| Modern tourism witnessed its rapid development in the 20th century. Its cultural and financial impact on the countries and areas it enters leads to the development of tourism in all the countries, and China is of no exception. Like domestic tourism, international tourism also developed rapidly in the 20th century, especially after World War II. The dramatically increased international tourist arrivals and receipts indicate that China has grown into an important tourist host country. With most of its tourists coming from European and American countries where English is taken as the native tongue and also other countries where English is used as the second language, English has become the most important language in receiving tourists from abroad. Like English for other purposes, such as Business English and Advertising English, English for Tour Guides—the language used in receiving and guiding tourists, gradually forms its own features and style. The research and study of these features and style gradually becomes a new topic in the study of English for special purpose. It is necessary to know the definition, function, classification and universality of English for Tour Guides before analyzing its linguistic features. Language for Tour Guides contains three components:1) it targets at tourists or potential tourists; 2) it tends to transmit some kind of messages or information about the tourist attraction; 3) it sends the information through media. Language for Tour Guides has expressive function, informative function, aesthetic function and imperative function. All the features of the language stand out to fulfill these functions. According to the manner of communication, Language for Tour Guides can be classified as written guiding language, audio guiding language, audio-visual guiding language and oral guiding language, among which written guiding language and oral guiding language are most widely used and most important, thus become the focus in this study. English for Tour Guides exists where tourism exists. The linguistic features of English for Tour Guides are embodied in its lexis, syntax and rhetorical devices. At the lexical level, English for Tour Guides uses as many as possible simple words to enable visitors to understand and pick up relevant information in the course of visiting, as they are traveling for pleasure's sake. The most conspicuous characteristic of English for Tour Guides is the numerous adjectives it employs. Adjectives can enrich the language; make it vivid, nice and attractive to tourists. While the superlative adjectives give prominence to the matchlessness and uniqueness of the tourist attraction, leaving a memorable impression on the tourists. In English for Tour Guides, one can hardly find any word of negative meaning to describe tourist attractions, that is to say, words of positive meaning are used to create a positive image for the tourist spots. In addition, numerals decorate the language and transmit more precise information. At the syntactic level, English for Tour Guides features provocative questions, imperative sentences, "If"conditional clauses, more simple sentences and few "There be"structures. Questions, according to the objects, can be classified into four groups: memory questions, convergent questions, divergent questions and judgemental questions. Questions can stir up tourists, catch their attention, inspire their imagination, and encourage thinking, so as to make visitors actively involved into the traveling experience and effectively acquire information, and at the same time avoid the boring interpretation by the guides themselves. Imperative sentences request, instruct and persuade tourists to better enjoy the journey. "If"conditional clauses, which have three functions: inferring, instructing courteously, and affirming strongly, are also commonly seen in English for Tour Guides. Simple sentences, by employing concise and plain language, realize the informative function of guiding language. Tourists can easily catch on the message transmitted without reducing their visiting enthusiasm. Although some attractive factors exist in every tourist attraction, English for Tour Guides seldom deploy "There be"structure, so as to avoid monotony of language. Besides the lexical and syntactic features, English for Tour Guides also adopts some rhetorical devices, such as personification, simile and metaphor, parallelism and storytelling, to add spice to the language, make the language simple, understandable and vivid, so that it can capture the tourists'attention and impress them with wonderful memories. English for Tour Guides also employs some language skills to enhance its functions. It assumes the form of monologue; it describes the nature of the tourist object with key words, associates the commentated subject with celebrities to enhance its reputation and increase its attractiveness. English for Tour Guides transforms the individual into consumers of the tourist destinations by targeting at their esteem and singling them out from the crowd. Humors can also be introduced into the language as a light-hearted warning and a comfort in unfavorable situations. Besides the linguistic features English for Tour Guides shows in its style, even within the language itself, a written tour commentary and an oral interpretation on the same subject are also different in features, style, word choice, and expression, due to different manners of communication. In a word, lexical and syntactic features of English for Tour Guides, coupled with appropriate rhetorical devices and some language skills combine to achieve the fulfillment of the functions of English for Tour Guides. It is hoped that this study will arouse tour guides and tourist text writers the awareness of the importance of the features of English for Tour Guides, and help them to achieve desired effect. However, since this study does not take into consideration the backgrounds of the actualtourists and potential tourists, or the property of the visited spots, it still suffers some limitations, and leave room for further research. |
PDF Full Text Request