Pages as Stages: A Performance Approach to Visitor Books

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article offers a contribution to the fields of tourist performance and language. By exploring a visitor book located at a heritage site in Jerusalem, Israel, it argues that texts produced by tourists can assume the semiotic status of performances. Consequently, tourists’ texts should not be viewed merely as instances of “discourse” or “language”, but also as organic parts of the aesthetic and semiotic aspects of tourism. The article describes four dimensions that establish the visitor book as a particular “stage”, and the texts therein as the tourists’ situated performances. Taken together, these dimensions constitute a model for the analysis of linguistic performance and for the semiotic interrelationship between stage and performance in tourism.

Original languageAmerican English
JournalAnnals of Tourism Research
Volume35
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2008
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • performance
  • language
  • writing
  • museum
  • heritage

Disciplines

  • Communication
  • Health Communication
  • Interpersonal and Small Group Communication
  • Social and Behavioral Sciences

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