A cross-cultural study of restaurant reviews from two different locations

Abstract

The word "reveue" meaning "to see again" is defined as providing a critical appraisal that influences readers’ consumption and leisure choices. In the case of restaurant reviews, they are a critical evaluation of the overall experience expressed in terms of food, ambience, location, and service, enabling prospective customers to decide whether they should visit (or avoid) a particular restaurant over others. Although some research is available on the rhetorical structure and content of professional, semi-professional, and user-generated restaurant reviews, very little attention is paid to the underlying cultural differences, especially cross-cultural differences in these reviews from different geographical locations. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to provide a cross-cultural genre analysis of the rhetorical, content, and linguistic/metaphorical aspects of restaurant reviews. The sample consists of 30 restaurant reviews extracted from two specific geographical locations and national newspapers from India and Singapore. It is hoped that this analysis will be useful for both food critics and customers alike, helping the former to write better reviews for different markets and the latter to make appropriate dining choices.

Keywords: restaurant reviews, cross-cultural genre analysis, rhetorical analysis, content analysis, linguistic/metaphorical analysis