Stereotyping Romania in British and American Tourism Discourse

- Study on Romania’s Representation in Travelogues -

Simona BUCSA

Abstract:
The paper is grounded on two distinctive theoretical frames: discourse and tourism. Discourse has been
approached from different theoretical and analytical perspectives such as speech acts theory,
ethnography of communication, conversation analysis or text analysis. Nevertheless, despite the
various aspects of language use, each and every approach views language as social interaction.
Tourism, on the other hand, has fallen under the preoccupations of sociolinguists, anthropologists or
sociologists since it has turned out to be more than selling a destination; tourism has become a social
interaction with the destination. Bringing the two theoretical frames of reference together, the aim of
this paper is to analyse tourism experiences through discourse and to show how tourists’ experiences
shape tourists’ discourse. The research method is semiotic analysis of discourse, with focus on the
stereotypical image of Romania and Romanian people as represented in travelogues written by British
and American tourists. The semiotic analysis enables the study into the significance of stereotypes at
both discourse and representation level. Carrying out an in-depth research into these stereotypes, we
understand Romania's image in the eyes of British and American tourists and, thus, we may consider or
re-consider the promotional tourism discourse.
Key words: discourse analysis, semiotics, stereotypes, tourism discourse

1. Introduction. Discourse and Tourism

Discourse and tourism are two distinctive theoretical frames which, until recently, have followed
different paths of research. There was hardly any mingle between the two fields of research. Yet,
postmodernism, characterized by boundaries crossing or globalization “a dissolving of boundaries, not
only between high and low cultures, but also between different cultural forms, such as tourism, art
education, photography, television, music, sport shopping and architecture”. (Urry, 2002:74) has
brought discourse and tourism together “for the study of interpersonal and inter-group relations,
especially along the lines of international/intercultural contact afforded by globalization” (Jaworski,
A, Pritchard, A (eds). 2005: 2). Thus, disciplines such anthropology, sociology or sociolinguistics have
recognized tourism as an important cultural formation for their fields of research on account of the fact
that tourism has turned out to be more than selling a destination, it has become a social interaction with
the destination.
In the first two subchapters we are briefly presenting the distinct evolution of both discourse and
tourism, and in the next chapters we are defining the common framework of analysis for the two
cultural formations brought together, i.e. tourism discourse.

1.2. Discourse evolution

Discourse has been approached from different theoretical and analytical perspectives such as speech
acts theory, ethnography of communication, conversation analysis or text analysis, viewing language as
social interaction. William Grabe (1984: 101) makes this distinction by reviewing all researches in various humanistic fields that have discourse at
the heart of their approach. Later on, Judith Stalpers (1988), following the reference work by Van Dijk Teun, Handbook of
Discourse Analysis (1985) and the very broad definition of discourse analysis "interest for various phenomena of language, texts,
conversational interactions use” (Judith Stalpers apud Van Dijk , 1085:Vol. i:xi) attempts to identify some
theories related to discourse and discourse analysis. The author makes similar statements to W. Grabe’s according to which
discourse is influenced by disciplines whose common object of analysis is human communication,
namely, anthropology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, literary criticism, philosophy, psychology, and
sociology, emphasizing that “for these disciplines, the study of discourse is a convenient road of
approach to other aspects of human behaviour” (J. Stalpers, 1988: 89).
Researchers agree that discourse analysis involves the study of discourse beyond text or utterance, in a
particular social, cultural or political context because everything we say or write cannot be detached
from the utterance context and objects or markers representation cannot be explained only at textual
level, but it should take account of the linguistic, encyclopedic, perceptual background. Thus “The aim of discourse analysis is to
identify and interpret the relationship between linguistic regularities (connectors, macrostructures) and meaning and finalities expressed and negotiated
through discourse” (D.R. Frumuşani, 2004:12).
One very important facet of discourse is context. It is highly accepted that in order to understand a
discourse thoroughly, we must understand it in its “context”. Thus, contexts, defined as “the relevant environment of
language use” may shape the various properties of social situations, at different levels, which may influence the production, structures and understanding
of discourse, whether participants are aware of them or not, or we as analysts are able to observe and detect them (Van Dijk, 2009).
"Discourse has always been anchored in a particular socio-cultural context, shaped by a particular episteme and aiming at a specific finality determined
by the roles of discursive agents. The concept of context (Herman Parret inter alii) is parameterized by several variables: referent, situation,
intent, verbal context, etc. "(D.R Frumusani, 2004:69).
As a consequence, when we analyse a discourse we represent the world, the objects in a given situation or under a particular social, cultural or political
environment. To fully understand a discourse, we must understand in its context and not detached from it.

