Professional and Non-Professional Written Travel Texts – Do They Have Common Features?: A Comparative Investigation on Travel Texts on Trysil, Norway

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Degree Project

BA Thesis

Professional and Non-Professional Written Travel Texts – Do They Have Common Features?

A Comparative Investigation on Travel Texts on Trysil, Norway

Author: Stina Ericsson Supervisor: Annelie Ädel Examiner: Jonathan White

Subject/main field of study: Linguistics Course code: EN2036

Credits: 15

Date of examination:

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Abstract

This study aims to investigate possible distinctions between professional and non- professional written travel texts all treating the same destination: the Norwegian ski resort Trysil. The study will investigate to what extent the different texts correlate with the genre of travel texts, as the travel texts are treated as personal narratives, and how they conform to a given structure for narratives and with guidelines for professional writers. Furthermore, the investigation aims to explore to what extent there are similarities and differences between the texts regarding the given structure. The texts will first be analysed and organized separately by

macrorules and a news schema that are constructed specifically for these sorts of texts, in order to reveal their discourse structure, and then compared to each other.

As the discourse structure of the different texts is revealed, it is seen that there are certain differences between the two different text types. Finally, seen that the text types differ in their structure, this study will show that despite the fact that

journalists write stories, and that non-professional written stories are narratives, they do not share the same structure, and are constructed in different ways.

Keywords

Discourse Analysis, Genre Analysis, News texts, Travel texts, News schemata, Macrorules, Comparison

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1. Introduction

“Journalists do not write articles. They write stories”

(Bell, 1991, p. 147).

Historically, access to written texts was restricted and only accessible for scholars and priests. Today, literacy has become relatively widespread, so that people at least in some parts of the world have access to a great variety of texts. The multiple choices today have also created a need for understanding a variety of styles, and texts that differ with respect to content, grammatical structure,

discourse organization, and purpose. From the restricted texts in the past till today, the usage, availability and ways of publishing have gone through major changes.

One type of commonly produced and widely spread register is news discourse, which occurs in various publications, such as magazines, newspapers, press releases or spoken contexts, such as television or radio news.

Within news media, there are different types of news, often divided into ‘hard’

and ‘soft’ news (Bell, 1991, p. 147). Hard news consists of directly situated events such as crime, accidents, conflicts and announcements, whilst soft news entails feature articles, such as sports, leisure and travel, special-topic news, headlines, bylines and photo captions (Bell, 1991, p. 14). The latter kind of news is often interpreted as narratives. As soft news consists of features that resemble narratives, they may also share the same thematic structure as other narratives (Bell, 1991, p.

148). Regardless of the state of the news, each and one of the news carries their own traits and thematic structure and have their own “topics and organization within the story”, in order to be acknowledged and recognized for their purpose (Bell, 1991, p. 163). Hence, both news and narratives serve the purpose of

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communicating a message to an audience. Both types of texts consist of a certain structure, and therefore discourse, to address their specific readers. Therefore, there may be many similarities between news and narratives regarding their structure, and discourse, which are of interest for this study.

Furthermore, news texts are produced by professional writers, i.e. journalists, which are the “professional story-tellers of our age” (Bell, 1991, p. 147). However, stories have been told throughout the ages, independently of whom they are

written by, and “much of humanity’s most important experience has been embodied in stories” (Bell, 1991, p. 147). Consequently, stories are well-known and widely spread, regardless of the writer being professional or non-professional.

This topic is of matter for this study, as the focus is to explore possible differences in texts of professional and non-professional writers.

1.1 Aim and Scope of the Study

This study aims to investigate and compare professional written travel texts in relation to non-professional written travel texts. The professional written travel texts are published online in well-known magazines, and the non-professional written texts are published in less well-known tourist-related websites. They all treat the same topic: Skiing vacations in the Norwegian ski resort Trysil. Based on the assumption that both the professional and the non-professional written stories belong to the more general genre of personal narratives, the hypothesis for the study is that the professional and non-professional travel texts share the same discourse structures; regardless of they are written by professional or non- professional writers. Through analyses and comparison of the selected texts’

structure, the aim is to answer the following questions:

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- What is the structure of the stories, when applying a model of news schema based on Bell (1991)?

- What are the most frequently occurring events in the professional written texts chosen for the study?

- What are the most frequently occurring events in the non-professional written texts chosen for the study?

2. Theoretical Background

The theoretical background will further explain the areas which are keys to the study. First, a description of discourse, discourse analysis and discourse analyses of media and travel texts follow (2.1, 2.2.1, 2.1.2), and second, an explanation of genre and genre analysis is presented (2.2).

2.1 Discourse and Discourse Analysis

The terms Discourse and Discourse Analysis (DA) are not entirely clear and their definitions may vary depending on in which field they are studied (Schiffrin, Tannen & Hamilton, 2001, p. 1). However, a commonly cited, general definition of discourse is that it regards “anything beyond the sentence” (Schiffrin et al.

2001, p. 1: Yule, 2010. p. 142). Discourse analysis regards both written and

spoken discourse, but as this study will treat written texts only, DA will henceforth be mentioned in the context of written texts.

As discourse goes beyond the sentence and immerses further into a text’s communicative elements, such as semantics and structure, it is important to understand a text’s sociocultural context (Hannam & Knox, 2005, p. 26).

