A SOCIOLINGUISTIC APPROACH TO PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN TOURISM
SILVIA BLANCA IRIMIEA1
1 Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Director of the Centre for Tourism Training, s_irimiea@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT. – A Sociolinguistic Approach to Professional Identity Construction in Tourism. Identity is an issue that affects all society and all professions, including tourism professions. The process of professional identity construction and/or reconstruction is not reserved only to the academia and to the specialised training institutions, but has become a complex process laid bare for public debate by the media and engaging Web 2.0 and many other societal institutions and processes. If the process has been widely discussed from the point of view of the professionals’ training for different careers (management, communication, marketing, hospitality) or from that of tourist identities (Harrison, 2003; Thurlow & Jaworsky, 2010) and tourism relationships (Thurlow & Jaworsky, 2010), professional group identity in tourism has received less research attention from sociolinguists. Thus, it is the purpose of the present study to address some sociolinguistic considerations that have acquired relevance in the identity formation of groups of employees in tourism based on discourse and interactional sociolinguistic aspects. While surveying the early contributions of Goffman (1950s), Sacks (1960s), Schegloff (1987) and the further advancements in the field (Van Dijk, 1993, 1997; Drew and Heritage, 1993, Miller, 1994; Stubbe, 1998; Cicourel, 2003; 2003; Koester, 2004; Richards, 2006), the study is focused on the case of group identity formation in travel agencies. Finally, it seeks to reveal the temporary nature of identities, the lack of concern of travel agencies for the constriction, reconstruction, survival of group identity.
Keywords: group identity, tourist identity, professional identity, group identity construction, representation, misrepresentation.