Official Tourism Websites: A Discourse Analysis Perspective

by Richard W. Hallett, Judith Kaplan-Weinger

Overview

Official Tourism Websites: A Discourse Analysis Perspective investigates the construction and promotion of identity of tourist locales by the designers of the official websites for destinations such as Santiago de Compostela, Spain; the Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia; New Orleans, Louisiana and Gary, Indiana; Myanmar/Burma; US Sports Halls of Fame; and, in recognizing the influence and popularity of such sites, three websites parodying the imaginary nations of Phaic Tan, Molvania, and San Sombrero. Analysis addresses how tourism websites foster social action and, therefore, contribute to the (re)construction of nations and other communities by variably fostering re-imagination, rebirth, renaissance, promotion and caution, and patriotism. Recognizing that tourism texts can function to both construct and embody identity for their respective locales, this investigation employs critical discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, and visual semiotic analysis in the investigation of web texts and images.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845411367
Publisher:	Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Publication date:	03/24/2010
Series:	Tourism and Cultural Change , #23
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Richard W. Hallett is a Professor of linguistics at Northeastern Illinois Universityin Chicago, IL. He received his PhD in linguistics from the University of South Carolina. In addition to the discourse of tourism, his research interests include second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and World Englishes.

Judith Kaplan-Weinger is Professor of linguistics at Northeastern Illinois Universityin Chicago, IL. She earned her PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University. Her teaching and research interests lie in, aside from language and tourism, the multi-modal discourse analysis of grief and mourning.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements xi

Foreword xiii

1 Introduction 1

Discourse of Tourism 1

Why Websites? 2

Why English? 3

Outline of the Text 4

2 Identity and the World Wide Web: Methods of Analysis 6

Critical Discourse Analysis 7

Mediated Discourse Analysis 8

Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Linguistic and Visual Texts 10

Travel as Metaphor: Websites as Narratives 12

Conclusion 13

3 Narrative of the Nation: Baltic Tourism Websites in the Post-Soviet Context 15

Introduction 15

History 15

Linguistic and Visual Texts in the Social Construction of National Identity 16

The Social Construction of Independent Identity: Language Choice 17

The Social Construction of Independent Identity: Linguistic Texts 18

The Social Construction of Independent Identity: Visual Texts 23

People 23

Locales 28

Conclusion 32

4 The Tourist as Pilgrim, the Pilgrim as Tourist: Santiago de Compostela 33

Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Linguistic Texts 35

Multimodal Discourse Analysis: Visual Texts 39

5 Rebirth of an American City: New Orleans, Louisiana 44

Introduction 44

Metaphor in pre-Katrina Louisiana Tourism Websites 45

Metaphor in pre-Katrina Louisiana Tourism Websites: Reinforcement 48

Metaphor in post-Katrina Louisiana Tourism Websites 51

Conclusion 55

6 '100 Years . . . Steel Strong': Forging an Identity for Gary, Indiana 57

Introduction 57

Steel as Metaphor 59

Conclusion 68

7 The Tourist as Patriot: Sports and Nationalism 69

Introduction 69

Baseball Hall of Fame: Mission, Promotion and History 72

Basketball Hall of Fame: Mission, Promotion and History 74

National Baseball Hall of Fame: Linguistic and Visual Analysis 75

Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame: Linguistic and Visual Analysis 81

Conclusion 85

8 Balancing Promotion and Warning in the Construction of National Identity in Travel Guides: The Case of Myanmar/Burma 87

Introduction 87

Background 89

Official Myanmar Website 90

Lonely Planet 99

Conclusion 100

9 Constructing Self versus Other in Parodic Travel Guides 101

Stereotyping an Eastern European Identity: Molvania 102

Parodying Southeast Asian Tourism: Phaic Tan 104

Satirizing Central America: San Sombrèro 107

Conclusion 113

10 Conclusion: On Tourism, Identity and the World Wide Web 114

References 122

Index 127

Editorial Reviews

Hallett and Kaplan-Weinger’s book Official Tourism Websites is a timely and pertinent publication, as international travel becomes the norm and the internet a major venue of information…In an effortless manner, Hallett and Kaplan-Weinger guide their readers through new and rough terrains. Their in-depth analyses of the rich web data provide critical insights into meanings and functions of official tourism websites, a prevalent but somewhat neglected field…In short, Official Tourism Websites is a successful and accessible exploration of issues such as tourism discourse, identity construction and representational practices in the information age.

Yiqiong Zhang

What the book is: a collection of very interesting case studies that nicely exemplify aspects of the tourism discourse such as the use of metaphors, the importance of visual semiotics and the active use of texts for constructing destinations as places worth visiting; an important contribution to understanding the political nature of tourism discourse; an illustration of the usefulness of discourse analysis as a research method. Researchers and practitioners interested in these areas will certainly find very compelling examples in this book.

Ulrike Gretzel

The discourse of tourism is a discourse of identity construction, promotion, contestation and acceptance. It is a discourse created through linguistic and visual texts and increasingly today, through the internet on a whole range of travel-related websites, including those of destination management organisations and a plethora of social networking sites. In this immensely informative and provocative text Rick Hallett and Judith Kaplan-Weinger take to task the role of the World Wide Web in mediating the construction of identities. Theirs is a timely and thought-provoking book which makes a major contribution to the task of making the meanings of these sites transparent through discourse analysis. The book is scholarly yet hugely readable and well-illustrated; it readily communicates the authors’ command of their subject.

Professor Annette Pritchard

Official tourism websites represents a fascinating preliminary venture into an as yet underexplored field. The authors describe the text as an “initial foray into the analysis and understanding of the role of the internet in fostering identity construction for tourists and destinations” (121), and they invite further analysis building on their innovative approach.

Erica Fontana