The holiday spirit made its first mark on the Sociolinguistics Series last week, and we are most certainly going to continue the trend this week!

In discussing the host-tourist interactions, we have seen how many locals of holiday destinations are portrayed to exist at a distance. Even when a tourist does learn the local language, they are often impaired by the choppiness with which they speak it. This can affect the grammar of their speech, but also the grammar of their understanding their hosts’ words.

This lack of communication is seen the other way around, too, when the hosts speak fragments of the tourists’ languages. In most cases of the holiday programs analyzed, the native tongue of the tourist was English.

When hosts learn English, it is often not their first language, and the environment in which they were raised may not have had the means to support English education to the fullest extent; this leaves the hosts speaking a broken English. We are quite familiar with the effects this can have: discrimination, prejudice, and misunderstandings.

The style in which hosts and tourists converse is also a cause for dismay. Many hosts are given “servant” roles by their lack of conversation with tourists other than to serve tourists’ needs.

The tourists, however, do not return the friendly sentiment. In the case of a tourist not bothering to learn the destination’s native language, hosts are often linguistically ignored. This is seen all too perfectly in the following scenario:

Imagine a tourist who is vacationing in Fiji. He is laying on a massage table but completely ignores his masseuse. Instead, he’s looking into a camera, speaking directly towards it. He talks of his vacation without mentioning any human interaction with the locals. In fact, he states, “When I’m on holiday, the hell with sports and activities. I like to be relaxed and do nothing. Well, I am relaxed and I am doing nothing and I can think of no better place than here in Fiji.” He then lowers his head to enjoy the rest of the massage. All the while, he is disregarding his masseuse, who is uncomfortably avoiding eye contact with the camera.

There are many interesting points about the excerpt described above, which was actually one of the clips from Wish You Were Here? (a holiday broadcast program) studied by the Cardiff University team.

First, the tourist is able to establish his own profile because he is the one doing the talking. With his words, he is able to narrate the situation and manipulate it to his own liking. He is seen as a relaxed visitor who values the corporeal aspect of tourism over engaging with the local culture.

He reinforces his unwillingness to do “sports and activities” while on vacation by completely ignoring the masseuse. This lack of conversation sets the tone for how the masseuse is seen by the audience of the TV program. Many will see the masseuse as part of the background--the peoplescape--which will, in turn, portray locals as subservient to tourists, existing only to cater to the needs of visitors.

The reason for xenophobia among groups of people is the idea of in-grouping and out-grouping. When a group of people is seen as different, they are the out-group. With this title, they can now be seen as threatening, dangerous, and undesirable. While we have discussed xenophobia in past chapters, it’s an important theme to bring up again due to its recurring presence.

We’ve talked all about how language can shape a person’s view on society--or a society’s view on another society. However, the lack of language is the interesting part here.

When the tourist speaks to the camera and does not address the masseuse, it gives off a message that is potentially dangerous to the mindset of the audience. The tourist, talking cheerfully about things that the audience can relate to, is seen as “one of us.” The masseuse, ignored and part of the background, is seen as “one of them.”

With this distinction formed in the minds of audience members, the in-group out-group complex is created. The audience will now be less likely to actively engage with out-group members. In fact, they will be less inclined to even want to know more about the out-group culture.

If the tourist on television is talking about how the only good thing about vacation (in an exotic place like Fiji) is massages and relaxation, why would the audience member even consider doing other things, like engaging with the locals? Why would they want to speak to natives and learn their culture? Aren’t the native “hosts” there solely to entertain the tourists?

These are dangerous thoughts to have, no matter how innocent they seem. On the surface, it’s just a tourist having fun and relaxing. Underneath, however, this type of mindset can lead to prejudice and discrimination.

Even worse, it’ll lead to the unwillingness to explore new cultures and listen to different opinions.

A holistic dialogue of people across the world is vital to the human experience. Without speaking to each other, it is hard to develop empathy for those who are different than you are--who live a different lifestyle, speak a different language, believe in a different philosophy.

The first step to overcoming the walls of prejudice is simply to reach out and actively listen. Only after listening does understanding follow, and only after understanding can we love each other.

Language holds more power than can be seen at first glance. Not using your language can often harm people just as much as using your language maliciously.

When the opportunity comes up to understand someone by doing something as simple as using your language, why wouldn’t you do it?