THE DISCOURSE OF

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM.
TEXTS AND CONTEXTS
 THE DISCOURSE OF
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM.
TEXTS AND CONTEXTS
 The
discourse tourism

of
sustainable
• The aim of this module is to provide you with
an introduction to aspects of communication
in the complex system of interrelated activities
and practices that make up the tourism sector.
• The basic assumption is that as the largest
industry in the world, travel and tourism has a
discourse of its own which deserves further
investigation not only in terms of a detailed
description of its contexts of use and intended
effects, but also in terms of its deep social and
ideological implications
• Before doing anything else, I would like to
clarify for you the three key concepts that
make up the title of this module:

• Discourse
• Sustainable
• Tourism
• Discourse is a notoriously difficult notion to
define because there are so many conflicting
and overlapping definitions formulated from
various theoretical and disciplinary
standpoints.
 Discourse
• 1) ‘discourse’ is often used in linguistics to refer to spoken
dialogue, in contrast to written ‘texts’.
• 2) discourse can be used to refer to extended samples of
either spoken or written language with an emphasis on the
higher-level organizational properties of language, rather than
on the smaller units of lexico-grammar (e.g. interaction
between addresser and addressee and
production/interpretation in context)
• 3) discourse is used simply as a label for different varieties of
language use, as in medical discourse, advertisement
discourse, or environmental discourse…
• A more comprehensive and challenging view
of discourse has been developed in the social
sciences, especially after Foucault, that has
made a great impact on language studies.

• According to Foucault, the term discourse

refers to ways of structuring areas of
knowledge and social practice.
• Discourse does not simply reflect or
represent reality, social entities, relations,
but rather constructs them, or constitutes
them.
• In the words of Fairclough of Wodak
“discourse is socially shaped as well as socially
constitutive”: different discourses while
reflecting reality, social entities and relations,
also contribute to shaping them, as may be
the case of such fundamental discourses as
‘citizenship’ or ‘sustainable development’
• The theoretical and methodological approach
which applies this view of language to the
analysis of texts is called Critical Discourse
Analysis.
• CDA is a trend within language studies that
developed in the ‘90s and has since held sway
whenever issues concerning the relationship
between language and society are at stake.
• In the context of linguistically -oriented
Critical Discourse Analysis, discourse is
considered as a three-dimensional entity
simultaneously comprising
• a piece of text
• an instance of discursive practice
• an instance of social practice
• The text dimension thus attends to the language analysis of
the actual text produced and received in a given context
and in certain circumstances.
• The discursive practice specifies the nature of the process
of text production and reception/interpretation, including
considerations concerning the other discourses that are
drawn upon and combined into a new discourse.
• The social practice dimension attends to aspects more
concerned with social analysis such as the institutional and
organizational circumstances of the discursive event and
how that shapes the nature of the discursive practice, and
hence its constitutive/constructive effects.
The three dimensional conception of discourse can be
represented diagrammatically, creating a framework for analysis
that brings together the contribution of several trends:

Social Practice

Discourse
Practice

Text
Text Analysis. Basic Principles

Principles of Analysis
• Every communicative act takes place in a
social context
• This context is some way or other related to
the speaker’s/writer’s experience and vision of
the world
• Every situation or state of affair in the world
can be expressed through language
Language does not necessarily and directly
refer to extra-linguistic reality BUT to the
speaker’s conceptualization of it
• This key function of language is at the basis of
Halliday’s SFL approach (further elaborated in
the context of CDA) :
TO REPRESENT REALITY BY CHOOSING FROM
AMONG A SET OF DIFFERENT OPTIONS
PROVIDED BY THE LANGUAGE SYSTEM
 Compare
1) Mass tourism has damaged many fragile
ecosystems in the world.
2) Many fragile ecosystems in the world have
been damaged.

In 1) both the agent and the process are explicit.

In 2) the agent remains implicit.
 Compare
1) The authorities are pushing back boats of
refugees and migrants.
2) Boats of refugees and migrants are being
pushed back.

In 1) both the agent and the process are explicit.

