A Social Semiotic Analysis of International Inflight Magazines as a Tourism Discourse: A Cross-cultural Study

Despite being an important category of multimodal tourism discourse, Inflight magazines and their roles in promoting international airlines’ profile and their host country, are mostly under-researched. Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the application of different visual and semiotic strategies regarding social actors' race, age and social class and how people are represented in different international airlines’ inflight magazines. For this purpose, ۱۶ international airlines’ inflight magazine issues were selected depending on the host country's geographical location and availability. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s (۲۰۰۶ [۱۹۹۶]) and van Leeuwen’s (۲۰۰۸) visual grammar, the data were analyzed based on ideational, interpersonal and compositional levels. The results revealed that inflight magazine designers, content developers and advertisement agencies tend to apply certain visual and semiotic resources. They reinforce bias and false stereotypes towards certain groups of people in terms of their age, race and social class originating in political, historical and ideological perceptions and standpoints of higher institutions across the world. The findings also highlight the importance of visual literacy being promoted to the target audience, including air travelers and EFL learners.

کلیدواژه ها:

social actors ، In-flight magazines ، Social semiotic analysis ، discourse analysis ، Tourism discourse ، Visual Grammar