Rhetoric on sale. Discourse strategies in supermarket interactions.

Abstract

This article intends to describe by means of conversational and rhetorical terms what happens in ordinary interactions which take place in Italian supermarkets. We show how some conversational routines can be conceived as hidden rhetoric. In doing so, we follow some French scholars, such as Anscombre and Ducrot, who reinvent the relationship between information and rhetoric, giving to the latter a broader meaning. The research, via natural data, shows how the way something is said and its use in a given context produce the meaning.