Realia as a representation feature of english tourism texts

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Realia as a representation feature of english tourism texts

Koliasa Olena Vasylivna

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Assistant Professor of the Philology Department Odessa National Maritime University Odesa, Ukraine

Koval Natalia

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of Germanic Languages and Translation Studies Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University Drohobych, Lviv region, Ukraine

Shostak Uliana

Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Assistant Professor,

Department of Foreign Languages and Translation Vinnytsia Institute of Trade and Economics of State University of Trade and Economics

Vinnytsia, Ukraine

РЕАЛІЯ ЯК РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦІЙНА ОСОБЛИВІСТЬ АНГЛІЙСЬКИХ ТУРИСТИЧНИХ ТЕКСТІВ

Коляса Олена Василівна

кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедри «Філологія»

Одеського національного морського університету, Одеса, Україна

Коваль Наталія

кандидат філологічних наук, доцент, доцент кафедри германських мов і перекладознавства Дрогобицького державного педагогічного університету імені Івана Франка, Дрогобич, Львівська область, Україна

Шостак Уляна

кандидат психологічних наук, доцент кафедри іноземних мов і перекладознавства Вінницького торгово-економічного інституту Державного торгово-економічного університету, м. Вінниця, Україна

Роботу присвячено вивченню особливостей репрезентації англомовного туристичного дискурсу в туристичних текстах і словниках. Аналіз англійських туристичних путівників і словників туристичних термінів дає змогу виокремити досить велику групу лексичних одиниць, які традиційно називають словами реалія. Вони називають факти природи, артефакти, метафакти, що характеризують національні особливості Великої Британії, а також особливості культури (у широкому розумінні цього поняття) різних регіонів країни. Дослідники, які займаються вивченням реалій, підкреслюють, що реалії є одними з найбільш регулярних і найпоширеніших одиниць з національно-культурною специфікою, оскільки несуть інформацію про світ «з етнічних позицій». Метою дослідження є характеристика специфіки сфери туризму та особливостей її представлення в словниках і текстах; аналіз різноманітних визначень терміну «туризм», що відображають екстралінгвістичну та лінгвістичну сутність цього поняття; вивчення основних напрямів аналізу лінгвістичної специфіки галузі туризму та виявлення теоретичних прогалин у лінгвістичних дослідженнях цієї галузі; характеризувати лінгвокультурні реалії як мовні репрезентанти артефактів матеріальної та духовної культури та визначати їх роль в англомовних текстах туристичного спрямування; виявлення та опис основних параметрів, за якими реалії функціонують в туристичній сфері; охарактеризувати жанри туристичного дискурсу та виокремити особливості англомовного путівника як особливого типу інституційного дискурсу, що має масово-інформаційний та статусно-орієнто- ваний характер; здійснити класифікацію лінгвокультурних реалій, використаних у текстах путівників, та розкрити специфіку функціонування кожного з виокремлених типів.

Ключові слова: особливості, путівник, туризм, лексичні одиниці, лінгвістичні реалії, культурні реалії, інформаційно-технічний прогрес, лексико-семантичний варіант.

The work is devoted to the study of the features of representation of English tourism discourse in tourism texts and dictionaries. An analysis of English tourist guides and dictionaries of tourist terms makes it possible to single out a fairly large group of lexical units, traditionally referred to as realia words. They name facts ofnature, artifacts, metafacts that characterize the national characteristics of GB, as well as cultural features (in the broad sense of the term) of different regions of the country. Researchers involved in the study ofrealities emphasize that realities are among the most regular and most frequent units with national and cultural specifics, since they carry information about the world “from ethnic positions”. The research aims at characterizing the specifics ofthe field of tourism and the peculiarities of its representation in dictionaries and texts; analyzing various definitions of the term “tourism”, reflecting the extralinguistic and linguistic essence ofthis notion; studying the main directions of analysis of the linguistic specifics of the field of tourism and to identify theoretical gaps in the linguistic research of this field; characterizing linguistic and cultural realities as linguistic representatives of artifacts of material and spiritual culture and determine their role in English tourist-oriented texts; identifying and describe the main parameters by which the realities functioning in the tourist sphere; to characterize the genres of touristic discourse and highlight the features of the English travel guide as a special type of institutional discourse that has a mass-informational and status-oriented character; carrying out the classification of linguistic and cultural realities used in guidebook texts and reveal the specifics of the functioning of each of the selected types.

