Französische Restaurantkritiken im Internet

Eine linguistische Analyse einer digitalen „Textsorte“

Abstract

Concerning restaurant reviews, we can state a constantly growing increase in po­pularity, especially in France. Restaurant reviews as text types are based on a long tradition. Nevertheless, we can observe that besides the realization in the tra­diti­onal medial format, for example as printed restaurant guides or in journals of spe­cial interest, restaurant reviews are more and more shifted into the digital sphere. The linguistic description of French online restaurant reviews that is real­ized in the present contribution aims at taking into account this tendency as well as the nu­me­rous possibilities concerning the text design that result from this shift into the vir­tual sphere. Due to the semiotic complexity and the hypertextual character of restaurant reviews on the Internet, the attempt to assign one single communica­tive function to restaurant reviews must inevitably fail. Different text functions can be combined within one review, with evaluating and criticizing as the dominant ones that are common to the majority of the analyzed texts. As a result, the analysis is focused on the question by which linguistic means these core functions of French online restaurant reviews are realized. The linguistic analysis is preceded by the identification of core criteria which, in our corpus, are subject to an evaluation/ criticism. The analysis shows that the authors aim at being creative and at evoking a high degree of authenticity in their texts, in order to distinguish their critical re­views from competing reviews.