Origen: Minority languages in the linguistic landscape of tourism: the case of Catalan in Mallorca – Dialnet

Minority languages in the linguistic landscape of tourismthe case of Catalan in Mallorca

• Autores: Antonio Bruyèl Olmedo, María Juan Garau
• Localización: Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, ISSN 0143-4632, Vol. 36, Nº. 6, 2015, págs. 598-619
• Idioma: inglés
• Resumen
  • The relationship between language and tourism is still an incipient area of enquiry. Within it, the study of the linguistic landscape (LL) of holiday destinations affords useful information on the role that minority languages play in the tourist–host interplay, which has received scant attention. Based on a 736-picture corpus, the paper addresses the visibility that Catalan, the official autochthonous language of Mallorca (Spain), has in one of the busiest mass sun-and-beach resorts in Europe, the Bay of Palma, where it coexists with other international languages along with Spanish, the official majority language. When compared to Spanish and the remaining languages documented, the data presented reveal limited presence of Catalan in the LL of the tourist areas considered. Besides, its use is unbalanced, as it mostly concentrates in top-down signage, with very limited presence in bottom-up signs. Thus, the driving forces of the mass-tourist market together with the little prestige that the local industry assigns to Catalan are found to be barriers to its wider introduction in the LL of tourism as yet one more asset of the destination and part of the holiday experience.