Key words: features, guidebook, tourisms, lexical units,linguistic realia, cultural realia information- technological progress, lexical-semantic variant.

The statement of the problem. The peculiarities of the language of the tourist sphere are of great interest for research, since tourism is one of the most dynamically developing economic branches of modern society and has a significant impact on the development and replenishment of the lexical composition of languages. The terminology of the tourist sphere illustrates the borderline nature of terms in relation to common vocabulary best and allows us to trace the dynamics of the transition of lexical units of the literary language to the status of terms.

word-formation models of the modem language, as well as vocabulary that reflects the realities of English tourist activity, and realities, that is, nominations cultural referents (natural facts, artifacts). Linguistic and cultural realities have a special status in the tourist terminology system. They, on the one hand, are a means of nominating culturally specific professional concepts of the tourism sphere of a particular country, thus coming closer to terms. On the other hand, acting as one of the means of creating an image of a tourist destination and representing its main cultural values, they describe a number of concepts directly or indirectly related to the field of tourism (gastronomy, history, cultural heritage, etc.) and become an important part tourist concept sphere.

Due to the historical and social conditions in the field of tourism, two different tendencies interact - to the internationalization of tourist activity and to its nationalization. These trends are directly reflected in the vocabulary of tourism. Thus, the consequence of internationalization can be considered a significant number of English loanwords functioning in the English terminology system of tourism. The national character of the tourist industry is fixed by its own linguistic resources: this term system includes lexical units (hereinafter - LU) formed according to active

The relevance of the research undertaken by us is determined by the following factors: the specificity of the vocabulary of the English tourist dictionary refers to one of the poorly developed problems that have not received a systematic description in modern linguistics; the dictionary serving the field of tourism includes a significant amount of linguistic and cultural realities, the systematization of which requires the development of objective and reliable classification criteria. Meanwhile, until now, researchers have not come to a consensus about what LUs belong to the class of realities, what are the boundaries of this class, and the criteria for the classification of realities; the analysis of realities is of great importance for the linguistic and cultural study of the national- linguistic picture of the world: combining into meaningful groups, realities are part of cultural concepts that reflect the value system of a particular culture. Features of the functioning of realities, their frequency and “semantic density” (Karasik, 2012) testify to the importance of one or another concept in the language picture of the world, a fragment of which is displayed in the tourist texts. The study of this problem can contribute to the solution of actual problems of linguistic categorization of reality.

The object of the research is linguistic and cultural realities that convey culturally specific information (natural facts, mental facts), which are used to characterize the tourist sphere of the English language.

The subject of the research is the peculiarities of the functioning of linguistic and cultural realities in the texts of English tourist guides.

The aim of the study is a comprehensive description of the features of the functioning of realities in the texts of English tourism guides, as well as the categorization of realities functioning in texts of this type.

In accordance with the set goal, the following tasks are nominated: to characterize the specifics of the field of tourism and the peculiarities of its representation in dictionaries and texts; analyze various definitions of the term “tourism”, reflecting the extralinguistic and linguistic essence of this notion; to study the main directions of analysis of the linguistic specifics of the field of tourism and to identify theoretical gaps in the linguistic research of this field; to characterize linguistic and cultural realities as linguistic representatives of artifacts of material and spiritual culture and determine their role in English tourist-oriented texts; to identify and describe the main parameters by which the realities functioning in the tourist sphere; to characterize the genres of touristic discourse and highlight the features of the English travel guide as a special type of institutional discourse that has a mass-informational and status-oriented character; to carry out the classification of linguistic and cultural realities used in guidebook texts and reveal the specifics of the functioning of each of the selected types.

Analysis of recent research and publications.

The basic provisions of terminology (G.O. Vinokur, M. N. Volodina, S.V Grinev, A. Bezhuen, P Tuaron, Maye, etc.); theory of reality (S. Vlakhov, S. Florin, VG. Gak, M. Lederer, J.-M. Guanvik, R. Zorichak, P Bensimon, J.-R. Ladmiral, etc.); theory of discourse (E.S. Kubryakova, N. D. Arutyunova, L.I. Grishaeva, VB. Kashkin, M.L. Makarov, N.V Filatova, M.V. Terskikh, O. A. Zaitseva, T.D. Nazarov, K. Kerbrath- Orecchioni, S.A. Pogodaeva, F.L. Kositskaya, L.V Tsurikova, T. Van Dyck and others); language picture of the world and its conceptualization (A.P Babushkin, A. Vezhbitska, VI. Karasik, Z.D. Popova, I.A. Sternin, Yu.S. Stepanov, etc.).

