'Is it Okay to eat a dog in Korea ... like China?' assumptions of national food-eating practices in intercultural interaction

There is a small body of research which shows how intercultural communication is constituted in and through talk-in-interaction, and can be made relevant or irrelevant by interactants on a moment-by-moment basis. Our paper builds on this literature by investigating how cultural assumptions of national food-eating practices are deployed, contested and co-constructed in an online, voice-based chat room. Using conversation analysis, findings show how assumptions about cultural practices sequentially unfold in a setting where the interactants are strangers. Additionally, we show how assumptions about cultural practices can be used for rhetorical purposes, and can be treated as simple and complex in a single exchange. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.