Cross-cultural representations in tourist discourse: the image of Sardinia in English tourist guides

The cross-cultural dimension of tourism seems self evident. Tourism is cultural per se. The search for new territories and new spaces, the desire to go and conquer them, presupposes a willingness to encounter and to discover new worlds, new languages and new discourses. At the same time, the promoters of tourist destinations prepare themselves for this discovery by showing peculiar aspects and patterns of their cultural identity. To present tourist discourse in a less banal and obvious way, we will try to follow Stuart Hall’s depiction of cross-cultural representations (Hall 2002), and consider it as ‘a signifying practice’ where cultural meanings are constructed and transmitted. According to this approach, meaning is very relevant in the definition of culture. In fact, culture is seen not as a set of things but as a series of practices. We should analyse culture not for what it is but for what it does. Members of a society or of a group interpret their surrounding reality and give it meaning.