Lingua Inglese 2 completo

Lingua inglese IITourist language

The tourist communication

The tourist communication is a process to create a collective imaginary about a place. The words must be understood by many people so it isn’t considered a language. The aim is to sell products so this communication is based on the opposition familiarity/exoticism — we need to speak to people with the same language that they expected but there is always an element that is unknown and makes it exclusive. The storytelling of a place is fundamental: we are communicating to tell stories about the place, its history, or must-see sights.

Types of tourist texts

Tourist texts consist of a variety of publications (brochures, leaflets, magazines, periodicals, websites, and social networks) — their purpose is to promote a given locality, its tourist attractions, services, and facilities. There are two types of tourist text:

• Informative: in the translations of these texts, the aim is the information.
• Appellative (promotional): the aim is to provoke the readers; even if I have to change something in the translation, I have to find a way to convince. (This translation method is called Adaptation)

Tourist text can include several topics (architecture, economy, geography, cuisine, history...): we need to know a little bit of everything to make a good translation. The tourism discourse is not different from literature: it deals with everything. The characteristics and the specificity are first of all in the structure, and secondly, there is a specialized vocabulary. As interception of the genre and the different kind of texts, we have the tourism discourse.

English vs Italian tourist language

English tourist language tends to be more personal and informal (the imperative tense is much used to invite the public reader to visit the attractions), Italian is instead more impersonal and formal (places are advertised using the passive).

Theme and rheme

• Theme: in a text is the given information (usually the subject), what the clause is about.
• Rheme: is the extra information, what the speaker/writer says about the theme.
• Phrase: is a group of words that stay together.
• Clause: it needs at least a verb.
• Sentence: it could be more than a clause (principle, subordinated...).

Tourism as language for special purposes (LSP)

Tourism as Language for Special Purposes (LSP) is a macro-specialized language (tourism discourse) which contains little micro-specialized languages = sub-fields that we can find (business, marketing, geography, history...).

Characteristics of tourism discourse (LSP)

• Monoreferentiality
• Precision
• Transparency
• Conciseness

Informative vs promotional texts

Informative texts privilege a denotative function: denotation — what a word means. Promotional texts privilege an emotional connotative function: connotation: positive/negative value, the emotional attachment to a word.

Monoreferentiality and precision

Monoreferentiality is the fact that in a given context only one meaning is allowed. Especially with informative-denotative texts, there’s no rule for ambiguity and polysemy. Words in tourism discourse tend to be specialized: we use words that mean that and that only. This isn’t valid for slogans and adverts because they play with polysemy to obtain a persuasive effect. Precision: the monoreferentiality point immediately to one concept which is therefore precise.

Transparency

Transparency means that it is very clear to understand. The opposite is languaging: use of impressive foreign words which people know less in order to induce a feeling of inferiority and win the readers’ interest. It is also “giving voice” to one’s own identity in a specific social context or use particular expressions shared by the writer and the reader. Other devices are alliteration, onomatopoeia, use of familiar expressions in an unusual context.

Conciseness

Conciseness is based on the principle of minimal effort to reach maximal specificity. It is the expression of terms in the shortest possible form. There’s a lot of strategies: acronyms (ASAP, LOS), abbreviations, eponyms, zero derivation (turn a noun to a verb and vice versa), blending, juxtaposition (omitting prepositions and determiners), specialization of general words. It is achieved through the omission of phrasal elements such as articles, prepositions, etc. We find in English a compact syntactic structure which eliminates everything that isn’t necessary. Expressive conciseness: the easiest way to eliminate relative clauses is by substituting them with lexemes with an adjectival role and usually by means of affixation.

Premodification left-dislocation

It is a use of terms with an adjectival function which modifies the qualities or the properties of the head–noun, this may create complex nominal groups. Examples include check-in time, hub and spoke tour, destination marketing organization, receptive ground operator, escorted all-inclusive tour, turnaround time, fly-cruise package. This makes the expression denser syntactically and gives it greater semantic importance. Nominalization is the process by which verbs are turned into a noun or a noun/verb into an adjective. It is frequent in specialized texts because it conveys more objective and precise data.

Verbs in tourism discourse

In a communicative text, we use the present tense. In a pragmatic text, we use the imperative because the purpose is to explain what you have to do. Modals: modality is realized using expressions which indicate how the world might be and should be. This includes expressions of necessity, permissibility, and probability but also the negation of these.

Main modals in the tourist industry

• Can and will convey the idea of possibility and certainty.
• Must: the term does not express a modal but rather a nominalized form in such expressions as a must-see, must-do, a must — it acquires a colloquial status and indicates a necessity, something the tourist absolutely can't miss.

