This monograph presents the vast field of tourism discourse. Proceeding from the definition of language for specific purposes (LSP) which is used in specialized discourse, we are able to define tourism discourse as that of a broad and mobile discourse community that encompasses several other social and professional fields, as well as a variety of texts and specialized languages from different fields, professions and sciences. All of these aspects shape and form the language of tourism, which is also, due to this broad and varied discourse community, consistently connected to the general language. This monograph introduces a typology of tourism texts, emphasizing the advertising of tourism as well as technical and scientific texts, and indicates the importance of the corpora of tourism texts, such as the open-access corpus “TURK Tourism Corpus”.
One of the functions of the language of tourism is to serve as a reflection and a tool for transdisciplinary tourism studies, which require a planned development of the pertinent terminology to ensure further development of the field. This monograph brings forth an original typology of the terminology of tourism, and presents the structure and significance of the growing dictionary of tourism terms “TURS Tourism Terminology Dictionary”.
In the last part of the monograph, tourism is discussed as a highly intercultural activity which, due to this very aspect, retains an important role in shaping local, regional, and national identity and culture. Only when tourism represents a reflection of society and stems from the host’s conscious attitude towards the identity of the community can it become an effective industry and a representative image of the community.
