Gender, Tourism and Travelling Translation

Mirella Agorni, Università Ca’ Foscari – Venezia

mirella.agorni(at)unive.it

Abstract: This article focuses on two themes, distinct but thoroughly interconnected, i.e. the language of tourism and gender. The role played by gender considerations in the field of tourism communication has not received sufficient attention. Hence, this contribute aims to explore a series of theoretical frameworks, or routes to be followed in order to  analyse gender in relation to three main conceptual areas: (1) the material aspects of the body in the tourist experience; (2) the inanimate objects of tourism practices, i.e. destinations and their landscapes, sites and tradition; (3) the way language is used in tourism translation practices. These three areas will be tackled with in an interdisciplinary perspective by adopting approaches developed within the fields of Tourism, Translation and Gender Studies. The “hopeful” ambition of this paper is to stimulate research that brings together men and women, their languages and cultural environments in real-life communicative exchanges (cfr. the “hopeful tourism” research line in Atelejevic et al. 2011, Pritchard et al. 2011).