Portuguese ‘to go’: language representations in tourist guides

Abstract

Language difference is an intrinsic aspect of any kind of mobility and especially of tourism, the world's allegedly largest industry which develops around a myriad of multilingual and multicultural places. However, multilingualism and the intense intermingling of languages characterizing tourist sites are considered a potentially chaos-creating factor by the travel and tourism industry, which has developed around monolingual and linguistically encapsulating paths and settings. Interestingly enough, this development has simultaneously been accompanied by the celebration of polyglossia. The illusion of frictionless linguistic cohesion in a multilingual world is not only constructed by the universal use of English as lingua franca; it is also largely constructed by the transformation of languages into easily and fast acquirable articles to be used by travellers. A huge ever-increasing language-learning industry flourishes around tourist fluxes: additionally to language sections included in guidebooks there is a profusion of pocket language guides, ‘essential guides’, ‘mini dictionaries’, ‘phrase books’, ‘conversation guides’ in all possible languages. The present paper aims at reflecting on the way languages are portrayed in such texts deliberately conceived for people on the move. It focuses, in particular, on Portuguese and the way it is framed in contemporary tourist guides.