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Discourse shapes, and is shaped by society, through the social behavior of individuals and the interactions of individuals in a specific society (Francesconi, 2014, p. 23). Furthermore, discourse regards both “producer and audience” and

“self and other” (Hallet & Kaplan-Weinger, 2010, p. 5), meaning that discourse is an “interdisciplinary activity” (Matheson, 2005. p.2). Accordingly, specific

groups, cultures and genres may create and share their own particular discourse, as they all share something in common and understand the “cues or clues in the language” (Gee, 1999, p. 86) that are specified for their specific group.

Consequently, various groups may show different structures of texts, and different discourses, as they may have different contexts.

DA entails many different conceptualizations (Baker & Sibonile, 2010, p. 32), such as the study of language use, the study of linguistic structure beyond the sentence, and the study of social practices associated with language (Schiffrin et al., 2001, p. 1). The aims of DA are to describe particular features in a text, which are essential aspects that make a difference for how a text is interpreted by the audience. Even though texts are built of words, words are just bricks that we need for “convey our expectations and experiences” (Robinson & Andersen, 2002, p. 4).

Therefore, in order to create a coherent text, those bricks are just one of several necessary elements that matters in DA. In addition to words, a text’s syntax, semantics and context are also important for understanding discourse.

For this study, the organization and structure of the texts are important.

Consequently, the selected texts will first be investigated separately through a news schema (Bell, 1991, p. 163) in order to clarify their content and structure.

The news schema has the shape of a tree structure, and presents a “broad semantic structure” (Bell, 1991, p. 163) of each story, i.e. a story’s topic(s) and

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organization. The tree structure is seen is Figure 1, which is a simplified version.

The look of the schema will vary, as the different stories may vary in their structure and content.

Figure 1. Model of tree structure for news stories (based on Bell, 1991)

In the semantic structure, each text is divided into different episodes and events which are entailed in the stories, including action(s), actor(s) and the setting of the story. According to Bell (1991), these parts correspond to the guidelines of news stories, namely the five W’s and one H (p. 175) and those of narratives, namely abstract, headline, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda (p. 148). After the division of the stories’ different parts, they will be further divided according to macrorules, which are rules that organize the events and thus reveal and clarify a story’s core (Bell, 1991, p. 162). They are of importance as it is through them that the stories’ actual meaning may be revealed. The macrorules are divided into deletion, generalization, and construction (Bell, 1991, p. 162). The macrorule of deletion regards the removal of information regarding “place, age or time” (Bell, 1991, p. 162) in the story, for example by not mentioning any of these

News Text

Place

Time Setting

g Place Place Action

Event 1

Abstract Attribution Story

Headline Lead

Source Event 2

Event 2 Event 1

Event 1

Actor

Place

Action Actor

Setting

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features more than once in the story. Generalization regards how features are generalized into one and the same category, for example when children are included into the category of family, and skiers are included into the category of tourists. Constructions also collect events under umbrella terms similar to generalization, but typically concern “verbs rather than nouns” (Bell, 1991, p.

162), such as when alpine skiing and cross country skiing are collected under the single term of skiing.

As the texts are analyzed, their contents and structure regarding the elements and guidelines given for news stories and personal narratives is revealed. The episodes, events, actors, setting and their organization are shown in the tables in the results, and how they correspond to the features of news stories and narratives, which are further described in the following sections.

2.1.1 Discourse Analysis of Media Texts

Media texts are stories produced by professional writers, and are “dominating presenters of language in our society at large” (Bell, 1991, p. 1). They may also be

“affected by the situational context they inhabit” (Francesconi, 2014, p. 23), and hence being drawn towards a specific group depending on their topic. While studying media discourse, there are several aspects to choose among, such as television, radio or spoken texts. However, for this study, DA of media texts regards the organization within the chosen texts, and therefore, only written texts are of matter in this case. Furthermore, previous research has covered many other aspects which are not covered in this particular study.

To serve the purpose of reaching a specific target group, a text needs an attractive structure to appeal to its audience. Bell (1991) states that regardless of

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target group or manner of publication, professionally written texts are stories, as

“journalists do not write articles – they write stories” (p. 147). Despite the wide diversity of categories in media discourse, such as ‘hard’ news, with its directly situated happenings, or soft news, which entails feature articles and less acute situations (Bell, 1991, p. 14), an attractive structure is still of importance. A news text should therefore respond to certain guidelines that are useful for professional writers, in order to make a comprehensive structure of a text with the interest of capturing the interest of the reader. These guidelines are called the five W’s and an H of journalism (Bell, 1991, p. 175), and they respond to the questions “who, when, where, what, how and why” (Bell, 1991, p. 175). These questions are the

“short-list” of a news story (Bell, 1991, p. 175), but are also embedded into the various elements of the thematic structure of narratives, as news, being produced by journalists, also are narratives. The aim of news texts, in similarity with narratives, is to “capture the audience’s attention” (Knobloch, Patzig, Mende &

Hastall, 2004, pp. 259-60), which creates a similar purpose of the two categories of texts.

2.1.2 Discourse Analysis of Travel texts

The phenomenon of travel includes many social and cultural aspects, and it is therefore not possible to treat it as one complete “entity of experience” (Robinson

& Andersen, 2002, p. 39). Instead, travel treats a wide diversity of fragmented, scattered and intertwined experiences, including all possible “cultural products and practices” (Robinson & Andersen, 2002, p. 39), which may be seen in this study where the discourse of skiing culture and travel practices are studied.

