Research On The Social Response To The Changes Of Tourist Place Names

Since the 1980s,the toponymic research in the western academic led by human geographers has shifted from the traditional to the critical paradigm,focusing on the political,economic or cultural contestation for the symbolic capital inherent in placenames(toponyms)under the framework of capital,power and identification,this advances the theoretical research on toponymy.But the critical paradigm has attached minimal concern to issues relevant to touristic toponym.Touristic toponym is the product of economic and cultural globalization compelled by tourism promotion worldwide,and is the key window to show up cultural construction of tourist destinations.Touristic toponym exhibits its unique evolution track under the context of China's market economy and mass tourism.The symbolic capital embedded in Touristic toponyms tends to be a sort of right for which multiple tourism stakeholders fight,so the aforesaid social relationship gives birth to new concepts termed as tourism placename field(TPF)and naming rights struggle referring to Bourdieu's Field Theory.Selecting touristic toponyms as the main research object,employing the crictical paradigm and such theoretical frameworks as Field Theory,Symbolic Captcal et al,applying such methods as critical discourse analysis and social network analysis,this paper,firstly,reviewed the advances in general toponymy and touristic toponym both at home and abroad,perfected the critical paradigm of toponymic research according to China's current special ideological context,directed the future studies on touristic toponym;secondly,elaborated the related conception of touristic toponym and its field,function and research value.Thirdly,analyzed social responses and toponymic discourse of multiple stakeholders to some typical renaming practices.Lastly,based on the summary of topology and dynamic of social responses,the author provided some suggestions to optimize positive socio-economic effects of touristic toponyms and to coordinate the toponymic rights among multiple stakeholders.This paper made the complete definition of touristic toponym and its field,as well as the notions of its capital symbolic for the first time.This paper focused on the new angle of social relation embodied in the changing progress of a touristic toponym and its field pattern.This innovation,on the theoretical dimension,would not only assist in incorporating the concept of New Cultural Geography into the traditional toponymic research on tourism,but also contribute to the further inquiries on tourist culture;on the practical dimension,for one,it could take the utmost of socio-economic effects of touristic toponyms,for another,it could provide practical guidance to scientific-democratic management on touristic toponyms.It be can draw the next five conclusions.The narrow definition of touristic toponym can be termed as a distinguished name referring to a specific tourist destination.The broad one can be defined as a system of name and sign of touristic geographical entity facilitating tourists' spatial movement,visiting experience,and touristic consumption et al.TPF refers to a power relation network of touristic toponym weaved by varied social groups or classes,in which,differing stakeholders develop and contest over the symbolic capital in touristic toponym by maintaining,changing or coordinating the scale structure,naming agent,toponymic user,cultural implication,scope or administrative level and under the guidance of each one's habitat and limited by their capital conditions.Compared with general toponyms,touristic toponyms are featured with diverse service objects and naming agents,richer in function and connotation,more complex power relationship.Touristic toponym has great significance to construction of tourist destination,quality promotion of tourists and tourism advance.Touristic toponym become an important object and media for New Cultural Geography to research and regulate on man-land relationship,social ties in tourist destinations.The changing rule of touristic toponym is shown as next:the changing frequency and quantity of lower-grade scenic are greater those of higher-grade scenic.Cities have been named or want to be renamed are concenstrated on the Mid-western China.The nomenclature of most tourist destination inherits the old tradition obeying natural and cultural logic,however,in modern societies,along with the increasingly diverse naming agents and ways,extensive using subject and function,and increasing cultural connotation,symbolic capital has been paid more attention,capital and market logic play the more crucial role in naming or renaming tourist destinations,fashionable factors are utilized to cater to the changes in tourist aesthetic preference.The change in touristic toponym with a typical demonstration as city renaming exerts both positive and negative impacts on cities' socio-economic development.The positive effects do great favor to raise cites' popularity,to guide tourist destination-decision at low cost and higher efficiency,to advance local tourist industry and other relevant industries.The negative influences do harm to cultural inherence;increase cost of social operation,trigger toponymic war and worsen inter-regional contradiction;burden tourists to destination location,degrade image of tourist destinations;shield tourism development of other similar resources and neighborhood areas.The changing dynamic of touristic toponym can be summarized as the next five items:the change in touristic geographic entity is the objective driving force for variation in touristic toponyms,environmental transition of social language is the subjective impetus,to cater to tourists' cultural psychology is helpful to expand tourist market,the toponymic administration is one of the most important means of human intervention,the alteration of service objective enriches the function and content of touristic toponym.Social responses are depicted as the next six aspects:first,compared with habitants in tourist communities,netizens are more energetic to struggle for toponymic discourse,even have high possibility to reverse official renaming-decision,and network public sentiment has caught much official attention.Second,the ordinary and media who object to renaming tend to regard renaming practice as a short-sighted strategy decided by officials or scenic administrators.Scenic administrators who supporting renaming are inclined to attach importance to the sensational,long-term and wide-range effects exerted by renaming practices on scenic even regional advance and they are enthusiastic to make full use of governmental social capital to destination marketing and toponymic contestation.Third,during the process of renaming and administrative adjustment,those who lose direct economic interest are of the highest resistance consciousness.Four,mass attitudes toward official city-renaming are of great differences in spatial scales and in generations.Although they can win over some discourse in indirectly antagonistic ways,the authorities master the naming or renaming rights after all.Five,responses of local governments to renaming-decision differ in historical periods,levels of authority,places as well as official groups in the same government.Their attitudes and enthusiasm are depended on the power status,recognition level to the role of city-renaming and the cognition to the currently main social contradiction of their cities.Six,renaming decisions of administrative regions above county level tend to threaten immediate economic interests of general public,then they will struggle for their toponymic rights in direct ways which have more potential to influence official renaming-decisions.The main typologies of social response are name-seeking,name-contestation and renaming.Social name-seeking is a kind of response of developers to deal with the diversification in naming agents;Marketing of toponymic brand is a kind of response of developers or local authorities to catch up with the tendency of function extension,multiple nomenclature;competition for the symbolic capital in touristic toponym of allopatric and non-tourism economic agents is a kind of response to the extension of using subject;the power game among renaming practices of tourist destinations is a sort of interactive response of various stakeholders to cope with function extension and diverse in naming agent.The dynamic of social response can be concluded as that,under the context of marking economy,mass tourism and mass media,with the growths in public consciousness of decision-making and governmental awareness of city marketing,different stakeholder within TPF develop and contest over symbolic capital inherent in touristic toponyms under the actions of such factors as power status,capital condition,right consciousness and social memory.At the end,the author put forward such suggestions to make full use of the positive effects embedded in tourism toponyms as 1)cultivating the locals' awareness of toponymic rights,2)unlocking economic effects of a tourism toponym by commercial exploitation in reasonable manners,3)handing down the Chinese excellent traditional culture when name tourist geographic entities,4)emphasizing on tourists' cultural psychology by appropriate naming practices,and 5)suspending disputes and joint development on the names of famous tourist destinations.The author came up with such measures to coordinate toponymic rights of varied social groups as 1)encouraging innovative naming proposed by tour operators,2)recognizing tourists' participation in naming practices,3)strengthening the government managerial utility on toponyms,and 4)respecting and ensuring the locals' toponymic rights and their usage habits.In the follow-up studies on tourism toponym,the author will probe into the relationship between the locals,governments and tour operators;distinguish pattern variances among sub-types of TPF;and intensify the application of GIS techniques on toponymic cognition of multiple stakeholders.