An insight into intercultural communication in posted comments on tripadvisor : the case of Miyajima tourism in Japan

An insight into intercultural communication in posted comments on tripadvisor : the case of Miyajima tourism in Japan

This paper illustrates the way in which the text mining approach, often used in marketing studies, can be used to study intercultural communication. Tourists’ comments about Miyajima in Hiroshima prefecture on Tripadvisor, a tourism website, have been analysed to reveal how Japanese tourists and English-speaking foreign tourists, including Americans, the British, and Australians, use a variety of expressions regarding their visit in their comments and advice. The results reveal both similarities and differences in the posted content, which seem to reflect the characteristics of the Japanese and English language and their communication style. Writers in English tend to use a variety of adjectives to express their thoughts in positive comments, describing their experience in-depth and giving advice directly. The readeroriented approach using the second-person pronoun ‘you’ and imperative forms are used when giving advice. American, British, and Australian writers sometimes express their positive comments differently. On the other hand, Japanese writers tend to write shorter comments and to use fewer adjectives than writers in English in their comments. These cultural and linguistic characteristics of tourists’ comments can be analysed to understand the different uses of language in intercultural communication and for non-native English writers to learn how to write comments on tourism in English.

Creators Fujimura-Wilson Kayo