In 2) the agent remains implicit.
 Compare
• The country is on the brink of an irrecoverable
economic crisis
• The country has been brought to the brink of
an irrecoverable economic crisis
• Mr B. has brought the country to the brink of
an irrecoverable economic crisis
 Compare
• The country IS on the brink of an irrecoverable
economic crisis > situation
• The country HAS BEEN BROUGHT to the brink
of an irrecoverable economic crisis > allusion
to someone’s responsibility
• Mr B. HAS BROUGHT THE COUNTRY to the
brink of an irrecoverable economic crisis > the
crisis is represented as Mr B.’s responsibility
There is more than one way to describe the
same «fact» or «event»: what changes is not
reality itself but its representation.
Language allows multiple representations of
reality choosing from among the options made
available to speakers/writes within the lexical
system and the structure of the clause
 Views on things and events…
A horrible view of the damaging A wonderful view of the
effect of tourism in Hawaii pleasures awaiting you in Hawaii
 Views on things and events…
A horrible view of the damaging A wonderful view of the
effect of tourism in Hawaii pleasures awaiting you in Hawaii
 Views on things and events…
THE HELL OF MASS TOURISM AN EDEN FOR THE ELITE
 Views on things and events…
Hordes of immigrants invading Hopeful migrants in search for a
Europe… better future…
• When a text is analysed in terms of discourse
analysis the overall aim is to investigate the
relationship between a given text - in all its
components - and the social, cultural and
ideological context in which it was produced,
received and circulated.
•
• From the perspective of CDA this entail
analysis at two different levels.
• One level concerns the text's relationship with
other texts and discourses (generally referred
to in critical discourse analysis as
intertextuality/interdiscursivity);
• The other level is more specifically oriented to
the text itself and investigates its structural
properties, including realizations at the level
of lexis and grammar.
 Texts and Contexts: Genre
• One way in which texts are related to each
other is through the notion of genre.
• Genre refers to a classification of different
texts which share some common functional
properties and communicative aims, as well as
formal and structural features. The notion of
genre refers to forms which are shared and
institutionalised within a community.
• So in CDA the first step will always be to
consider the genre of a given text (e.g.
international document? report? Brochure?)
trying to figure out the agents involved, also in
terms of power, and the social events and
practice the text is part of.
Texts and Contexts: Intertextuality
• Anoter way by which texts connect to each
other is through the notion intertextuality.
• Intertexturlaity suggest that words, sentences
or utterances are never created ex-nihilo by
each individual speaker, but are constantly
taken form others’ speech and re-assimilated,
re-used recontextualised following on the
basis speaker's intentions.
• Intertextuality can take different shapes:
• "manifest intertextuality" is the explicit use of
parts of texts or whole texts into a new text:
other texts are incorporated in the new text
by certain features such as quotation marks.
• "constitutive intertextuality" or
“interdiscursivity," refers to the incorporation
in a text of discourse conventions or types,
such as genre style, register, and discourse.
• The most obvious example of manifest
intertextuality is quotation.
• A quotation is a section of an old text placed
in a new text, often within quotation marks, or
marked as "other“ from the text in which it is
placed.
• Quotations are frequent in all kinds of texts,
and for various purposes.
• Quotations make the dialogical nature of texts
very explicit. By repeating words or sentences
lifted from reputable or prestigious authors
and texts, speakers can lend persuasive force
to their arguments.
• The quoted text may therefore become the
validating factor.
• As we move from the dimension of discourse
and social practice to a more strictly linguistic
one, we can look at those linguistic properties
of a text which are determined by the context
in which communication takes place. This level
of analysis reveals how discourse and ideology
are encoded in certain key aspects of
language structure, and is based on Halliday's
systemic functional grammar.
•
 Systemic Functional Grammar
Basic assumption
• Language’s three metafunction (Halliday)
- Language performs a fundamental representative
function as the vehicle to express and share our
view upon reality.
- Language has an interpersonal function since it
contributes to building and maintaining identities
and relationships among people;
- Language has a textual metafunction whereby it
reproduces and transmits information, through
texts which are inescapably part of a continuum
in communication.
• This is at the basis of his notion of register
which is the result of the interplay among
three variables:
 Register
• According to Halliday the are three
dimensions of register that are significant in
language use and which describe how the
context of situation determines the meanings
expresses in the text:
• FIELD (the subject-matter)
• TENOR (the relationship between those who
interact in the text)
• MODE (the role of the text itself)
 Metafunctions
• Each of the three register variables also
constitutes the kind of meanings (or
metafunctions) which are expressed by text:
• Field > Ideational meaning (Experiential and
Logical)
• Tenor > Interpersonal meaning
• Mode > Textual meaning
• The most important linguistic unit in Halliday's
analysis is the clause
• a) clause as representation, when the clause
represents some aspect of the human
experience. This is the realisation of the
experiential metafunction;
• b) clause as exchange, when the clause
expresses a transaction between speaker and
listener. This is the realisation of the
interpersonal metafunction;
• c) clause as message, when the clause has
meaning as a message in itself. This is the
realisation of the textual metafunction.
 Ideational Metafunction
The ideational meatafunction is the way the
speaker /writer expresses his/her experience of
the real world. It is closely related to subject-
matter (i.e. FIELD)

