Effects of frame-semantically (in)congruent food labels on taste in non-native English speakers

• Non-native English speakers tasted foods with frame-semantically (in)congruent labels. • With congruent labels, English dominance correlated positively with tastiness. • With incongruent labels, English dominance correlated negatively with tastiness. • The findings are explained in terms of collocational processing. • Implications for the labeling of food products throughout Europe are discussed. Many studies have examined the non-native processing of formulaic versus non-formulaic language; however, this is the first study to investigate a related phenomenon: the non-native processing of frame-semantically congruent versus incongruent combinations of near-synonymic food labels and foods. Specifically, 254 European consumers participated in taste tests of store-bought potato chips and apples presented as novel products with fictitious, frame-semantically (in)congruent brand names containing the near-synonyms crispy and crunchy . Linear regression analyses revealed that the valence of consumers’ thoughts about foods remained unaffected by frame-semantic (in)congruence. In contrast, perceived taste was mediated by English dominance, producing a positive correlation in the frame-semantically congruent condition and a negative correlation in the frame-semantically incongruent condition. These results contrast with previous research on native speakers of English, suggesting that awareness of the distinct semantic frames of near-synonyms develops with increasing English dominance. Furthermore, they have real-world implications because English is often used to advertise food products, regardless of the dominant language(s) in a particular market.