DISHES AND DRINKS WORTH A TRIP, CONCERNING THE LOANWORDS IN CULINARY REPORTAGES

Abstract

Purpose. Culinary reportages are informative and, at the same time, persuasive texts addressed to a large variety of readers potentially interested in visiting different parts of the world. The following paper investigates selected texts excerpted from the travel magazine National Geographic Traveler Polska (October, 2016). Every issue is devoted to a different topic. The issue submitted to analysis concentrates on one common theme, namely traditional foods of selected European, Asian, South American and African countries. The main focus of the study is on analyzing the occurrence of loan words used to describe traditional dishes, beverages and foodstuffs. The loanwords have been classified on a semantic level. The process of their adaptation in Polish has also been studied. Method. In order to obtain objective results, all 10 reportages were examined with the same method of content analysis. Firstly, 95 names of traditional dishes, beverages and foodstuffs have been excerpted from each text and the second step was analysis on semantic and adaptive levels. Findings. The results show a few possible semantic groups (material, genetic, synonymous, sensory names). As far as the extent of adaptation is concerned, out of 95, 41 uncommon foreign words have been identified whereas 54 are partially or fully assimilated in Polish. Moreover, 81 loanwords have an extra comment, which is being introduced by using different punctuation marks and/or conjunctions. Research and conclusion limitations. Out of 16 reportages 10 representing traditional African (2), South American (2), Asian (3) and European (3) cuisine have been chosen. The extensive range of texts combined with the fact that the reportages are written by a variety of journalists and concern different countries, provides a reliable and differentiated source material, though to some extent, it is limited. In view of this, further investigations on larger corpora are needed. Practical implications. Besides the cognitive character of the conducted study (names of traditional African, Asian, South American and European meals), the research can be of significance for further studies about language in the tourism industry. Originality. Culinary reportages are a subgenre of travel reportages, which so far, has not been extensively examined in Polish academic papers dealing with the tourism industry. Type of paper. The article presents the results of empirical research.