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Travel texts are similar to news texts as they follow a certain structure for

conveying a message in order to capture an audience’s attention. The elements of narratives are similar to the elements of news stories, but they do not carry the same titles. However, they carry the same meaning and correlate with the same parts of a story as the journalistic guidelines for news stories. Consequently, narrative texts rely on certain elements that are included in the narrative thematic structure, namely abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda (Bell, 1991, p. 148). All these elements are not mandatory, but as they appear, they will appear in the already given order (Bell, 1991, p. 148). The

abstract is an abbreviation of a text’s content, a brief summary that leads the reader into the main text, which is further developed in the orientation. The orientation considers the setting, i.e. time and place of the story. As the story evolves, the complicating action appears and reveals the story’s message further, before the evaluation states the point and value of the story and the coda concludes what the story is about. The coda is a final statement to close the story and bring the reader back to the present.

Travel texts are created with the aim of communicating through stories, and are typically regarded as narratives (Robinson & Andersen, 2002, p. 9), which makes them parts of social and cultural experiences. These social and cultural experiences create a discourse of “identity construction, promotion, recognition and

acceptance” (Hallett & Kaplan-Weinger, 2010, p. 5), meaning that the audience will, through the discourse, accept and approve of the theme and facts in the stories, and then create a sort of identity construction where the audience is put in a relation to the theme of the text. With regard to the narratives communicative

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aim towards different social groups, they may be divided into genres and hence better reach their audience and communicate their message.

2.2 Genre and Genre Analysis

The word ‘genre’ originally stems from French, meaning ‘type’, or ‘sort’, and was meant to distinguish features of different literary texts (Corbett, 2006. p. 26).

Today, genre is used to refer to all sorts of texts and it has been defined as “a categorization of a particular type of text or social practice” (Baker & Sibonile, 2010. p. 53). Moreover, a genre may be further specified into sub-genres, as it may aim towards a specific group within a larger context (Baker & Sibonile, 2010, p. 53). Within texts, certain distinct patterns may be found, which can be further distinguished and categorized into specific genres. For example, genres can be identified through “subject matter, theme, and chaining strategies (Francesconi, 2014, p. 37) and by those means they may meet the expectations of the audience, and thus become regularized and expected (Tardy, 2013, p. 54). Genres may also be important in order to understand discourse, as they “embody a social group’s expectations” regarding “rhetorical strategies, procedural practices, subject-matter or content […] and the unique ways in which these dimensions intersect within a genre” (Tardy, 2013, p. 54). Conclusively, genres depend on a text’s context and audience, closely related to important features of discourse.

Genre analysis (GA) as a subfield may focus on determining lexicogrammatical or discourse features that are significant for a particular genre (Renkema, 2009, p.

83). Drawing upon the “theoretical principles and research methods outlined […]

to explore forms of discourse”, GA aims to give an “insight into the ways in which language reflects and constitutes social practice” (Tardy, 2013, p. 61). Hence, GA

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and discourse may be closely related, as they interact regarding context, social practice and a text’s structure. For this study, the importance of defining genres lies in the differences or similarities between the professional and the non-

professional written texts, as all texts are published online through different media, and “(M)edia includes many genres” (Bell, 1991, p. 13).

3. Material and Method

In this section, the material collected for the study (3.1) and the method used to conduct the study (3.2) are presented.

3.1 Material

The material gathered for this research includes six different articles (see the Appendix) treating the same topic: the Norwegian ski resort Trysil. The first set of three articles is found in the well-known online newspapers and magazines Press

& Journal, The Independent and Snowmagazine. The second set of three articles is

found in online published sources that treat the topic in various ways, and they are presented in the form of reviews of the resort in this case. The first set of articles were written by journalists, here considered professional writers, and the second set of articles were written by non-professional writers, i.e. people who do not have writing as a profession. All articles were published online, between 2010 and 2014, and are comparable as they all belong to the genre of travel texts, and the sub-genre of skiing texts.

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3.2 Method

The selected texts are first read separately and are divided into episodes and events, and later further clarified through a news schema (Bell, 1991, .p 163). The news schema, which has the form of a tree structure (see Figure 1, p. 5) reveals the contents and structure regarding the elements and guidelines given for news stories and personal narratives. Each episode refers to a specific topic in the story, for example the weather, location or accommodation. The events in the episode describe various actions, actors and setting (time and place). For example, an episode may treat the topic of accommodation, and the different events within may speak of the rooms, the beds, the spa area or the restaurants that all are a part of the hotel, i.e. the accommodation, and contain different settings or actors. With this partition of the various elements in the texts, it is visible to see how the different texts and the features of narratives and the journalistic guidelines correlate.

In addition to these features and guidelines, three more elements are added to the analyses, as they may contribute to the stories’ content, and thus, their discourse and structure. These elements are follow-up, commentary and

background (Bell, 1991, p. 170). A follow-up may cover “any action subsequent to the main action of an event”, a commentary may contain a writer’s own

observations on the story, and a background may cover “any events prior to the current action” (Bell, 1991, p. 170). Furthermore, to reveal the content, structure and discourse of each story, the different parts will be analyzed by the previously mentioned macrorules, namely deletion, generalization, and construction (Bell, 1991, p. 162).

Once the results of the analysis of each story have been presented in the next section, there will be a summary of patterns found within the two main categories

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of texts, i.e. the travel texts by professional and by non-professional writers.

