My starting point is the Scalar Model of Polarity (Israel 1996, 1998), which predicts a reliable correlation between a polarity item's sensitivity and its scalar semantic properties: specifically, it predicts that forms denoting a minimal scalar degree may be emphatic negative polarity items (NPIs), while forms denoting maximal degrees can be emphatic positive polarity items. This paper addresses two basic questions about polarity items: what sorts of meaning can such forms encode and why should such forms exist in the first place. Relationships among writers, readers, and other participants such as publishers and site organizers differ among all three sub-registers, resulting in some unique linguistic patterns. Online sub-registers share a role of serving as a repository and reference center for numerous recipes and related information.
Professionally edited cookbook and online commercial recipes show a much higher uniformity in their grammatical features than unedited/self-edited user-generated recipes. Varied linguistic and textual features are motivated by different production circumstances, mediums, and relations among the participants. Shared traits among the three sub-registers are tied to the common topic of cooking and the central purpose of providing easy-to-follow food preparation instructions. The comparative perspective contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of Japanese recipe language as well as universal and language-specific aspects of register variation. The present study of the sub-registers examines a group of frequently appearing linguistic features and uncovers functional links between observed features and situational characteristics. Past studies on Japanese recipes do not distinguish different sub-registers, and they tend to focus on a single feature.
This paper investigates the similarities and differences between three sub-registers of Japanese recipe texts: cookbook recipes, online commercial recipes written/edited by professionals, and online user-generated recipes.
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