Naslov
Recontextualising national identity discourses for tourism promotion

Autori
Georgiou, Vasiliki ; Skelin Horvat, Anita ; Carroll-Davis, Lisa

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
New Challenges for Multilingualism in Europe: Book of Abstracts / Jernej, Mirna ; Muhvić-Dimanovski, Vesna ; Sujoldžić, Anita - Zagreb : Institut za antropologiju, 2010, 44-44

ISBN
978-953-7467-03-6

Skup
New Challenges for Multilingualism in Europe

Mjesto i datum
Dubrovnik, Hrvatska, 11.04.2010. - 15.04.2010

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
discourses on national identity; strategic plan for tourism

Sažetak
This paper is building on existing literature (e.g. Ioannidou, 2003 ; Karoulla-Vrikki, 2004 ; Karyolemou, 2001 ; Grbić, 1990 ; Badurina, Pranjković, Silić, 2009) which shows that language is an important aspect of national identity in Cyprus and Croatia and the object of many heated public debates in their recent history (Georgiou, 2009 ; Karyolemou, 2002). The aim of this paper is to shift the focus from internal debates to the ways in which each country promotes itself internationally. Taking tourism promotional campaigns as our focus, we examine the extent to and ways in which discourses on national/cultural identity circulating within each country are recontexualised (Blackledge, 2005 ; Silverstein & Urban, 1996) in the tourism policy and promotional material, and the role of language therein. In this paper we focus particularly on the publication of the ‘strategic plan for tourism’ by the respective official tourism boards and their respective websites. Drawing on insights and tools from CDA and multimodal analysis studies (Fairclough 1995 ; Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001 ; Wodak & Meyer 2001), we examine both the reasons and the ways in which each country has tried to recreate its image abroad. We argue that discourses on collective identity in each country draw from a number of historical and cultural legacies, but that official tourism boards draw selectively on these to construct a ‘unique’ image for the country, through processes of foregrounding and backgrounding, that will give the country a strategic advantage in the tourism market. Despite planning for differentiation, the analysis shows that Cyprus and Croatia present striking similarities in the way they position themselves as desirable tourism destinations, particularly their self-representation as bridges between different people and cultures. The study shows that first, while the process of repositioning Cyprus and Croatia in the tourism market inevitably has an important linguistic/discursive character, language itself as an object is not important in the promotion of a collective identity for tourism purposes. Second, it shows that circulating collective identity discourses still have currency and are strategically drawn upon in tourism promotion, albeit modified based on political and economic considerations.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

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