Following this, a comparison will be made between the professional and the non- professional texts, in order to find similarities and/or differences.

4. Results

Here, the results of the analyses and comparisons regarding content, structure and discourse are presented. The results from the professional written texts are

presented first, followed by the results from the non-professional written texts. The results are presented in tables based on the tree structure for news stories (Bell, 1991, p. 163), presented in Figure 1 above. Each table is followed by a

commentary on the text’s structure which summarizes the various parts of the content, structure and discourse, including the guidelines for journalism (the five W’s and one H), and the features for personal narratives (abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda).

4.1 Presentation of News Schema in Professional Written Texts

In this section, presentations of the professional written texts are displayed. First, there is a presentation of the different texts’ abstract, including headline, lead and attribution. Thereafter, the proper story is presented, including all main episodes, events and possible commentaries.

4.1.1 The Independent

Table 1. Occurrences of Abstract, Headline, Lead and Attribution

Abstract Headline Lead Attribution

Evaluation Time

Event 2 Source

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Regarding the features of narratives, an abstract should “establish the main point”

in a story (Bell, 1991, p. 149). In this case, this is visible in the headline, which summarizes the main point, as it says “Norway: A triumph of creativity”¹. The story contains all initiating parts for a news story according to Bell, 1991, p. 175).

It contains an evaluation of the state of the story, and referring to an event in story (event 2).

Table 2. The Independent, Content and Structure

1 See Appendix B, p. 43

Episode in the story

Number of event

Event/Action Actor/Actors Setting, time

Setting, place

1 1 Ski holiday

Anticipation Experience Excitement Disappointment Approach to resort

Writer Snow steppe

landscape Geographical setting

2 2 Triumph

Disappointment Snowstorm Positive surprises

Writer Ski Norway

A week’s holiday

3

Commentary

Adventure Reader A week Nature

Norway

4 Miracles with

slopes

Designer Anyone

A week Trysil

5 Skiing Reader Day time Trysil resort

Trysil mountain Slopes

3 6

Commentary

Food expenses Families A week Restaurants

4 7

Commentary

Waterside walk Other activities

Reader Town center

Snowy plains

5 9

Commentary

Reading news Writer Last

morning

Café Norway Heathrow

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As seen in the table, The Independent entails five different episodes and nine different events, as well as commentaries on the events’ content. The

commentaries exist in events 3, 6, 7, 9. In total, the text corresponds to the journalistic guidelines and answer to the questions where, what, when, and who, and thus leaves the questions why and how out of the context. Regarding the features of narratives, the story contains abstract, orientation, complicating action and coda, and lack evaluation and resolution. The commentaries in the text all refer back to the episode or event they are part of, consisting of the writer’s own observations on the occurring event.

When applying the macrorules to the story, it is seen what the core of the story is, as the main topics are clarified and the less relevant context is excluded. In the rule of deletion, there is a deletion of time, as time is not mentioned in all

occurring events. In the rule of generalization, there are different actors all

subduing to the category of ‘anyone’, and regarding the rule of construction, many of the various activities can be collected under the term ‘ski holiday’, such as

‘adventures’, ‘skiing’, other ‘activities’, and ‘approach to resort’, to mention a few.

4.1.2 Press and Journal

The story in Press and Journal contains all initiating parts for a news story

according to bell (1991, p. 75), where the different parts follows one another. This is seen in the headline and event 7, which summarizes the main points: “Surf’s up.

Evaluation Time

Event 7 Source

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In a Norwegian ski resort²”. The attribution speaks of both time and source, and therefore fulfills the task of the abstract, containing brief and appellative

information to the reader.

Table 4. Press and Journal, Content and Structure

2 See Appendix, p. 45

Setting, place

1 Commentary

2 1 Organizing ski

trip

Writer+family Ski Norway

3 2 Travelling

Transfer

Writer Ski Norway

2 h transfer

5 Arrival to hotel

Yelps

Writer’s daughter Writer’s children

Radisson Blu

4 3 Building of resort

Ski holiday Ski pleasure

Ski star Families

Trysil

4 Various feelings

of the resort

Writer Trysil

Landscapes Ski areas

6 Skiing

Comparison of resorts

Pleasure of skiing Learning to ski

Reader Writer Ski Norway Ski school

Opening hours

Trysil The Alps

5 7 Surfing

Relaxing activities

Writer’s daughter Surf pro

Radisson Blu

6 8 Husky sledding

Astronomy tours Art classes

7 9 Après-ski

Party Dancing

Norwegians Scandinavians

Trysil

8 10 Drinking alcohol

Costs/Food/ski rental/ski passes

Reader Norway

The Alps

9 Follow-up

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In Press and Journal, the main story consists of nine episodes and ten events, including a commentary and a follow-up, which are seen initially in episode 1, and finally, in episode 9, respectively. The first episode consists of a commentary only that deals with the preparations for the trip, as it introduces Trysil for a specific group of people, namely those who have been to the Alps, and now wish for something new to experience. Thereafter, the remaining episodes, with an exception for the last one, deal with the main story. Here, the journalistic guidelines of where, when, what, who and why are included, which then also correspond to the narrative features of orientation, complicating action and coda.

The last episode consists of a follow-up, here acting as a coda that brings the reader back to present. Consequently, the story does not contain evaluation and resolution, and do not answer to the questions why and how.

