Harmony in diversity: exploring cross-linguistic, cross-cultural and multimodal dimensions of temporality within tourism discourse

Abstract

Abstract This study explores temporal aspects in tourism discourse across modes, languages and cultures, focusing on translated texts in German, Italian, French, English, and Spanish. Tourism communication, a persuasive force promoting destinations, constructs authentic experiences for potential tourists. Beyond promotion, it reflects a societal practice shaping tourist identities and destination cultures. The translation of tourism texts involves considerations of cultural values and multimodal representations, seeking to transfer the unique selling proposition effectively. Existing research has analyzed trigger words, interlingual strategies, and cultural representations, but a gap exists in understanding the translation of temporal aspects. This paper investigates the multimodal representation, promotion, and transfer of temporality in tourism texts, contributing to contrastive and multimodal research in tourism communication. Key questions addressed include how elements from different modes contribute to the unique selling proposition, how the advertising message is conveyed in a multimodal coherent way, and which temporal aspects are translated and adapted in the target language. The present paper sheds light on the intricate interplay of language and image in conveying the temporal dimension of tourist experiences across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts.