Mirabelli Synthesis

In the Tony Mirabelli's article, "Learning to Serve: The Language and Literacy of Food Service Workers," unlike the other articles by Wardle, Swales, or Gee, he starts his essay in an online discussion revolving around persecution against waiters and waitresses. He then goes on a summary about these persecutions instead of talking about language as the other articles. As Swales has stated, a discourse community must have a genre of texts. For the restaurant, Lou's, the most important genre of text was the menu. Words in the menus could be considered lexis as it could have different meanings depending on the context of the restaurant. In Wardle's activity system, authority is given to members by members of higher fluency or through recognition. On the other hand, Toni Mirabelli argues that waiters and waitresses gain a bit of authority through the usage of language. He also states, "While my research has shown that waiters and waitresses can exercise some level of authority, skill, and wit through their use of language with customers, they must also interact with management and other staff where authority and control play out in different ways" (553). Waiters and waitresses have authority over the customers during a short interaction through the usage of language. By using "magic words," they can manipulate a customer to choose a food, or if they aren't too sure of the details and explain it in an unelegant way, then it may affect the customer to not choose that particular item. However, he argues that for the most part, customers have authority over the waiters and waitresses because how they experience the restaurant will affect what the waitress or waiter will do next. Managers on the other hand are not easily as manipulated by language as the customers. Instead, the waiter and waitress gains authority only through permission.