A linguistic analysis of the official tourism websites of the seventeen Spanish Autonomous Communities. (September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Malenkina, Nadezhda; Ivanov, Stanislav
• Is Part Of: Journal of destination marketing & management. Volume 9(2018)
• Page Start: 204
• Page End: 233
• Publication Date: 2018-09
• Subjects: Destination branding -- Tourism discourse -- Promotion -- Persuasion -- Interactional metadiscourse -- Transcreation; Place marketing -- Periodicals; Tourism -- Management -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 658.8005
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdmm.2018.01.007
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2212-571X

Abstract

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to research the linguistic strategies used in the official tourism websites of the seventeen Spanish Autonomous Communities for destination management, marketing and branding. The seventeen webpages have been assessed through the analysis of persuasive linguistic techniques and thematic lingo. Based on content and discourse analysis, a specialised synchronic corpus of texts in Spanish and their parallel texts in English was created, and a census reached. Interactional metadiscoursal markers uncovered rhetorical and persuasive means of promotion and communication, while specificities of the tourism discourse were broached through terminology. Moreover, transcreation is considered an indispensable linguistic tool for the internationalisation of the destinations. The abundance of interpersonal metadiscursive markers and thematic lexicon in the corpus led to the assumption that the target tourism discourse is used as a means of informing but primarily persuading the tourist, thus, conceptualising language as catalyst to tourism promotion. Highlights: Invesitigates the linguistic strategies of the Spanish and English versions. The websites make copious use of persuasive language. The most prominent interactional metadiscursive attribute are boosters. The most abundant interpersonal persuasive language relates to tourism resources.