-NEs annotated in the Japanese and English corpora, and uncovered lexical, semantic, and underlying structural differences between Japanese and English recipes. We discuss reasons for these differences, which have significant implications for cross-language retrieval and automatic translation of recipes

English recipe flow graph corpus

We present an annotated corpus of English cooking recipe procedures, and describe and evaluate computational methods for learning these annotations. The corpus consists of 300 recipes written by members of the public, which we have annotated with domain-specific linguistic and semantic structure. Each recipe is annotated with (1) `recipe named entities' (r-NEs) specific to the recipe domain, and (2) a flow graph representing in detail the sequencing of steps, and interactions between cooking tools, food ingredients and the products of intermediate steps. For these two kinds of annotations, inter-annotator agreement ranges from 82.3 to 90.5 F1, indicating that our annotation scheme is appropriate and consistent. We experiment with producing these annotations automatically. For r-NE tagging we train a deep neural network NER tool; to compute flow graphs we train a dependency-style parsing procedure which we apply to the entire sequence of r-NEs in a recipe.In evaluations, our systems achieve 71.1 to 87.5 F1, demonstrating that our annotation scheme is learnable

Regularity and Variation in Japanese Recipes: A Comparative Analysis of Cookbook, Online, and User-generated Sub-registers

This paper investigates the similarities and differences between three sub-registers of Japanese recipe texts: cookbook recipes, online commercial recipes written/edited by professionals, and online usergenerated recipes. Past studies on Japanese recipes do not distinguish different sub-registers, and they tend to focus on a single feature. The present study of the sub-registers examines a group of frequently appearing linguistic features and uncovers functional links between observed features and situational characteristics. The comparative perspective contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the Japanese recipe language as well as universal and language-specific aspects of register variation. Shared traits among the three sub-registers are tied to the common topic of cooking and the central purpose of providing easy-to-follow food preparation instructions. Varied linguistic and textual features are motivated by different production circumstances, mediums, and relations among the participants. Professionally edited cookbook and online commercial recipes show a much higher uniformity in their grammatical features than unedited/self-edited user-generated recipes. Online sub-registers share a role of serving as a repository and reference center for numerous recipes and related information. Relationships among writers, readers, and other participants such as publishers and site organizers differ among all three sub-registers, resulting in some unique linguistic patterns

Dimensions of Recipe Register and Native Speaker Knowledge: Observations from a Writing Experiment

This study investigates native Japanese speakers’ context-dependent linguistic knowledge of cooking recipes. Recipes are a typical example of a register, defined as the use of language in a particular social situation for a specific purpose. Thirty participants in the present study were asked to write a recipe for curry rice (a popular dish in Japan) or an unnamed soup (shown in a photo) on a blank piece of paper without access to any resources. Most participants’ texts contained specialized vocabulary and basic procedural organization. On the other hand, few integrated the typical grammatical features of commercial recipes. It suggests that the latter details are not part of the communicative repertoires of most participants. The grammatical characteristics of commercial recipes are likely a product of careful editing, aimed for clarity and consistency. Professional editing appears to have a significant role in shaping the grammar of the written register

Nominations of Molecular Cuisine Dishes: Lexical, Syntactic and Semantic Analysis

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

Culinary Linguistics

Language and food are universal to humankind. Language accomplishes more than a pure exchange of information, and food caters for more than mere subsistence. Both represent crucial sites for socialization, identity construction, and the everyday fabrication and perception of the world as a meaningful, orderly place. This volume contains an introduction to the study of food and an extensive overview of the literature focusing on its role in interplay with language. It is the only publication fathoming the field of food and food-related studies from a linguistic perspective. The research articles assembled here encompass a number of linguistic fields, ranging from historical and ethnographic approaches to literary studies, the teaching of English as a foreign language, psycholinguistics, and the study of computer-mediated communication, making this volume compulsory reading for anyone interested in genres of food discourse and the linguistic connection between food and culture

Alien Comforts: The Languages and Foodways of Chinese Americans and Hawaiian Locals in U.S. Popular Culture

My project deals with how the grotesque and simplifying distortion of Chinese American and Hawaiian Local languages and foodways has been used to promote facile multiculturalist encounters and the ways in which contemporary writers from those ethnic groups have attempted to articulate other ethnic formulations free from what I call minstrel gestures. These writers instead valorize innovation and transformation over an adherence to past traditions already pillaged and stereotyped by hegemonic interests. This strategy—which I dub the creole relational mode—has worked to varying degrees of success in creating the possibilities for oppositional cultural formations. While these oppositional cultural formations are often liberating, they sometimes can obscure persistent interethnic tensions in U.S. culture. The project’s contribution to the existing scholarship lies in its central claim that language and food are invested with so much meaning in U.S. interethnic discourse because these two forms of difference are easily appropriated and internalized by individuals across otherwise rigidly constructed ethnic boundaries

Are We What We Eat? Food Metaphors in the Conceptualization of Ethnic Groups

Speakers of English often understand ethnic and racial differences in terms of food imagery. It is quite common in this language to encounter metaphors presenting different groups of people in terms of beans, rice, bread, cheese, apples or chocolate. Given the cognitive and social force of metaphor in our understanding of the world and of ourselves as well as the important role language plays as a channel through which ideas and beliefs are transmitted and perpetuated, such food images may offer a window on the (de)construction of ethnic identi-ties and, ultimately, hide racist views against others who are different because of their skin color, physical features, languages and, obviously, diets