The macrorules reveal the discourse and main topics within the story. There is deletion of both time and place, as they are not presented in events 2, 6 and 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, respectively. Generalization compresses actors such as Norwegians into a category of Scandinavians, and daughter and children into the category of

families. However, there are also actors who could not be compressed, such as writer, reader and Ski Norway. Regarding construction, there were many actions that could co-exist in broader categories. Examples of this regards the umbrella term ski trip, which includes travelling, transfer, ski holiday and ski pleasure.

Furthermore, the term skiing include actions such as pleasure of skiing and learning to ski, and finally, the term après-ski include party, dancing and drinking alcohol.

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4.1.3 Snowmagazine

In Snowmagazine, all parts included in news text’s structure are included in this particular text, except for the lack of source, i.e. who wrote the story and where it was written. The headline consists of a commentary and an evaluation; however, none of these parts reveal any topic or theme of the main story as they rather are the writer’s own opinion upon something regarding the story. The headline simply states “Trysil Ski Resort³” and the lead points out certain qualities of the resort as it mentions whom this resort is suitable for (Good for: Beginners, Intermediates, Families, Off-piste).This brief content does not correspond to the journalistic guidelines, except for the attribution (time), which reveals the time for the story.

As the introductive abstract is of such a short nature, there is also a lack of

information considering the features of narratives, as there is little information for the reader here.

Table 6. Snowmagazine, Content and Structure

3 See Appendix, p. 48

Commentary Time

Evaluation

Number of event

Setting, place

1 1 Snow sure skiing

Snow guarantee Learning

skiing/snowboarding

Writer+family Old people Young people

Norway Closeness to Sweden

Top destination Trysil

Great place

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Regarding the journalistic guidelines and features of narratives, there are certain parts that do not exist in the main body of the story. The story does not give a reason or answers the question why in the story. It rather informs the reader of what happens, where it happens, whom it regard, when it occurs and how.

However, the latter parts answering the questions when and how are vaguely presented, as they the story speaks of the length of the ski trip, but not when it occurs, and it does not completely tell the reader how the story could occur, i.e. the travelling itself (e.g. event ). When applying these data to the features of

narratives, it is found that the abstract correlates with the headline, and the lead, consisting of evaluation and commentary, correlates with orientation as it

introduces the reader to the story. Subsequently, the complicating action consists of episodes 1 and 3, and the brief story as it is, it leaves resolution and coda out.

As the story does not entail a large amount of events, there are also few

occurrences of the results of the macrorules. There is little deletion in this story, as the setting of place is represented in all events, and the presentation of time is represented in two out of three events. In generalization, the only example regards young adults which are gathered with young people to form a new category.

Within construction, the event of hotel activities is embedded in the category of hotel, and snow sure skiing, skiing guarantee and learning to ski are embedded within the term skiing.

2 2 Skiing

Well prepared pists

Skiers 2 h transfer Trysil mountain Skiing areas

3 3 Hotel stay

Hotel activities Après-ski Stylish retreat

Reader Young adults

Weekends A week’s time

Radisson Blu Trysil hotel Bars

Night clubs Scandinavia

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4.2 Presentation of News Schema of Non-Professional Written Texts

In this section, presentations of the non-professional written texts are displayed.

First, there is a presentation of the different texts’ abstract, including headline, lead and attribution. Thereafter, the proper story is presented, including all main

episodes, events and possible commentaries.

4.2.1 Trip Advisor

As seen in the table above, the content of the abstract in the text by Trip Advisor neither consists of a lead following the headline, nor does reveal its source, but only its time in the attribution. With that, the information to the reader in the form of narrative features, abstract and orientation is therefore not complete. When applying this to the journalistic guidelines, this information reveals the questions what and when, and leave the questions why, where, how, and who out of the information. However, as the headline refers to episode 1, there is still some information on the story’s topic for the reader to be captured by.

Abstract Headline Attribution

Episode 1 Time

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Table 8. Trip Advisor, Content and Structure

In the main body of the text, all episodes and events occur directly with their event without commentaries, evaluation or follow-up. What is remarkable is that the text does not mention any setting of time at all, but only in what place the different events occur. However, the text responds to the journalistic guidelines of where, what and by/for whom, by letting the reader be aware of the setting for each event (resort, hotel, spa), what is happening (various activities), and for whom it is.

Simultaneously, this corresponds to the narratives features of abstract, orientation and complicating action. There is a lack of information regarding the narrative features, as the evaluation, resolution and coda are not included. Also, the

questions of how, why and when are also not included, as the story does not reveal anything about the story’s reason, place and how somebody else could be part of the same experience.

There is no deletion regarding time, as the topic is not mentioned at all in the story. On the contrary, the story’s place is well represented in the means of setting Episode

in the story

Event/Action Actor/Actors Setting, time

Setting, place

1 1 Recommendation

of hotel Eating alternatives

Writer+family Park hotel

2 Ski in/out

Skiing Varieties of skiing

Writer Writer’s children Skiing instructors

Ski areas Location of resort

3 Self-containing resort

Varied skiing

Reader Resort

4 Expenses

Enjoying spa

Reader Spa

Pool area

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in this text, and may be deleted into the generalization of resort (and therein include hotel, spa and pool area). As for the generalization regarding actors, children, and writer’s children are collected under the term families. The rule of construction gathers the actions of varied skiing, varieties of skiing and ski in/out under the term skiing.

