Titolo della tesi: Corpus-Assisted Analysis of the Language of Tourism in Albanian English
Abstract
Tourism is of enormous significance in the economies of many countries and is considered an essential element for sustainability and continued economic growth. This is also the case with Albania. Its geographical position, with its shores washed by both the Ionian and Adriatic Seas, its historical and cultural riches, and its access to the valleys and rivers of the northern Alps make the country an attractive destination for tourists. Investment in road infrastructure, economic and socio-cultural governmental projects, laws, initiatives and measures aimed at supporting the country's development have yielded a tourism boom over the last decade, with different areas of Albania offering a large number of services to meet the demands of tourists and fulfill their requirements. Tourism is increasingly becoming the main source of income in Albania and this phenomenon has emphasized the importance of the emergence of a contact language and locals which would facilitate communication with foreigners. Therefore, the spread of the English language over recent years has become a factor of the processes of globalization and Europeanisation, in Albania.
English has long been used as a lingua franca by tourists and travelers worldwide. In the Albanian context, communication in English plays an important role in facilitating the provision of various services. English is widely used in Albania, both as a means of communication among guests from different linguacultural backgrounds, and as the international language for advertisements, information boards, menus in restaurants and bars, or as the primary lingua franca for online communication.
The aim of this study is to investigate into how Albanian tourism is presented to travelers and appeals to them, through the analysis of a selected corpus of texts used in printed tourist guides, in Albania. Secondly, this study aims to shed light on the national identity generated through tourist discourse when English is used as the contact medium for international communication. Finally, this research is intended to offer a broad view of the current state of the tourist sector in Albania and its progressive development.
The methodological approach to this study is corpus linguistics, as the author believes that may provide a valuable contribution to the under-researched field of tourism discourse in Albania.
Twelve travel guidebooks published from 2015 to 2019 were collated and converted into txt format, in order to facilitate the quantitative analysis of data through a dedicated software called WordSmith Tools 6.0. Through this software, it was possible to collect relevant data regarding the use of English by means of the analysis of concordances, collocations, the identification of keywords in texts, and the creation of word frequency lists. The analysis of keywords, their collocations, and their categorization in terms of semantic prosody has allowed me to conclude that the texts contained in the specialized corpus compiled for this research are essentially intended to advertise Albania and present it as an ideal destination for holiday makers. Finally, the study has also highlighted several hapaxes and rare occurrences of words and lexical chunks, which are of considerable relevance to study the way Albania’s recent history is perceived.
Keywords: tourist discourse, CADS, ELF, Albania, tourist industry.