A comparative corpus-assisted discourse study of the representations of hosts in promotional tourism discourse

Abstract

Most research concerned with the representations of hosts in tourism discourse points to the prevalence of stereotypical images of local people asserting that contemporary tourism perpetuates colonial legacy and gendered discursive practices. This claim has been contested, to some extent, in studies that explore representations of hosts in local tourism materials, pointing out that tourism can also resist discursively dominant Western imagery. While this research provides evidence for the existence of hegemonic and diverging discourses about the local ‘Other’, its empirical basis is rather small and often limited to one context. In this study, I address this shortcoming by examining representations of hosts in a larger corpus of promotional tourism materials, including texts produced by Western and local tourism industries. The data is investigated using the methodology of Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS). By comparing external with internal (self-)representations, this study verifies and refines some of the claims on the subject and offers a much more nuanced picture of representations that defies the black-and-white scenarios proposed in previous research.

‘I consider myself to be a service provider’: Discursive identity construction of the forensic linguistic expert

“…The researcher can either draw on the tools of corpus linguistics to look at the data to identify areas which require further examination (e.g. Partington 2006, Jaworska 2016, or they can begin with discourse analysis and select a discourse-analytical frame (e.g. Tkačuková 2015, Schrӧter andStorjohann 2015).…”

Phraseological patterns in a civic orientation textbook for immigrants to Sweden: How heterogeneous readers and a largely non-monolithic country are constructed

“…Social actors have been studied for example from the perspective of what words and expressions are selected to name and describe people and social groups (e.g. van Leeuwen, 1996;Jaworska, 2016), or what people or social groups are included or excluded, or foregrounded and backgrounded (e.g. Jaworska, 2016).…”

“…van Leeuwen, 1996;Jaworska, 2016), or what people or social groups are included or excluded, or foregrounded and backgrounded (e.g. Jaworska, 2016). As word choices and lexicogrammar or inclusions/exclusions reflect and reinforce attitudes and ideology, the analysis of social actors is often done from a critical perspective.…”

“…The 'social Other' is sometimes used to refer to 'groups that have been marginalised and discriminated against' (Jaworska, 2016, p. 84). Examples of corpus-based studies of (potential) social Others include Jaworska (2016) on how local people are represented in tourism websites, Baker (2004) on how gay people are talked about in parliamentary debates, and Gabrielatos & Baker (2008) on how immigrants are represented in the British media. In the present study, the construction of both sameness and of difference will be considered from the perspective of the presentation of the nation of Sweden and the reader-cum-recent immigrant to the country.…”

Exploring the hospitality-tourism nexus: Directions and questions for past and future research

“…Similarly, Xu et al (2020) pointed to the role of mediated food-related practices in captivating visitors and shaping their material-embodied tourism experiences in place. Importantly, members of the 'host' population are often co-opted in such tourism promotional practices to construct messages about the welcoming and hospitable nature of the tourist encounters that visitors can expect (Jaworska, 2016).…”