Passive forms

Passive forms are not common in all specialized text types but occur frequently in tourism discourse. Passives are used to depersonalize discourse which emphasizes the effect or the result of an action rather than its cause or originator. Example: Tickets are non-transferable and name changes are not permitted. Example: You will be met by our host and transferred to your hotel.

Disjunctive grammar

Disjunctive grammar is a technique used in advertising and notices. It includes verb-less and non-finite clauses; sometimes sentences lack both subject and a finite verb. This type of grammar is often used in itineraries because the itinerary schematically describes things to do and see.

Special use of personal pronouns

Personal pronouns acquire a special role in guidebooks; they are used to achieve the goal of ego-targeting. By using "we" and "you" the author establishes a direct relationship with the reader: it is the best way to generate a persuasive text. In this way, agreement is more easily obtained as the empathy. If a consumer recognizes that they are being addressed by an advertisement, they feel singled out and are likely to become a consumer.

Use of superlative forms and expressions

There is a massive presence of superlatives with positive terms to create a sense of euphoria for the services promoted and a sense of distinctiveness and authenticity. Great, more, most — exclusive quality.

Specialization of general lexis

Semantic evolution derives from the specialization of word meanings originally belonging to general language, from the word "sustainability" to "sustain." It also occurred through the creation of new lexemes: suffix-friendly (eco-friendly, vegan-friendly), e-prefix (e-commerce, e-mail).

Metaphorization

Metaphorization is the most used strategy to derive new and specialized meanings from general language. Metaphors are essential because they say concisely what in other words would need long elaborate descriptions. The main reason why specialized discourse uses metaphors is catachresis — the use of a word with some new meaning to fill the gap in existing vocabulary. Specialized discourses employ also shortened similes; two terms confer their own qualities to the other term (Ex. Ecotourism, Tourism is business). Elliptic similes: whenever specialized discourse involves a process of popularization Ex. Sri Lanka is a pearl of the Orient — the common attributes of this tourist destination and a precious pearl are linked together. In tourism language, metaphors and similes are employed to downplay unfamiliarity; the greater the cultural gap the more the simile is used.

Lexical features

• The use of positive adjectives to give beauty and distinction to the text.
• The use of superlatives with adjectives or morphological form is very high.
• The careful lexical choices of keywords to inspire imagination: away, adventure, dream, imagination, pleasure, escape.
• The use of cultural references called realia, which don’t have an equivalent in the target language.

Textual features

• Anaphoric reference: a word in a text refers back to other ideas in the text for its meaning. This complicates the informative structure of the text and is responsible for the presence of fixed sentences which give the impression of a contorted text.
• Cataphoric reference: when a word refers to ideas later in the text.
• Lexical repetition: is used to avoid ambiguity. This technique reflects the illocutionary purpose of the text i.e. the communicative intention expressed by the speaker.
• Conjunction and connectives: have the same function as anaphora — they clarify the following sentences and orientate the text. For example, with adversative connectives such as "yet," "however," "but," the reader expects to find a subsequent sentence, semantically opposed to the previous one.

Cohesion

Cohesion includes all the grammatical and lexical links that link one part of a text to another. This includes use of synonyms, lexical sets, pronouns, verb tenses, time references, and grammatical references.

Synonyms

• Synonyms are words that have the same meaning, they provide some variety in your word choices, helping the reader to stay focused on the idea being discussed.
• Associative meaning: the qualities or characteristics beyond the denotative meaning that people commonly think of in relation to a word or a phrase.
• Reflective meaning: a single word or phrase is associated with more than one sense or meaning.
• Connotation: the emotional implication and association that a word may carry.
• Denotation: the dictionary, literal meaning of a word.
• Register or social meaning: is the meaning which an expression conveys about the contexts or social circumstances of its use. (formal, colloquial)

Coherence

Coherence refers to how meaning and sequences of ideas relate to each other. For example: general-particular, problem-solution, question-answer. Most sentences in English have two parts: a theme (a topic) and a rheme (comment).

Genre

Genre is composed of a class of communicative events which share some set of communicative purposes. Genres are used by socio-rhetorical groups to reach goals beyond individual needs and geographical settings. Tourism discourse presents a wide range of text types such as package-tour itineraries, unsolicited promotional letters, slogans, and posters.

