Linguistic commodification in tourism

Abstract

Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2002 and 2012 in Switzerland, Catalonia and different zones of francophone Canada in sites related to heritage and cultural tourism, we argue that tourism, especially in multilingual peripheries, is a key site for a sociolinguistic exploration of the political economy of globalization. We link shifts in the role of language in tourism to shifts in phases of capitalism, focusing on the shift from industrial to late capitalism, and in particular on the effects of the commodification of authenticity. We examine the tensions this shift generates in ideologies and practices of language, concerned especially with defining the nature of the tourism product, its public and market, and the management of the tourism process. This results in an as yet unresolved destabilization of hitherto hegemonic discourses linking languages to cultures, identities, nations and States.