1.3. Tourism evolution

Tourism is primarily seen as the act of travelling from one place to another, of visiting a particular place for sightseeing, recreation, business, visiting
friends or relatives. Being a tourist is considered as one of the characteristics of the ‘modern’ and post-modern experience “Not to ‘go away’ is like not
possessing a car or a nice house. It has become a marker of status is modern societies and it is also thought to be necessary for good health” (J.Urry apud
who critically assumes his condition as a tourist
Feifer, 1985:224). A new type of tourist was born, the post-tourist
“searching for that kind of authenticity or wholeness and not finding it and then making the loss of that
the subject of their travel writing” (Christipher Keirstead, Auburn University, 2009).
Tourism is accessible to almost everybody nowadays, but it has not always been like that. Until the twentieth century, tourism was almost exclusively
reserved to elites. John Urry, (2002:4) traces the history of travel and tourist gaze through history. From premodern societies “In Imperial Rome a fairly
extensive pattern of travel for pleasure and culture existed for the elite”, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries pilgrimages that often “included a mixture
undertaken mainly by upper-class
of religious devotion and culture and pleasure” to the seventeenth – nineteenth centuries Grand Tour
European young men as a ritual for self-development and education “travel was expected to play a kew
rolein the cognitive and perceptual education of the English upper class” (J. Urry apud Dent, 1975).
Romania did not represent a destination exclusively for pleasure. The travels to Romania by British
people were a mixture of business and pleasure, the British people that visited Romania being mostly
missionaries or diplomats; in eighteenth century, the classic Grand Tour opens new paths to the young
English aristocrats to the Romanian provinces. The amazing collection ‘Foreign Travellers in the
Romanian Provinces’, gathered the impressions of foreign travellers on Romania and Romanian
people, including British people, under the form of travelogues, throughout the centuries, up to
nineteenth century. It is very interesting to notice how the stereotype portrait of the Romanian people,
 depending on the province they come from, has remained almost the same until nowadays. We shall
return to the topic of travelogues, which makes the main subject of the paper, later in the article.
From nineteenth century, tourism has turned, slowly but surely, into a well-defined, distinct activity,
unconnected with work and business. People travel “somewhere else to gaze upon it” (John Urry, 2002:5), to
look for authenticity, self-development, to create their own values, to choose or shape their identity, to reject the universal
certainties, to emphasize personal discovery and celebrate diversity.
Accordingly, “the industry and academic writing on tourism, often characterized by myopia, complicity, a focus
on statistics and disregard for local communities and cultural groups” (L. Lippard, 1999), has been enriched with new and emerging approaches
to tourism developed by sociologists, anthropologists, cultural geographers, art historians, cultural and American studies scholars, linguists and so on.

2. Tourism Discourse– Literature review

Researchers, like Annette Pritchard and Adam Jaworski (2005), "Discourse, Communication and Tourism," have stressed the importance of
interdisciplinary studies involving two distinct cultural formation, discourse and tourism. For these researchers, the analytic interrelationship between
tourism, discourse and communication offers a transdisciplinary mix of assumptions and techniques for a sustained and critical exploration of the
possibilities, tensions, conflicts and representations which characterize a phenomenon that is frequently described as one of the most important global
industries and cultural activity, tourism.
Although discourse and communication are of central importance in tourism studies, they remain relatively unexplored and undertheorized among tourism
researchers. On the other hand, the disciplines which have discourse and communication at the heart of their interest, i.e. sociolinguistics and discourse
analysis, have only recently recognized tourism as a context for the study of interpersonal and intergroup relations.
The semiotic and discourse approach to tourism was initiated by Jonathan Culler who has renewed the study of tourism and the study of signs of
authenticity of a place.
"The semiotic analysis of tourism discourse help us focus attention on the role of tourist texts and images considered cultural representation and semiotic
agents involved in a complex process by which identities are constructed and maintained by and in communication" ( F. Baida, and D. Burger Mr. Goutsos
apud J. Culler, 1990).
Dean MacCannell analyzes the tourist experience in the post-industrial, posmtodern era as well as the signs of a tourist attraction, noting the
interchangeability of signified and signifier. The author introduces the term of “marker” for all information on a
particular destination.
ways of seeing and
John Urry notes that tourism experiences have a deep visual character and introduces the concept of "tourist gaze” as the
interpreting new places. The author also makes a connection between mobility as modern and post-modern experience and tourism as a
lifestyle.
Philip Viallon (F. Baida, and D. Burger Mr. Goutsos, 1990) defines tourism discourse as multi-semiotic units that systematically combine text and image.
The author recognizes the importance of images and messages in the tourism discourse. For Philippe Viallon (2004) "The semiotics complexity arises from
the complex relationship between the tourist and tourist destination: the irreducible difference that occurs between them makes up the tourism discourse
and communication”.
Andrew MacGregor has conducted research in Indonesia to understand how the text of the travel guide shapes the gaze and the route of tourists. He
considers that the texts are dynamic agents influencing and changing interpretations, prejudices and ways of seeing. It is not the text that has meaning, the
meaning is (re-) created by the receiver.

