This project adopts a sociolinguistic approach to examine the linguistic aspects of tourism on three levels: 1. How do people deal with multilingualism in basic interaction, for example, at the airport or the tourist information desk? 2. How are these practices established in training programs? 3. What linguistic strategies are applied when advertising a particular tourist destination, for example, in slogans and brochures? The project aims to appraise the importance of multilingualism in tourism as well as to gauge the significance of foreign language skills in the service industry in the conditions of a globalised world in general. A further objective is to shed light on which languages and which skills play a part in constructing the workplace in the tourism branch and to analyse the form these structures take.
A contribution towards understanding the social and linguistic challenges facing Switzerland in the context of globalisation
Duration
01.2005 - 12.2009
Keywords
Competences,
Institutions,
Interaction
Funding
Swiss National Science Foundation, NRP 56 Language diversity and linguistic competences in Switzerland
Description