Stylistic analysis of Lebanese food paper tablemats

الملخص EN

This paper will analyse selected sous plat or paper tablemats of Lebanese food restaurants serving Lebanese food.

These sous plats have been used as advertising means.

They are placed at restaurant tables to advertise for the food of the specific restaurant.

Accordingly, when the consumer or the customer comes to dine in, the attention will be directed towards what is “in” the sous plat.

These paper tablemats contain puzzles, games, pictures, and of course, slogans.

All are put into play for attracting the consumer to eat the advertised food.

Moreover, these are effective means to make the costumer pass the time while waiting for the dish to be served.

The material selected are sous plats/paper tablemats from Lebanese restaurants whose menu offers Lebanese food.

These are: Malak al Tawouk, Kabab-Ji Grill, Zaatar w Zeit, MED Mediterranean Cuisine (Med Leb), and Ahwak.

These form the data in hand for stylistic analysis.

The researcher will adopt Crystal and Davy’s model for stylistic analysis, and in particular, the five levels: graphological/graphetics, phonological/phonetics, grammatical, lexical, and the semantic level.

This model is of essence for this study because it helps the analyst to extract stylistic and other (linguistic) features from the text and show a certain author's or writer’s way with words.

The researcher will conduct a stylistic and a structural analysis to exhibit how the features of context function through underlying meanings of the text, into attracting the consumers to buy/consume what the sous plat is advertising.