3. Corpus
Travelogues are a special discursive genre within the tourism discourse, being considered, the same
way tourist guides, brochures, or adverts are, a hybrid between different types of discourse, i.e.
narrative, descriptive, argumentative and instructive (according to the structural types of discourse presented by
D.R Frumusani, 2004:69).
• Narrative type “focused on temporal deployment and chronological causality";
• Descriptive type “focused on spatial deployment, consumption of a paradigm (geographical
nomenclature, music, architecture, etc.)”;

• Instructive type “encouraging action”;

 • Argumentative type “expressing a position, taking action”.

The Oxford definition of travelogues is “a film/movie, broadcast or piece of writing about travel”.
Travelogues are a mixture between travel and monologue, playing the role of a public diary shared with
other travellers. Travelogues combine both the text, which is usually prevalent, and the image. They may take the form of
articles published in the travel sections of newspapers and magazines or trip reports written by tourists
and posted on travelogue sites on the internet. The present study considered the travelogues written by
British and American tourists on http://www.travelblog.org/.

4. Hypothesis, Research question, Methodology

Hypothesis
Tourists re-interpret the signification of markers (information about a sight) in the light of their own
experience.
Research question
How do stereotypes on Romania and travel experiences shape tourists’ discourse?
Methodology
The research method is semiotic analysis of discourse, with focus on the stereotypical image of
Romania and Romanian people as represented in travelogues written by British and American tourists.
The semiotic analysis enables the study into the significance of stereotypes at both discourse and
representation level.
The Oxford definition of stereotype is: ”a fixed idea or image that many people have of a particular
type of person or thing, but which is often not true in reality”. Beside this general definition, which
explains stereotypes particularly at the level of representation, more profound definitions have been
given to stereotypes, considering not only the conceptual but also the discursive representation. Thus,
the discourse itself may be stereotyped by making use various discourse procedures, i.e. “discursive
stereotypes” (Baider et al. 2004: 16). The tourism discourse generally comes across as a stereotyped
discourse due to its discursive, textual or conceptual, structure.

5. Stereotypes
Stereotypes are analyzed on two levels: discourse representation and stereotypical discourse procedures (for instance, Margarito M, 2001, advances the
textual analysis of stereotypes: quotations, clichés name or comparisons) and the stereotypical representations.

In order to unveil the stereotypical procedures of travelogues writing we have chosen two techniques
that are used in almost all travelogues we have analysed: indirect speech and dialogues, on the one
hand, and comparisons, on the other hand.
Prior to analyzing these particular techniques, it is important to have a general view of the 20
travelogues we analysed. They have the same evaluative structure: general description of the country,
some historical and geographical considerations, route description. The destinations are almost similar
with very few exceptions. Tourists follow the same stereotypical trail Bucharest-Sinaia-Brasov-Sibiu-
Sighisoara, the explanation being the very reason why most tourists come to Romania or Transilvania,
to discover Dacula's land.

5.1. Dialogues or Indirect Speech

Returning to text stereotypes, it is worth mentioning the dialogues or indirect speech situations that
reveal the tourist-guest interaction. The tourist was actually there, the travel is authentic and the reader
is invited to be part to tourist’s experience. The dialogues reveal stereotypical Romanian characters or
situations:
dialogue with policemen: “OK, for you, for cash, there is 50 per cent discount” – the eternal corruption
of the Romanian police;
"Phone is…blocked. I will have to use my own cell phone – belongs to ME.
You sure don’t have phone? – authorities’ reluctance to find solutions to real problems, general
indifference;
Dialogue on Romani “Why are they our problem” – Romanians’ attitudes towards Romani problem;
Dialogue with the host: I vaant tooo…show you the kitchen”. The authors mention the stereo-typical
Transilvania accent under the influence of Dracula’s legend.
Dialogue with a student: “All the teachers – you must pay to pass exams, 50 Euros each exam. Or they
fail you” – corruption at all society levels, including the education.

