ABSTRACT
This study aims to contribute to sociolinguistic studies of tourism (Heller et al., 2014, Introduction: Sociolinguistics and tourism – mobilities, markets, multilingualism. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18(4), 425–458) by examining the host–tourist encounters in China Daily’s travelogues about China since 2000 from the critical perspective of intercultural communication (Piller, 2017, Intercultural Communication: A Critical Introduction, 2nd edn. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). It explores how cultural identities of different groups of Chinese people are negotiated and realized in tourism communication, and how certain images of Chinese people are utilized to (re)produce, maintain or justify asymmetrical relationships of power in touristic encounters. The research findings include that Chinese locals are hardly engaged in reciprocal communication with tourists; they may function as information sources, tour guides, hosts, servers, and community representatives in touristic intercultural encounters. In any case, Chinese locals are never represented as equals of travel writers. By contrast, the multiracial travel writers (Chinese and foreign) often remain detached and silent in their depictions of Chinese locals, thus making them sound like objective observers, or they may appear as cosmopolitan and mobile in face-to-face tourist–local interactions. This analysis reveals China Daily’s attempt to maneuver between catering to the touristic fantasies about China and asserting its uniqueness of culture and identity.
