Patrick Goethals

Traveling Through Languages: Reports on Language Experiences in Tourists’ Travel Blogs

Abstract This paper aims to gain insight into (Spanish) tourists’ multilingual experiences by analyzing spontaneously written online travel diaries. Using the conceptual framework of Rapport Management Theory (RMT; Spencer-Oatey 2008), I analyze reports on the tourists’ mother tongue, local languages, and English as lingua franca in order to examine the relations between language choice and the three interactional principles distinguished in RMT: interactional goals, face concerns, and sociality rights concerns. The data suggests that using one language rather than another may have different implications. Spanish tourists assign a privileged role to their mother tongue, especially for realizing interpersonal goals. Furthermore, tourists regularly describe low English proficiency as a potentially face-threatening characteristic of their own ethnolinguistic group. Finally, Spanish tourists do not seem to consider services in their mother tongue as a commercial right, except in specific contexts where the absence of Spanish language contrasts with other contextual features. On a methodological level, this study seeks to explore the potential of analyzing spontaneously written online diaries as a source of information for sociolinguistic research on multilingualism.

Multilingualism and international tourism: a content- and discourse-based approach to language-related judgments in web 2.0 hotel reviews

ABSTRACT This corpus-based study examines whether and how German-, French- and Spanish-speaking tourists refer to language experiences when they write an online hotel review (specifically of hotels situated in Dutch-speaking Flanders, Belgium). We find that language is indeed an issue in hotel reviews, but to varying degrees according to the language group of the tourists. French and especially Spanish-speaking tourists refer far more frequently to language experiences, and in particular to the use of their mother tongue, than German-speaking tourists. According to the ‘face model of language choice’, this means that French- and Spanish-speaking tourists emphasize more explicitly their ‘ethnolinguistic face’ than German-speaking tourists. Also, the positive–negative polarity of the judgments differs, with Spanish-speaking tourists at the most positive pole, and French-speaking tourists at the most negative pole. Furthermore, the data also reveal that the use of the mother tongue of the tourist and the use of an international link language (by default, English) are functionally different options, and that the use of English even may lead to face-threatening situations. By comparing the data with staff-related judgments and hotel ratings, it is shown that language plays a specific and independent role in the hotel reviews.

Las excursiones guiadas multilingües en contextos urbanos. Un enfoque basado en reseñas 2.0

espanolEn esta nota de investigacion analizamos un corpus cuatrilingue de resenas 2.0 sobre una excursion guiada en un contexto urbano. Mediante un analisis de contenido investigamos las actitudes de los turistas ante el servicio prestado por el guia y ante la dimension multilingue de estos servicios, en particular. Concluimos que existen leves diferencias en la manera en que se describen y se evaluan los servicios, y que tambien se adoptan actitudes divergentes ante el multilinguismo, segun la lengua utilizada en la resena. Ademas, comprobamos que las referencias al caracter guiado de la excursion no van asociadas con una evaluacion mas positiva de la excursion, y que los viajeros a menudo critican la forma en que se comercializa el multilinguismo. Mas en general, el estudio pretende esbozar las pautas heuristicas para la investigacion de un fenomeno infra-estudiado, el multilinguismo en contextos turisticos, y para un uso mas intensivo de datos 2.0. EnglishIn this research note we analyze a multilingual corpus of 2.0 reviews about a guided tour in an urban context. Using a content analysis approach we investigate the attitudes of tourists towards the services that are delivered by the guides and towards its multilingual dimension in particular. We conclude that there exist subtle differences in the way that the guiding service is described and evaluated, and that tourists also adopt divergente attitudes towards multilingualism according to the language that they use in their review. Moreover, we find that an explicit reference to the guided character of the tour is not associated with a more positive evaluation, and that travellers repeatedly criticize the way in which multilingualism is ‘commodified’. In general, this study aims to shed light on the heuristic parameters for investigating an under-studied phenomenon, namely multilingualism in tourism context, and for using more intensively 2.0 data.

Demonstratives on the move: What translational shifts tell us about demonstrative determiners and definite articles in Spanish and Dutch

Abstract This paper explores the constructional meaning of NPs preceded by a demonstrative determiner and NPs preceded by a definite article, in both Spanish and Dutch. First, I will give a brief, general description of the meaning of the two constructions, focusing on three features: unique identifiability, deictic force and predicating force. Then, a contrastive analysis will show that demonstrative determiners and definite articles differ crosslinguistically. A quantitative analysis of translational shifts will reveal a systematic shift between Dutch demonstrative determiners and Spanish definite articles. Through the qualitative analysis of several subgroups of examples, I will show that the Dutch and Spanish paradigms differ with regard to the features of deictic and predicating force. Both Dutch demonstratives and definite articles seem to be more semantically bleached and hence more grammaticalized than their Spanish counterparts, which may well go some way to explaining the frequent and systematic translational shifts. Finally, I will draw attention to some specific phenomena, such as the cultural embeddedness of anaphoric relations, and the role of demonstratives in evoking a visual frame, which also motivate translational shifts between demonstratives and definite articles, but are better interpreted as local translators decisions, rather than as systemic contrastive differences between Dutch and Spanish.