5.2. Comparisons:
Comparisons create links between the object that is compared and the comparing object and emphasize
social-cultural references. By using comparisons, tourists place the compared object within their own
frame of reference in order to give signification to the markers of the destination visited.
“ a street in England is actually narrower”
“mountains, like back home, are covered with trees”
“trains looked like in the 1970’s and 1980’s in Ireland”
“Ballymun flats”
“Bucharest has the very same feel as the Celtic Tiger in Ireland”
“how nice the Romanian language sounds, even nicer than French”
“Bucharest, like London, has been continually built on top of its historical past throughput the decades”
“Romanian ‘Champ Alysee’”
“much higher standard than what you would get on the motorway in the UK.

5.3. Stereotypical representations

The stereotypical image tourists have on Romania is, to a great extent, not confirmed, which means that there is a gap between stereotypes and the actual
image Romania has. Yet, some of these stereotypes, which do not completely define Romania or the Romanian people, have been turned into a country
being promoted for tourism purposes (Dracula). They can promote the country, but they can also
brand,
offence it. Therefore, the promotional tourism discourse has to be re-modelled.
In the ensuing tables we assessed the tourists’ discourse considering some of the stereotypes tourists
had before coming to Romania and the changes occurred while travelling (table 1) and the Romanian
experience emerged while travelling (table 2). We have found out that most of the stereotypes tourists
had before visiting Romania are not confirmed, yet the image they make of Romania while travelling in
the country is mostly negative.

Table 1
Stereotypes on Romania Romanian experience Discourse Assessment
get robbed or beaten up beautiful and civilized country
+
Endemic corruption confirmed
-
Stray dogs confirmed
-
Transylvanian region – picturesque mountain, Horse drawn carts and farmers in their fields with
castles and palaces pitchforks collecting and stacking hay. +
Nadia
+
Dracula Not like imagined
-
Other than the t-shirt vendors outside, almost
nothing had to do with Dracula at all
Bran castle – spectacular Simple
-
Mass amounts of tourists shops on your way
Horror stories about the trains in Romania The train trip was pleasant and the views were
stunning +
Common image everyone has of Romania People dress very stylishly
+
Peasants confirmed

Table 2
Romanian experience Discourse Assessment
Horse-drawn carriages
neutral
Old world way of life
-
People hospitable, warm and generous
+
Internal beauty of the Romanian people
+
Hollywood-style BV sign: kitch, massive, tacky
-
Abandoned factories that litter the stunning countryside
-
Monstrous Palace of Parliament
-
Coping with the Romanian Italian driving was a bit of an issue
-

6. Conclusions

The hypothesis is confirmed: Tourists re-interpret the signification of markers (information about a
sight) in the light of their own experience.
Tourists have a pre-formed image on Romania created by reading guidebooks, brochures, or even by
word-of-mouth. These texts have their own meaning and message but it is the tourist that re-interprets
the signification of these texts in the light of his/her tourist experience.
“The producers of texts encode them with meanings and messages, but if there are no humans to
interpret them, they are just another meaningless object of the material world. Texts have no intrinsic
meaning independent of the process of conscious interpretation; in other words, meaning is (re)created
at the point of reception, and ``the [human] subject [is] the source or producer of meaning'' (McGregor
A. (2000:29). McGregor adds, by citing Lew, 1991:126: The texts provide ``a framework for
experiencing a place'' but it is the actual experience that shapes the final tourist discourse.
The tourism discourse is generally a positive one, as compared to the negative stereotypes on Romania.
This means that Romania is still looking for its identity, stereotypes are continuously changing and an
appropriate portrait of Romania is not shaped yet.

7. References

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discursives de l’identité et de l’altérité. Paris : L’Harmattan
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University of Oklahoma Press.
3. Frumusani, D (2004). Analiza discursului.Ipoteze si ipostaze. Bucuresti: Editura Tritonic.
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123
5. Jaworski, A, Pritchard, A (eds). 2005. Discourse, Communication and Tourism. Clevedon:
Channel View Publications
6. MacCannell, D. (1999). The Tourist, A New Theory of the Leisure Class. Berkeyl. UNiversity
of California Press.
7. McGregor A. (2000) "Dynamic Texts and Tourist Gaze. Death, Bones and Buffalo", In: Annals
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8. Stalpers J. (1988). The Maturity Of Discourse Analysis (Review Article).In: Language In
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9. Urry, J (2002). The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage.
10. Van Dijk, Teun (2009). Society and Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
11. http://www.travelblog.org/.