Presentation of the main research material. The tourism industry is in contact with many areas of human activity, therefore, the specialized literature related to this area is extensive and diverse: these are the works on tourism marketing, advertising, innovation, tourism industry technologies. The English state tourism management system, with its extensive network of management structures and the optimal distribution of powers at the national, regional and municipal levels, is assessed by experts as “the most optimal, that is, allowing to achieve the highest economic results”.

Issues related to the peculiarities of the language of the tourism sector are analyzed in a number of works that are predominantly terminological or linguoculturological in nature. Before proceeding to their detailed analysis, it is necessary to consider the definitions of the very notion of “tourism”.

Tourism is one of the most modem and rapidly developing areas of development of society. Experts unanimously emphasize that, in terms of the dynamics of its development, tourism is on a part with the speed of the spread of news that does not recognize borders. Having a long history, tourism, however, has not yet received an unambiguous definition. There is no unity of opinion on the problems of interpreting the essence of tourism and its conceptual apparatus. Meanwhile, the question of definitions, i.e. agreed and adopted as a basis for definitions, notions, terminology of tourism, is a necessary condition for understanding the phenomena and processes characteristic of tourism.

According to a common point of view, tourism (English tourism - a walk, a trip) is one of the varieties of travel and is broadly understood as the movement of people in space (by transport or on foot) to some places, countries for the purpose of acquaintance or recreation. Some definitions emphasize that tourism is a sport that is associated with group trips aimed at physical training of the body. There are definitions that offer a broader definition of the term “tourism” as a journey that combines recreation with elements of sports and cognitive tasks; tourism is hiking, water, mountain, skiing, cycling, etc. (Dictionary of foreign words 1964, p. 661).

The need to define tourism arose in the first half of the 20th century. It was due to a significant increase in tourist flows, the growing economic importance of tourism and, as a result, the need for statistical accounting of travelers, analysis of indicators and characteristics of tourism. This problem was given considerable attention at various international forums on tourism issues: the UN Conference on International Tourism and Travel (Rome, 1963), the Congress of the World Tourism Organization (Manila, 1986), the Interparliamentary Conference on Tourism (The Hague, 1989), the Conference on Tourism Statistics and Travel by the World Tourism Organization (Ottawa, 1991). This indicates the theoretical and practical significance of the definition of tourism, the desire to make it more complete and accurate, taking into account new trends and phenomena.

The existing definitions of tourism can be grouped into three groups.

The first group includes definitions that characterize tourism as a kind of recreation (expanded reproduction of the physical, intellectual and emotional forces of a person), a system and form of spending free time through the use of the service sector on hikes and trips, which combine active recreation and strengthening human health with an increase in its general culture and education. In particular, in the “Manila Declaration on World Tourism” the latter is considered as one of the types of active recreation, which is travel made with the aim of knowing certain areas, new countries and combined in a number of countries with elements of sports. According to the definition adopted in 1954 by the UN, tourism is an active recreation that affects the promotion of health, the physical development of a person, associated with movement outside the permanent place of residence.

In 1993, the UN Statistical Commission adopted a definition approved by the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and widely used in international practice. According to it, tourism “covers the activities of persons who travel and stay in places outside their usual environment, for a period not exceeding one consecutive year, for the purpose of leisure, business and other purposes”.

The second group of definitions of tourism considers it as one of the forms of population migration, connects it with the act of movement, travel, overcoming space and acts as a tool for tourism statistics.

And, finally, the third group of definitions characterizes tourism as a complex socio-economic phenomenon, reveals its inner content, expressed in the unity of the diversity of properties and relationships. According to the definition of the Academy of Tourism in Monte Carlo, tourism is a general concept for all forms of temporary departure of people from their place of permanent residence for recreational purposes, to satisfy educational interests in their free time or professional and business purposes without engaging in paid activities in the place of temporary residence. In this case, the main emphasis is placed on the nature of the activities of travelers in a place different from their place of permanent residence.

