Publication: Language and community-based tourism: Use, needs, dependency, and limitations
Issued Date
2020-01-01
Resource Type
ISSN
1999253X
19992521
19992521
Other identifier(s)
2-s2.0-85088782569
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Mahidol University
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SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies. Vol.13, No.1 (2020), 57-79
Suggested Citation
Singhanat Nomnian, Alexander Trupp, Wilawan Niyomthong, Prakaimook Tangcharoensathaporn, Anan Charoenkongka Language and community-based tourism: Use, needs, dependency, and limitations. Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies. Vol.13, No.1 (2020), 57-79. doi:10.14764/10.ASEAS-0029 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/58381
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Title
Language and community-based tourism: Use, needs, dependency, and limitations
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Abstract
© 2020 SEAS - Society for South-East Asian Studies. Language and tourism are essentially interconnected by the cross-border movement of tourists and the resulting encounters of people who often speak different languages. These relationships, however, have not been explored very much in the context of community-based tourism (CBT), a kind of tourism that has the potential to enhance communities' socioeconomic growth, language skills, and cultural heritage. This study explores local communities' perceived English language needs and challenges for tourism purposes in Thailand's second-tier provinces of Chiang Rai and Buriram. Informed by fieldwork observations, semi-structured, and focus-group interviews, the findings reveal four key issues: i) the limitations of host-guest interaction and communication, ii) dependency on tour guides, iii) communities' current communicative English needs, and iv) language users' sociocultural and linguistic identities. In the cross-cultural tourism encounter, English was needed by the communities despite its limited use by CBT leaders and members. Cultural identities of the communities and individual speakers were constructed by tour guides whose interpretations of cultural meanings could have been lost in translation. Despite the hegemonic lingua franca status of English, multilingual competence among CBT professionals should be promoted to facilitate community communication and more independence from external translators and cultural brokers. Driven by Thailand's current economic development model, information and communication technology (ICT) could be used to help meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 (Quality Education) and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) by promoting lifelong learning opportunities and socioeconomic development for remote tourism destinations.