I saperi alimentari e la loro descrizione linguistica e multimodale. Esempi da ALMA: Atlante Linguistico Multimediale della diversità Alimentare bio/culturale

Multimodality is an essential component in the analysis and description of the language
used to talk about food. It is almost impossible to describe the types of bread produced in
certain geographical areas without showing their images – examples are given in the paper.
It is also difficult to understand food practices and traditions without seeing them or
listening to the descriptions of their producers and practitioners. Furthermore, the packaging
of all industrial food products uses a specific language and paralanguage. With the
aim of representing the complexity of food language, this paper illustrates the features of
ALMA: Atlante Linguistico Multimediale della diversità Alimentare bio/culturale (ALMA:
Multimedia Linguistic Atlas of Bio/Cultural Food Diversity), an online resource currently
being implemented. ALMA contains two types of lexicographical records to illustrate the
“words for food” (everyday and technical/specialised language) and the “words for choosing
food” (language and paralanguage used for marketing), both of which will be dealt with in
the paper.