The field of tourism is an integrative education that combines both a set of narrowly focused professional knowledge about tourism activities and information from other areas of human life: history, economics, law, advertising, etc. In this regard, researchers talk about the hybrid and polyphonic nature of tourism discourse that combines elements of historical, culinary, legal and other types of discourse. At the same time, the identification of tourism discourse as an independent type of institutional discourse today is not in doubt.

The polyphonic nature of the tourist discourse is most clearly manifested in its wide genre palette, which reflects the specifics of the forms of tourism activity (guides, brochures, tourist advertising, etc.).

The lexical units used in tourist texts serve as a means of nominating the ordered concept sphere “tourism”, the components of which can be divided into four categories: universal cultural, ethnocultural, universal tourism industry and national tourism industry concepts. Thus, the tourism concept sphere includes artifacts of the material and spiritual culture of the host community, as well as specialized objects and phenomena of the tourism industry culture. Based on this, all means of nominating the concept sphere of tourism can be divided into three categories that make up the terminological system tourism industry:

means of nominating cultural concepts (linguocultural realities),

means of nominating universal-industry concepts (international terms of the tourism industry),

means of nominating national tourism industry concepts (professional realities).

The means of nomination of universal cultural concepts (common vocabulary of the literary language) are not part of the tourist terminological system, however, they represent one of the sources of its replenishment with pre-terms and terms.

All the realities highlighted in the analyzed printed and electronic guides can be divided into two large categories: linguistic and cultural realities, which are a means of creating local color and an attractive image of the country, and professional realities (a means of representing information about tourist services).

Linguistic and cultural realities that function in the tourist discourse can be divided into:

-national: naming artifacts of national and European significance;

-regional: naming artifacts of regional

significance (administrative-territorial or cultural- historical region);

-local: naming artifacts of local significance (at the level of a city, one department).

Thus, markers of national realities are

adjectives world, national, expressing the degree of significance of the realities for the world and national cultural heritage;

the name of the lists of cultural heritage of international organizations or various kinds of quality marks (label) of national and European significance;

the presence of the realities of Europe, GB in the explication of the realities.

Among the identified markers of regional realities, the following should be noted:

names of geographical or cultural realities denoting territorial-administrative units (region) or cultural-historical region;

adjectives formed from such lexical units.

The following markers are specific to the discursive level:

the presence of a subtitle that combines a number of regional realities;

the name of the realia in the regional language or dialect, followed by an explication.

Lexicographic sources are characterized by the presence of dictionary marks (regional, dialectal).

Finally, local realities are marked both in lexicographic sources and at the discursive level with the help of geographical names (settlements) or adjectives derived from them.

Discursive and contextual analysis also revealed a number of implicit labeling strategies, including:

-Zero marking strategy for widely known nationwide realities;

strategy of contextual marking for regional realities (reference of realia in the context from which its regional affiliation is restored);

indirect labeling strategy for national realities (the presence of a regional marker next to the national realities to increase the prestige of the region).

Professional realities serve as a means of nominating artifacts and mentifacts that exist only in GB and are characteristic of a highly specialized tourism sector. The list of such realities in the texts of tourism discourse depends on the topics of their sections (for example, the names of official organizations in the tourism sector, unique product offerings for various categories of tourists, etc.).

The selection of tourism terminology is carried out by the guidebook authors on the basis of strictly defined pragmatic goals of informing about tourism services (terms of the tourism sector, professional realities) and creating a positive image of the country (linguocultural realities). The latter, thus, describe the concepts that are perceived by the guidebook authors as key to a particular linguistic culture. Such notions are called “cultural constants”.

The analysis of empirical material showed that the constants of English culture, represented by national, local and regional realities, are three basic concepts: cultural heritage, gastronomy, historical heritage.

According to the referential feature, each of these concepts is characterized by a certain set of thematic groups of realities of all levels, which indicates a high semantic density and, as a result, the cultural significance of these constants. Thus, the concept of “cultural heritage” includes realities - the names of cultural and art workers, the names of works, the names of cultural monuments, museums, theaters, etc., the names of customs and traditions (types of crafts, dances, regional dialects). The concept of “gastronomy” is represented by realia denoting local cuisine, regional products, names of drinks, traditional ways of eating. Finally, the concept of “historical heritage” includes realities - the names of historical figures, historical buildings, events and documents.