IDEATIONAL MEANINGS are realised through:

Grammar (Transitivity)
Lexis
 TRANSITIVITY
• In order to understand the concept of
representation of reality through language it is
important to understand how reality can be
encoded in language at the level of the clause
and its grammar through the concept of
TRANSITIVITY.
 Transitivity
• In a clause participants are generally realised
by a noun phrase are involved in some process
(realised by a verb phrase), in some particular
circumstances (adverb or prepositional
phrase) > this is the core of the experiential
metafunction performed by the clause.
 Examples

Mass tourism has destroyed fragile ecosystems

in many areas

Many people consider tourism an opportunity

for economic development
• These are two different conceptualizations
that linguistically express antithetical views on
tourism. The components of this
conceptualizations are:
• Participants
• Processes
• Circumstances
• Attributes
 PROCESS
Halliday identifies 3 major types of process:
• Material
• Mental
• Relational
and 3 ‘borderline’ processes:
• Behavioural
• Verbal
• Existential
 Material Processes
These are processes of «doing» or «happening»

Tourism (PARTICIPANT)
has destroyed (PROCESS=MATERIAL)
many fragile ecosystems (PARTICIPANT)
 Mental processes
• Many people consider tourism an opportunity
for economic development
 Relational processes
• Attributive

Travelling is beautiful

• Identifying

Migration is the free movement of people

around the world
 Practice
• 1. In the middle of the 20th century, we saw our planet from
space for the first time. Historians may eventually find that
this vision had a greater impact on thought than did the
Copernican revolution of the 16th century, which upset the
human self-image by revealing that the Earth is not the centre
of the universe. From space, we see a small and fragile ball
dominated not by human activity and edifice but by a pattern
of clouds, oceans, greenery, and soils. Humanity's inability to
fit its activities into that pattern is changing planetary
systems, fundamentally. Many such changes are accompanied
by life-threatening hazards. This new reality, from which there
is no escape, must be recognized - and managed.
 Practice
• In the middle of the 20th century
• we
• saw
• our planet
• from space
• for the first time.
 Practice
• Historians
• may (eventually) find (that)
• this vision
• had
• a greater impact
• on thought
• (than did) the Copernican revolution of the 16th century
 Practice
• (which= the Copernican revolution)
• upset
• the human self-image
• by revealing (that)
• the Earth
• is not
• the centre of the universe.
Transitivity structures
 Practice
• From space
• we
• see
• a small and fragile ball
• dominated
• (not) by human activity and edifice
• (but) by a pattern of clouds, oceans, greenery, and soils.
• Humanity's inability
• to fit
• its activities
• into that pattern
• is changing
• planetary systems
• fundamentally
• Many such changes
• are accompanied
• by life-threatening hazards.
• This new reality,
• (from which) there is
• no escape
• must be
• recognized (and)
• managed.
• Circumstances
- In the middle of the 20th century
- from space
- for the first time.
• Participants
- we
- our planet
- Historians
- this vision
- a greater impact (on thought )
- the Copernican revolution of the 16th century
- the human self-image
- the Earth
- the centre of the universe
• Processes
- saw
- may (eventually) find
- had
- did
- upset
- by revealing
- is not.
• Processes
- see
- dominated
- to fit (into)
- is changing (fundamentally).
- are accompanied
- must be recognized - and managed.
• Participants
- we
- a small and fragile ball
- (not by) human activity and edifice
- (but by) a pattern of clouds, oceans, greenery, and
soils.
- Humanity's inability
- its activities
- that pattern
- planetary systems
- Many such changes
- by life-threatening hazards
- This new reality
 Sustainable Development
• The representation of our planet which opens
the Bruntland report is a perfect introduction
to the key issues concerning sustainable
development.
• Even though not mentioned explicitly, the idea
of limitation of man’s power of over nature,
which is a fundamental issue in sustainability,
os strongly evoked.
• The most frequently quoted definition is
from Our Common Future, also known as the
Brundtland Report, Chapter 2:
• "Sustainable development is development
that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs”.
• It contains within it two key concepts:

