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2. Sem 8036: Soft Skills |
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INTRODUCTION An authentic touristic experience [...] involves a participation in a collective ritual, in connecting one's own marker to a sight already marked by others« (MacCannell, The Tourist, p. 137).
"A sign is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity" (Peirce) A sign (Latin signum)is something that is perceived and interpreted by means of culturally defined rules, codes. Insofar as a human-made design is something that can be seen and heard, it becomes a sign. A coffee pot it not just a coffee pot, a simple functional object - it is also a sign that means different things to different people; it represents values, culinary cultures, etc.
Semiotics - the science of signs According to semiotics, we can only know culture (and reality) by means of signs, and through the processes of signification (giving and transmitting meaning) Semiotics has two founders: the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (died 1913) and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (died 1914). "Every message is made of signs; correspondingly, the science of signs termed semiotic deals with those general principles which underlie the structure of all signs whatever, and with the character of their utilization within messages, as well as with the specifics of the various sign systems, and of the diverse messages using those different kinds of signs." Roman Jacobson |
| Semiotics of Tourism by Dean MacCannell: Tourist attractions can be read as signs; tourism can be treated as semiotic activity; touristic attractions can be designed. sign: represents / something / to someone attraction: marker / sight / tourist Marker = any information about a specific site (often just the name of the sight, its picture, or a plan or map). Marker is a kind of scheme of interpretation on-sight markers vs off-sight markers (information found at its sight vs separated from its sight)
Marker and sight involvement Marker involvement = advance knowledge of / increased interest in markers (example: a couple reading the labels of empty cages in a zoo). sight involvement = sightseeing situation where the sight has no markers. Sight involvement may lead to disappointment (example: displays of a moon rock) a marker can be transformed into a sight: Tourists have been accused of exchanging perception for mere recognition The marker can displace the sight (Bonnie and Clyde shootout area; battlefield: the actual battle is displaced by all kinds of markers). Also tourists themselves can be turned into attractions.
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| Examples:
- Loreley
- Bonnie and Clyde
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| Copernicus
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"Stolpersteine"
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Contact:
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt FRGS |
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