Although all identified cultural dominants include national, regional and local realities, their ratio within the dominants is not the same. For the concept of “gastronomy” the dominant type of realities are regional and local. This allows us to conclude that the concept of “gastronomy” in the English national consciousness is presented as a “mosaic” of regional cuisines that contribute to the world-famous “English national cuisine”. Cultural constants “cultural heritage” and “historical heritage”, on the contrary, are represented mainly by national realities. This fact allows us to assert that they appear as something national, shared by the whole country.

The set of constants in all the guidebooks we analyzed is the same, however, the distribution of realities according to the degree of frequency depends on the type of guidebook. So, in electronic guidebooks, the realities related to the concepts of “historical heritage” and “cultural heritage” are less frequent due to the presence of hyperlinks to other sites, where information about the desired realities is presented in more detail. This fact leads to a decrease in the “density” of realities in the relevant sections.

The boundaries between these three classes are flexible and depend on the cognitive context - the type of guide (national or regional), the type of commentary that accompanies the reality, as well as the cognitive baggage of the recipient of the text.

At the same time, the assignment of a linguocultural realia to one or another type can be carried out on the basis of explicit lexicographic and/or discursive markers.

The texts of English tourist guides use four types of linguocultural realities: national, regional, local and professional. Realities belonging to the first three types are involved in the implementation of such functions as informative, cognitive, motivational and attractive, while professional realities implement mainly informative and cognitive functions. The boundaries between the distinguished types of realities are mobile and depend on the type of cognitive context (national / regional type of guide) and the cognitive baggage of the recipient of information.

Each type of reality is characterized by a certain set of discursive and lexicographic markers. National realities have regular lexicographic and discursive markers, represented by the use of adjectives world, European, international or other social and political realities that characterize them in dictionary entries and guidebook texts.

In the absence of explicit discursive and lexicographic markers of nationality, the strategy for marking this type of realities can be defined as implicit, due to the fact of their use in the discursive conditions of a tourist guide.

Regional realities are characterized by a predominantly explicit labeling strategy. The markers of this type of realia are adjectives formed from the name of the corresponding region, as well as the names of realities that name the administrative unit of modern GB or its cultural and historical region.

Local realities are represented by national/ regional realities, or by neutral lexical units, to which some local specificity is attributed. Lexicographic markers have been identified only for the realities characteristic of the large cities of Great Britain. In other cases, local realities are either not recorded at all in lexicographic sources, or are marked as regional. The strategies for marking national, regional and local realities in electronic and printed guides are completely the same.

Professional realities are a special type, closely related to special terminology. Their difference from the terms lies in the fact that the latter represent the universal professional concepts of the tourism sector that exist in the world tourism system as a whole, while professional realities are a means of nominating national professionally oriented concepts of the tourism sector. The boundaries between terms and professional realities are unsteady: realities can move into the class of terms in the case of internationalization of the concepts they denote.

The strategy of marking professional realities is approaching the strategy of marking national realities, although artifacts denoted by professional realities are not only national, but also institutional in nature: they are created and approved by official government bodies within the English national model of tourism development. The lexicographic markers of professional realities are the names of the official body that approved the “quality mark” contained in the dictionary definitions, or the adjectives official, national, English. Discursive strategies for marking such realities are mostly implicit in nature, determined by the cognitive context in which they are used without any additional explications.

Conclusions and further perspectives

The tourist guide is a reflection of the most important constants of national culture, used to create a stereotypical image of a tourist destination. The selection of national, regional and local realities reflects the cultural dominants that underlie the attractive image of the country, and represents the three basic concepts of English culture: cultural heritage, gastronomy, historical heritage. The ratio of realities representing the three basic concepts is not the same in printed and electronic versions of guidebooks. So, in electronic guidebooks, realities related to the concepts of “historical heritage” and “cultural heritage” turn out to be less frequent due to the specifics of the Internet hypertext: almost all indications of such realities are accompanied by a hyperlink to other sites where information about the desired realities is presented in more detail. This fact leads to a decrease in the “density” of realities in the relevant sections. Gastronomic realities, on the contrary, are presented more frequently in electronic guides due to the fact that the web page practically does not impose restrictions on the amount of text, which makes it possible to give the names of dishes in regional languages, describe in detail the options for their preparation, etc.

Bibliography

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References

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