Tourism and the Visibility of Local Languages

Abstract

[eng] The relationship between tourism and languages is attracting increasing scholarly interest. The emergence of linguistic landscape studies has favoured research on the impact of mass tourism on minority languages. While certain scholars advocate for the presence of these languages in the tourist public space as tokens of authenticity, others fear commodification, which could lead to depriving local languages from their communicative function. This chapter will address this debate from the perspective of Catalan, the autochthonous language in Mallorca (Spain), which features modestly in the island’s touristified linguistic landscape. Mass sun-and-beach tourism imposes an asymmetric power relationship between hosts and guests, eventually leading the former to adopt either the guests’ language or a lingua franca at the expense of Catalan, which loses its place. Proposals for its introduction range from commodification through an emblematic use in inscriptions or even souvenirs to a new conceptualization of the island’s tourist activity that incorporates local language (and culture) as an asset of the destination.