Exploring the phenomenology of shopping as social practice : an inquiry into the multimodal and linguistic repertoires in markets in Sydney

This chapter investigates how semiotic resources, practices, and spaces are intertwined and interwoven in the process of cultural and interactional exchanges in a busy marketplace in Sydney, Australia, known as Parklea Markets. Based on photographic, video, and audio data, the chapter analyzes the interactions taking place at the cash registers, which are considered exemplary sites for observing transactional and interactional exchanges among customers and sales assistants. The chapter demonstrates that cash register interaction encompasses local diversities evidenced by the use of local artefactual practices and by the cultural differences associated with participants' different histories. Central to the study are the meaning potentials of resources used and made relevant by the participants involved in the shopping activities. Getting a sense of these mundane everyday interactions reveals how national and international structures, discourses, and politics filter down to the local level, and how they impact upon and are negotiated by everyday diverse actors in their relationships to one another.