• the concept of 'needs', in particular the

essential needs of the world's poor, to which
overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of
technology and social organization on the
environment's ability to meet present and
future needs.
• The satisfaction of human needs and
aspirations is the major objective of
development.
• The essential needs of vast numbers of people
in developing countries for food, clothing,
shelter, jobs - are not being met, and beyond
their basic needs these people have legitimate
aspirations for an improved quality of life.
• A world in which poverty and inequity are
endemic will always be prone to ecological
and other crises. Sustainable development
requires meeting the basic needs of all and
extending to all the opportunity to satisfy
their aspirations for a better life.
• Living standards that go beyond the basic
minimum are sustainable only if consumption
standards everywhere have regard for long-
term sustainability. Yet many of us live beyond
the world's ecological means, for instance in
our patterns of energy use.
• Perceived needs are socially and culturally
determined, and sustainable development
requires the promotion of values that
encourage consumption standards that are
within the bounds of the ecological possible
and to which all can reasonably aspire.
• A society may in many ways compromise its
ability to meet the essential needs of its
people in the future - by overexploiting
resources, for example.
• The direction of technological developments
may solve some immediate problems but lead
to even greater ones. Large sections of the
population may be marginalized by ill-
considered development.
• Economic growth and development obviously
involve changes in the physical ecosystem.
Every ecosystem everywhere cannot be
preserved intact. A forest may be depleted in
one part of a watershed and extended
elsewhere, which is not a bad thing if the
exploitation has been planned and the effects
on soil erosion rates, water regimes, and
genetic losses have been taken into account.
• In general, renewable resources like forests
and fish stocks need not be depleted provided
the rate of use is within the limits of
regeneration and natural growth. But most
renewable resources are part of a complex
and interlinked ecosystem, and maximum
sustainable yield must be defined after taking
into account system-wide effects of
exploitation.
• As for non-renewable resources, like fossil
fuels and minerals, their use reduces the stock
available for future generations. But this does
not mean that such resources should not be
used.
• With minerals and fossil fuels, the rate of
depletion and the emphasis on recycling and
economy of use should be calibrated to
ensure that the resource does not run out
before acceptable substitutes are available.
• Development tends to simplify ecosystems
and to reduce their diversity of species. And
species, once extinct, are not renewable. The
loss of plant and animal species can greatly
limit the options of future generations; so
sustainable development requires the
conservation of plant and animal species.
• So-called free goods like air and water are also
resources. The raw materials and energy of
production processes are only partly
converted to useful products. The rest comes
out as wastes.
• Sustainable development requires that the
adverse impacts on the quality of air, water,
and other natural elements are minimized so
as to sustain the ecosystem's overall integrity.
• In essence, sustainable development is a
process of change in which the exploitation of
resources, the direction of investments, the
orientation of technological development; and
institutional change are all in harmony and
enhance both current and future potential to
meet human needs and aspirations.
• The Earth is one but the world is not. We all
depend on one biosphere for sustaining our
lives. Yet each community, each country,
strives for survival and prosperity with little
regard for its impact on others. Some
consume the Earth's resources at a rate that
would leave little for future generations.
Others, many more in number, consume far
too little and live with the prospect of hunger,
squalor, disease, and early death.
• Yet progress has been made. Throughout
much of the world, children born today can
expect to live longer and be better educated
than their parents. In many parts, the new-
born can also expect to attain a higher
standard of living in a wider sense. Such
progress provides hope as we contemplate the
improvements still needed, and also as we
face our failures to make this Earth a safer and
sounder home for us and for those who are to
come.
• The failures that we need to correct arise both
from poverty and from the short-sighted way
in which we have often pursued prosperity.
Many parts of the world are caught in a
vicious downwards spiral: Poor people are
forced to overuse environmental resources to
survive from day to day, and their
impoverishment of their environment further
impoverishes them, making their survival ever
more difficult and uncertain.
• The prosperity attained in some parts of the
world is often precarious, as it has been
secured through farming, forestry, and
industrial practices that bring profit and
progress only over the short term.
• We found everywhere deep public concern for
the environment, concern that has led not just
to protests but often to changed behaviour.
The challenge is to ensure that these new
values are more adequately reflected in the
principles and operations of political and
economic structures.
• We also found grounds for hope: that people
can cooperate to build a future that is more
prosperous, more just, and more secure; that
a new era of economic growth can be
attained, one based on policies that sustain
and expand the Earth's resource base; and
that the progress that some have known over
the last century can be experienced by all in
the years ahead.
• But for this to happen, we must understand
better the symptoms of stress that confront
us, we must identify the causes, and we must
design new approaches to managing
environmental resources and to sustaining
human development.
• The 2005 World Summit on Social
Development identified sustainable development
goals, such as economic development, social
development and environmental protection.
• This view has been expressed as an illustration using
three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three
pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and
can be mutually reinforcing.[16] In fact, the three
pillars are interdependent, and in the long run none
can exist without the others.[17]