From Words to Keywords: The Journey from General Language to the Language of Tourism

pp: 105 DOI: 10.7370/71237

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Keywords

Keywords are those words â€
œ
which fire the imagination [â€
¦] not so much those which refer to the attributes of the destination but rather those which correspond to the requirements of the potential touristâ€
(Dann 1996: 74). This paper develops a methodology for analysing the process whereby a word changes its lexico-grammatical profile and is legitimately included among the tourism keywords. To this end
this study investigates the behaviour of two keywords
adventure and dream
in their migration from everyday language to the specialised language of tourism. The keywords analysed acquire
in the specialised corpus
a more concrete dimension linked to the planning and organisation of the holiday itself. They do not simply belong to the realm of abstraction
as in everyday language use
but in their journey towards the tourist language such keywords acquire a specific practical meaning linked to places
people and activities involved in the travel