4.2.2 Snowheads

In the table of the abstract and its included parts, it is visible that the story of Snowheads only contains attribution as a part of the abstract. Its source is revealed

by place and name, but no additional information on where the abstract occurs exists. Instead of a headline or a lead, there is a commentary that acts like

additional information. Yet, without the relation to the story’s episodes or events, it remains a commentary and does not fill any other position. With this little information, this abstract of the text only corresponds to the question who by the journalistic guidelines, and leaves the other questions untouched. Similarly, there is little information regarding the features of narratives, where the text barely correlates with the abstract as a narrative feature.

Attribution Commentary

Source

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Table 10. Snowheads, Content and Structure

The analysis of journalistic guidelines shows that only some of the questions are answered. The reader will know the answers to what, where, when, and who, but are left without answers to the questions how and why. For example, the reader sees that the story takes place in Norway, in Norwegian nature and Trysil, and that most actions regard skiing or family activities. Despite the rich information on what happens at the resort, there is no information on how to get there. Nor is there any information on why the reader should make the same trip as the writer.

Setting, place

1 1 Comparison

Snow conditions Weather

conditions

Writer Reader

Norwegian countryside Miles around Altitude

2 2 Skiing conditions

Weather issues Family trip Accessing ski areas

Writer People in Trysil Reader Writer

Christmas week

Trysil

3 Ski in/out

Stay at hotel Ski availability Ski rental Expenses

Writer Resort

Radisson Blu

3 4 Ski/light

conditions

Writer Opening

hours

4 5 Booking of hotel

Hotel activities Recommendations of stay

Writer Radisson

Blu

5 6 Expenses

Comparison Family holiday Eating out

Reader Writer

Follow- up

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Concurring with the lack of some journalistic guidelines, the story does not entail all narrative features. In the main body of the text, the complicating action occurs within episodes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Thereafter, the story has a follow-up as its last episode, acting like coda as it finishes the story and brings the reader back to the present. The story does not entail any evaluation or resolution to add information to the reader, and stays informative with a lack of certain narrative elements, despite it being a personal narrative.

The macrorules allow several changes of the discourse in this text. Deletion occurs regarding time, which only occurs in events 1, 3, 5 and 6, and regarding place, where altitude, Norwegian countryside and Trysil are all gathered under the term resort. On the contrary, there is no generalization regarding the actors, as they are rather different originally. However, the construction offers more discourse changes; snow conditions, weather issues, ski/light conditions all gathered under weather conditions; booking of hotel, stay at hotel and expenses are all gathered under the term family holiday.

4.2.3 Ski Club

In the initial part of the story in Ski Club, there are an abstract and a headline, including a lead that acts like a commentary. Finally, there is an attribution which informs the reader on both time and source. Consequently, all parts that are necessary for an abstract in a news text are included, which correspond to the Abstract

Headline Attribution

Commentary

Time Source

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abstract of personal narratives, where the abstract and orientation introduces the reader to the story.

Table 12. Ski Club, Content and Structure

The main story consists of episodes 1 and 2 and their events, and the final commentary on episode 2. The journalistic guidelines what and how are well described in all events, with all the various activities on the question what, and the different ways of transportation that answer the question how in the last event. The questions of who, when, and where are occasionally answered. For example, the actor, who, is not mentioned in event 2, and the place, i.e. where, is not mentioned in event 5. Furthermore, the question when is vaguely answered, as it only once Episode

in the story

Setting, place

1 1 Being in Trysil

Skiing

Writer Families Groups

Trysil Ski Areas

2 Skiing

Cross country skiing

2 h transfer Open mountain Tree line area Ski area Trysil

3 Warning of

weather Closing of lift

Reader Opposite side of

the mountain

4 Ski in/out

Skating Self-catering accommodation Shopping

Reader Forest trail

Shopping centre Norway

5 Booking of ski

school

Reader Children

2 6

Commentary

Travel Driving Flying

Reader The UK

Oslo Denmark Sweden

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brings up time, and finally, the question why is not answered at any instance. By applying these data to the features of narratives, it is seen that the text mainly consists of abstract, orientation and complicating action, not including evaluation, resolution or coda.

Regarding the macrorules, there is little deletion on time, as the term is mentioned only in one event, e. g. event 2. However, place gather several events into one; open mountain, tree line area, opposite side of the mountain and forest trail are gathered under the term of ski areas. Furthermore, Trysil is included of the category Norway. For the generalization, children and families are gathered under the term groups, and regarding construction, cross country skiing and ski in/out are gathered under skiing, as well as driving and flying are included in the term travel.

4.3 Comparison of Content, Structure and Discourse

In order to better be able to compare the texts, the results from each story will be juxtaposed, gathered into their two categories: professional and non-professional written texts. After the news schemata and the structuring of every event in each text, they are now compressed by the macrorules by Bell (1991, p. 162) and hence consist of only one, or a few, events in each category of action, actors and setting.

First, the main topics of the professional written travel texts are presented, and then followed by those of the non-professional written travel texts. In the tables 13 and 14, the results of the macrorules are displayed. Table 13 shows the results from the professional written travel texts, and table 14 show the results from the non-professional written travel texts.

