Abstract

This chapter will provide an overview of the research on the language of food and menus in Chinese. The discussion will focus on the Chinese language of food from different perspectives, ranging from the historical and geolinguistic study of food names, the lexical semantics of eating verbs and the metaphorical meanings in the food-related lexicon to the implicit information encoded in Chinese menus. The diversity and vitality of this line of research, as demonstrated in this chapter, should encourage more contributions to this largely uncharted area in the future.