Sofia Rüdiger - Food & Language Lab

The Food & Language Lab (#FoLaLab) is a monthly digital lecture series, highlighting linguistic research on food, regardless of subject language.

The lecture series originated at the University of Bayreuth in winter 2021/2022 (as Bayreuth Food and Language lecture series aka BaFoLa). In 2024, the series was renamed to Bayreuth-Berlin Food and Language (BæFoLa) lectures.

For winter 2026/2027, we have rebranded as Food & Language Lab. Season 11 kicks off at the end of October, with talks usually taking place on the last Friday of each month from 12:30 to 13:30 (CET) (see schedule below). The Food & Language Lab is co-organized by Prof. Susanne Mühleisen (University of Bayreuth) and Prof. Sofia Rüdiger (University of Greifswald). To request the Zoom link for upcoming talks or to join the mailing list, please email foodandlanguage@uni-greifswald.de

Our new logo was designed by EwerART.

Program (Winter 2026/2027) - Season 11

October 30, 12:30-13:30 CET: Todd Allen (Kansai University)

Food, Drink and the Making of Hospitality in Japan’s Small Bars and Izakaya

November 27, 12:30-13:30 CET: Paul Victor Patinadan (Nanyang Technological University)

Echoing Food Voices: Cooking, Eating, and Savouring in Singaporean Palliation and Bereavement Care

December 18, 12:30-13:30 CET: Eva Triebl (University of Vienna)

"If I Ate That, I Would Be Huge": Appetite Displays and the Management of Thinness Online

January 29, 12:30-13:30 CET: Ashli Stokes (University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

Communicating Scotland through Food: From Devolution to Possible Futures

Previous Talks

Season 10 (Summer 2026)

Justyna Robinson (University of Sussex) - Neology in Food and Drink Terminology: Recent Perspectives and Developments in Research by the European Network of Lexical Innovation (April 24)

Luisa Marino (University of Naples "Federico II") - "Good for You. Good for the Planet": Trust-Building and Corporate Legitimacy in Barilla's Sustainability Reports (May 22)

Irene Cenni (Ghent University) & Camilla Vásquez (University of South Florida) - Self-Branding of Italian Food Granfluencers (June 19)

Revathi Suresh (St Joseph's University, Bengaluru) - Chattichoru as Spectacle: Constructing Malayali Identity and Food Narratives in Online Spaces (July 17)

Season 9 (Winter 2025/2026)

Jonatan Leer (Örebro University) - Food Porn: Food Aesthetics in a Digital Age (October 31)

Isabel Espinosa-Zaragoza (University of Alicante) - VeggieWords: Lexical Innovation in Vegan and Vegetarian Product Naming (November 28)

Carolin Schneider Ward (University of Duisburg-Essen) - Bake, Tic, Repeat: Multimodal Self-Reactions in the Digital Kitchen (December 19)

Stefan Hauser (University of Teacher Education Zug) - Dynamisation Processes in Cooking Videos on TikTok: A Media Linguistic Approach (January 30)

Season 8 (Summer 2025)

Irene Theodoropoulou (Qatar University) - Branding Athens as a Gastronomic Destination: Evidence from ready2Board Magazine (April 25)

Dominik Gerst (University of Duisburg-Essen) - How to Live Vegan: Communicative Practices and Genres of Vegan Influencers (June 6)

Crispin Thurlow (University of Bern) - Super-Elite Feasting: On the Intersection of Conspicuous and Hedonistic Waste (June 27)

Season 7 (Winter 2024/2025)

Anna Islentyeva (Heidelberg University) - A Comparative Analysis of Femininity and Masculinity in Food and Beverage Advertising (October 25)

Ariana Gunderson (Indiana University Bloomington) - Veganizing Language: Strategies for Plant-based Legibility in Germany (November 29)

Marlén Izquierdo (Universidad del País Vasco) - Cooking and Language in English and Spanish: Exploring the Communicative Function(s) of Online Food Descriptions with the CLANES Corpus (December 20)