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Table 13. The main occurring events in the professional written travel texts

Table 14. The main occurring events in the non-professional written travel texts

Actions Actors Setting

1 Organization skiing trips Writer Nature

2 Other activities Reader Trysil resort

3 Skiing Ski Norway Norway

4 Apres ski Families Hotels

5 Weather Children The Alps

Norwegians

Actions Actors Setting

1 Skiing Writer Hotel

2 Travel/Transport Reader Resort

3 Hotel Activities Families Norwegian nature

4 Apres ski Skiing instructors Ski area

5 Weather People in Trysil

6 Expenses

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The different events have been generalized under the rule of generalization (Bell, 1991, p. 162), meaning that the elements of the events (actions, actors or setting) have been compressed from many similar elements into one, larger, and more general element. All elements are generalized in both types of texts, where the macrorule deletion treats the topic of setting, the macrorule generalization treats the actors and partly the setting, whilst the macrorule construction treats the actions of the story. Generalization do more often regards people or things rather than actions (Bell, 1991, p. 162), whereas actors like ‘children’, and ‘writer’s daughter’ have been gathered under the more general term ‘families’. The setting also contained many various options in both types of the texts, and here places like

‘spa’, ‘pool area’, ‘Trysil Hotel’, Radisson Blu’ have all been gathered under the term ‘hotel’. The actions subdue to another macrorule, namely construction.

Construction more likely occurs to “verbs rather than nouns” (Bell, 1991, p. 162), hence the reason why the actions in the texts are gathered here. Examples of construction in the texts are actions like ‘learning to ski’, ‘skiing’, ‘alpine skiing’,

‘cross country skiing’ and ‘skiing conditions’ which are all gathered under the umbrella term ‘skiing’.

The tables 13 and 14 display both differences and similarities between the two categories of texts. First, what both types of text have in common is the theme of skiing. However, they present the event of skiing slightly differently, as the professional texts mostly talk of skiing within the topic of organizing a ski trip, with all that is included there (e.g. travelling, transfer, ski holiday, ski pleasure and learning to ski/snowboard, anticipation, expectations and excitement), before the main topic of skiing occurs. In a similar manner, the non-professional texts mention skiing too, even though they present skiing as the main topic above all

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others, and not included into any other topic. Regarding the actors of the stories, there are further similarities as both types of texts mention the writer and the reader as the main actors, and include families close thereafter, even though not quite in the same place. The differences between the different texts regarding actors are that the professional written texts include the travel agency as an actor, as well as local people, whilst the non-professional written texts rather entail real people, such as skiing instructors and local people, rather than an organization.

In addition to the results of the content according to the macrorules, the guidelines of journalism and narrative features are also juxtaposed, in order to clarify possible differences or similarities between the two categories of texts. In the following tables (15 and 16), the different guidelines and features are

juxtaposed, displaying to what extent the two categories of texts correlate.

Table 15. Table of occurrences of journalistic guidelines and narrative features in professional written texts

Professional written texts

Correspondence to the journalistic guideline

Correspondence to the features of narratives The Independent Where

What When Who

Abstract Orientation

Complicating action Coda

Press and Journal Where What When Who Why How

Complicating action

Snowmagazine Where What When Who How

Complicating action Evaluation

Coda

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Table 16. Table of occurrences of journalistic guidelines and narrative features in non-professional written texts

Non-professional written texts

Correspondence to the journalistic guideline

Correspondence to the features of narratives Trip Advisor Where

What Who

Snowheads Where

What When Who

Ski club Where

What When Who How

Resolution Coda

As seen in the tables 15 and 16, the professionally written texts did not correspond completely with the journalistic guidelines, as the question of why is missing in all texts, except for the text in Press and Journal. The same question did not occur at all in the non-professional written texts. The question of how was only answered in two of the professional written texts, whilst it does not occur at all in the other group. Regarding the narrative features, all texts in both groups entail the first three features; the abstract, orientation and the complicating action. Evaluation occurs to the same extent in both groups, with only one hit respectively

(Snowmagazine and Ski Club), as does the coda, which occurs twice in both groups (The Independent, Snowmagazine, Trip Advisor and Snowheads).

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5. Conclusion

As stated in the introduction, the aim of the study was to find out to what extent the content, structure and discourse of travel texts written by professional and non- professional writers differ or share the same features. Furthermore, the aim was to find out what the structure is of the chosen stories, when applying a model of news schema based on Bell (1991), and what the most frequent occurring events are in both the professional written and the non-professional written travel texts.

Applying the model from Bell (1991) involving a news schema and themes for news texts and narratives gave interesting results, as the model gave directions of how to explore the content, structure and discourse of news and narratives, which resulted in a clarification of the texts’ cores and actual message.

The study builds its analyses on guidelines already given for professional writers, i.e. journalists, as well as features of narratives stated by Labov and Waletzky in 1967 (Bell, 1991, p. 148). According to the professional guidelines, a story should answer the questions who, when, where, what how and why, and as previously mentioned, those guidelines also correlate with the structure of

narratives, namely abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda (Bell, 1991, p. 175). Despite the fact that both genres of travel texts (professional and non-professional written) can be seen as narratives which share

“social and cultural aspects” (Robinson & Andersen, 2002, p. 39), the hypothesis for the study stating that both professional and non-professional written travel texts share the same discourse structure was not confirmed. This is seen as the texts differ in several ways; there are differences regarding the main topics, the frequency of certain events, lack of certain events, and how they correspond to journalistic guidelines and the features of narratives. To clarify, an excerpt from

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the results (actions, from table 14 and 15) will show some differences regarding the discourse structure that were outlined by macrorules:

- Professional written travel texts

Organizing ski trip, other activities, skiing, après-ski, weather - Non-professional written travel texts

Skiing, travel/transport, hotel activities, weather, expenses

Here, it is visible that the events resemble one another and almost occur in the same order, yet, that is not sufficient to confirm the hypothesis.

