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

English and English-American literature Volume 56 Page 1-27
published_at 2021-12-20
英語と英米文学No56-001.pdf
[fulltext] 1.11 MB
Title
An insight into intercultural communication in posted comments on tripadvisor : the case of Miyajima tourism in Japan
Abstract
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
Source Identifiers [PISSN] 02882396 [NCID] AN00021380
Creator Keywords
tourism discourse text mining sociocultural analysis intercultural communication
Languages eng
Resource Type departmental bulletin paper
Publishers Yamaguchi University
Date Issued 2021-12-20
File Version Version of Record
Access Rights open access