Tourist guide

Tourist guides are books whose function is descriptive and to give practical information: it’s the most comprehensive and longer genre and it’s the only one that may contain negative expressions or descriptions. It’s an on-trip genre — we read it when we are on holiday/vacation. They provide historical and cultural vision and help the reader with useful tips and practical advice. They are normally more subjective than general tourist texts, they don’t belong to the promotional genre of tourism but to the informative one. This genre is the less persuasive because the tourist has already made his/her choice when he/she reads them. Guides differ in the type of target audience and consequently in the type of language which can be formal or very colloquial.

Guidebooks

• Guidebooks present dynamics of cross-cultural representation:
• They construct the image of the target destination.
• They represent the cultural gap between the destination and the place the tourist comes from.
• They achieve the role of socialization and of enculturation.

The authoritative voice of the writer achieved by:

• A subjective voice.
• Use of evaluative terms which describe the author’s experience.
• Use of imperative verbs which exhort the reader to act.
• Emphasis of cultural gaps (should, must, need, surely, certainly, likely).
• Strong use of modalization to express advice, tips...

The register is colloquial and informal to make the tourist’s decision easy. A destination is authentic when it satisfies the tourist’s expectations, with two strategies to make the destination authentic:

• Use of exotic words — that belong to the destination language. They can be explained with a translation or a comment or they can remain untranslated.
• Use of emotional words — when the reader belongs to the same country or culture described in the guidebooks, words that remind him/her about the historical heritage are utilized.

Catalogues and brochures

They are used to promote a package holiday or other products. They contain information about the destination they promote. They are not produced for a wide public and they are produced by hotels, offices, and tour operators. They can be considered the most persuasive texts of tourism discourse (besides proper ads) because they should modify the reader’s behavior by making him choose a holiday. Brochures and catalogues are a combination of several other genres, with general features:

• Evaluative claims about the destination — they normally use the present tense, superlative forms, thematization of adverbials of place.
• Brief history of the resort/facility — they normally use the past tense and the thematization of adverbials of time.
• Guided tour of the main attractions — they use the imperative forms and they often stress personal pronouns.
• Practical details.
• Regulations.

They all are written with a definite structure:

• The first and the last page contain practical information about the destination (weather conditions, time zones, money transfer, means of transport).
• The most important parts are the descriptions of receptive structures. They both have an informative and a persuasive function.

Every catalogue has both an iconical and a verbal element:

• Iconic elements (image) — always represent the ideal places and ideal situations. They are visual clichés that aim at transmitting a sense of shared friendship and welcoming.
• Verbal element — text that has three sections:
• Headline: (at the top of the page) it contains the name of the destination.
• Text (bottom): it is organized in a hierarchical order from general to detailed (overall judgment, more accurate description, services offered, availability, and costs).

Textual organization in catalogues and brochures is very simple and straightforward and this must be kept in the target language/target text. Coordination is preferred to subordination in order to achieve conciseness, transparency of communication, semantic and lexical density, and compactness — it’s normally achieved with the use of pre-modifiers in apposition for a denser, more compact effect. (air-conditioned room). Affixation with affixes capable of a clear semantic value (in-flight meals — meals which are served on board during the flight). Simplified passive relative clauses vs (pre-bookable flowers) nouns specified by a complex pre-modifier.

Lexis in catalogues and brochures

• The lexis utilized is easy to understand:
• Adjectives: always positive, emphatic, and evaluative, adjectives of grandiosity.
• Emphasis on the benefits.
• Superlatives: they indicate excellence.
• Adverbs (certainly, of course, obviously) indicating epistemic certainty.
• Contextualization realized with deixis (orientating function).
• Specialized terms in the informative sections.
• Comfort is always mentioned.

Syntax

Nominal Phrases: impactful in order to attract potential customers. Language is characterized by pre-modifiers, most common are: exotic, different, remote, unspoilt (this can be negative for families not wanting to cope with the unexpected), new, charming, beautiful, wonderful.

Verbal Phrases: mostly presented with the present simple to describe the tourist destination as having unchanging features, imperative not used to give an order or an obligation, but to underline the different opportunities that tourists can choose from. Imperatives mark the presence of the enunciator which creates a pseudo-dialogue that takes the form of an intimate conversation as if you were the only person in the world.

Modals

• Can: conveys the idea of having different possibilities. The idea behind is that the potential tourist is the real protagonist of the holiday.
• May: indicates epistemic remote possibility but it mainly occurs in the terms and conditions sections of both brochures and catalogues (e.g., the eventual variation in prices).
• Will: indicates epistemic certainty. It’s not the marker of the future tense but rather indicates the promise of the tour operator. It is also used in the informative parts concerning insurance policies, flight times, available services, and baggage restrictions — deontic function: indicates what is permitted or not.
• Must: is used as a verb only in terms and conditions selection while it’s used as expressions such as “a must-see.”