Loukia Lindholm (Åbo Akademi University) - Constructing the Authentic in User-generated Online Reviews of Ethnic Restaurants (January 31)

Season 6 (Summer 2024)

Michael Chesnut (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies) - A Survey of English on Flavored Milk Cartons in South Korea: From ‘Bling Bling’ and ‘Cheongdo Persimmon Milk’ to ‘My Style, My Life, My Milk’ (April 26, 2024)

Marco Bagli (University for Foreigners of Perugia) - The Linguistic Representation of Gustatory Perception in English (May 31, 2024)

Sylvia Jaworska & Iwona Gibas (University of Reading) - What Does She Need: Magic Velvet Beans or Nettle? Intersections of Food, Science and Gender in Magazine Ads (June 28, 2024)

Season 5 (Winter 2023/2024)

Ursula Kania (University of Liverpool) - “So Be Good to Yourself, and Enjoy that Lobster”: Exploring Discourses of Femininity and Self-Care in American Cookbooks for One (October 27, 2023)

Sofia Rüdiger (University of Bayreuth) - The Discursive Construction of Eating as Entertainment: Carnivalesque Consumption in the Digital Sphere (November 24, 2023)

Martha Sif Karrebæk (University of Copenhagen) - Danish Food from a Linguistic Ethnographic Perspective: A Retrospective Look at Food and Language Work (January 26, 2024)

Season 4 (Summer 2023)

Marcelyn Oostendorp (Stellenbosch University) - Politics of the Belly: Food, Memory and Discursive Identity Construction in South African Food-and-Memory Cookbooks (April 26, 2023)

Jillian R. Cavanaugh (City University of New York) - Food Chronotopes: Heritage Food, Safe Food, and the Value of Family (May 24, 2023)

Cynthia Gordon (Georgetown University) - Discursively Constructing Fusion Food as "Authentic" in Food Infotainment Videos (June 28, 2023)

Season 3 (Winter 2022/2023)

Göran Eriksson (Örebro University) - Selling "Good" and Healthy Food with Science: A Multimodal Approach to Marketing of Food and Beverages (October 28, 2022)

Marie-Louise Brunner & Stefan Diemer (Umwelt-Campus Birkenfeld | Hochschule Trier) - "{closes eyes and chews} It's not ... a cool taste“ - Humor and Interactive Stance in Food Talk (November 25, 2022)

Polly Szatrowski (University of Minnesota) - Negotiating Inclusion and Exclusion in Japanese Food Assessments with Language and the Body (January 27, 2023)

Season 2 (Summer 2022)

Alla Tovares (Howard University) - Food and Poetics: Creating Multimodal Involvement and Social Meanings on TikTok (April 29, 2022)

Ana Tominc (QMU Edinburgh) - Bananas – Bendy and Otherwise: Interrogating the Relationship Between Britain and the EU Through “Banana” Corpus Analysis (May 27, 2022)

Keri Matwick (NTU Singapore) & Kelsi Matwick (University of Florida) - “Trailblazers”: Singapore’s Discourse Around Lab-Grown Meats (June 24, 2022)

Tina Bartelmeß (University of Bayreuth) - Parental Conversations About Sugar in Online Forums: More Than Food Talks (July 29, 2022)

Season 1 (Winter 2021/2022)

Sally Wiggins Young (Linköping University) - Eating Sounds: At the Edges of Language, Food, and Bodies (October 29, 2021)

Hanwool Choe (University of Hong Kong) - Livestreaming and Vlogging as Digital Modalities to Eat Together and Eat Well (November 26, 2021)

Eva Lavric (University of Innsbruck) & Brigitte Seidler-Lunzer (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien) - Wine Tastings as a Genre in Expert/Non-Expert Communication and the Impact of Stance on Its Content and Structure: An Empirical Analysis (January 28, 2022)