The branding of Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot in foodscape: semiotic dissemination and translanguaging practices

Abstract As a category of spicy hot pot, Sichuan-Chongqing hot pot (SCH) is becoming increasingly popular in China and around the world. This study examines the branding of SCH restaurants in Chengdu. By analyzing linguistic, imagery, color, and material resources, we reveal how these elements reflect the historical, cultural, and sensory characteristics of hot pot through constructing specific foodscapes. Ethnographic data, including 557 photographs from two streets and consumer-targeted interviews, demonstrate that translingual (e.g. mixed Simplified/Traditional Chinese, Chinese dialects, and English) and trans-semiotic (e.g. combining colors, materials, and imagery) choreography of multi-modality evoke a sense of nostalgia, belonging, and exoticism. This study highlights the role of multimodal semiotics in food branding, providing insights into how commodified foodscapes mediate cultural narratives and market success. Moreover, we explore how such distributed resources are selectively extracted to gradually form a series of stable and repetitive repertoires about SCH in the translanguaging space, which are continuously disseminated in meme units to promote branding. The findings highlight the role of semiotic resources in food branding, providing insights into how commodified foodscapes mediate cultural and marketing discourses. Future research could further explore the impact of meme dynamics in other culinary environments based on consumers’ behaviors.