The texts chosen for the study originally belong to different genres, i.e. news and narratives, but they are treated as if they belong to one and the same genre in this study, namely the genre of travel texts. If the texts were treated as within their original genre, it is likely that there would be differences between them. However, despite their differences, they still carry some similarities. To exemplify and clarify both differences and similarities, an excerpt from the tables 15 and 16 points out certain events in the structure of the texts:

- Professional written travel texts Where

What When Who Why How

Complicating action

- Non-professional written travel texts Where

What When Who How

Resolution Coda

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Here, there are clear differences to what extent the professional written travel text follow the narrative features (displayed in the right), comparing to how the non- professional written travel text correlate to the journalistic guidelines (displayed in the left). As it is seen, the question why does not occur in the non-professional written texts, whilst evaluation, resolution and coda do not occur in the

professional written texts. However, similarities also exist as it is seen that both genres of texts correspond to the similar questions and narrative features.

To conclude, the professional written texts do not carry the same features as the non-professional written texts, and both genres of texts differed from the

guidelines or features belonging to their own genre. However, being such as small- scale study as this is, more investigation of the topic, and further analyses of both genre and discourse, would be both interesting and necessary in order to draw any further conclusions.

5.1 Limitations and Further Research

The limitations that were done for this study regarded the number of texts, which was chosen due to difficulties in finding a greater extent of suitable texts that corresponded to the limitations of travel texts in English, of the ski resort Trysil.

Furthermore, regarding the limit of words and time for the project, three texts of each genre seemed within reasonable limitations. As this is a small scale study, there may not be any further conclusions to draw out from these results, other than what is done in this very context. The number of texts is too small to make any more general conclusion on how news texts and personal narratives share the same structure on the topic of travel texts. However, this study could function as a springboard for further studies, regarding the division of genres and the discourse

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analysis performed by the tree structure, journalistic guidelines and features of personal narratives.

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References

Baker, P. & Sibonile, E. (2010). Key Terms in Discourse Analysis. London, GBR:

Continuum International Publishing.

Bell, A.. (1991). The Language of News Media. Cornwall: T. J. Press Ltd.

Bell, A., & Garret, P. (1998). Approaches to Media Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Corbett, J. (2006). Genre and Genre Analysis. Glawgow: Elsevier Ltd.

Gee, P.J,. (1999). Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method.

London: Routledge.

Francesconi, S. (2014). Reading Tourism Texts. A Multimodal Analysis. Bristol:

Channel View Publications.

Hallet, R. & Kaplan-Weinger, J. (2010). Tourism and Cultural Change: Official Tourism Websites: A Discourse Analysis Perspective. Clevedon, GBR: Channel

View Publications.

Hannam, K. & Knox, D. (2005), Discourse Analysis in Tourism

Research A Critical Perspective. Tourism Recreation Research. 30(2), 23-30.

DOI:10.1080/02508281.2005.11081470.

Knobloch, S., Patzig, G., Mende, A-M., & Hastall, M. (2004). Affective news.

Communication Research. 31(3), 259 – 287.

Matheson, D. M. (2005). Media Discourses. Berkshire, GBR: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing.

Renkema, J. (2009). Discourse of Course: An Overview of Research in

Discourse Studies. Amsterdam, NLD: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Robinson, M. & Andersen, H-C. (2002). LITERATURE and Tourism: Essays in the Reading and Writing of Tourism. Cornwall: Thomson Learning.

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Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D. & Hamilton, H.E. (2001). The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

Tardy, Chris M. (2013). Genre Analysis. In Paltridge, Brian & Hyland, Ken (Eds).

Bloomsbury Companion to Discourse Analysis. (pp. 54-68). London and NY:

Continuum.

Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language. 4^th Ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Professional articles

http://www.snowmagazine.com/ski-resort-guide/1015-norway/trysil-ski-resort http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/skiing/norway-a-triumph-of-creativity- 2107931.html

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/travel/385838/lifestyle-snow-fun- teetotallers/

Non-professional articles

http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/skiresorts/resortreviews.aspx/Trysil#.Vg2mNPnt mko

http://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/ShowUserReviews-g1006204-d2440155- r152790591-Park_Inn_Trysil_Mountain_Resort-

Trysil_Municipality_Hedmark_Eastern_Norway.html http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=105994

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Appendices

Here, the tree structures and the complete travel texts are displayed. In the first section, A, the tree structures of each text are presented, and in section B, the complete texts follow. For both the tree structures and the complete texts, the professional texts are presented first, followed by the non-professional texts.

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Appendix A

Discourse Structure of News text Professional written text

The Independent Story

Episode 4

Episode 1

Event 7 Abstract

Lead

Attribution Headline

Event 5 Event 2

Event 1

Event 4

Episode 5

Episode 3

Event 6

Episode 2

Event 3 Event 2

Event 8 Evaluation

Action

Miracles with slopes Setting

Saturday 16th October 2010

Actor Norwegians Writer

Action Adventure

Action Reading news

Action Triumph Disappointment Snowstorm Positive surprises

Action Food Expenses

Action Skiing conditions

Actor Reader

Actor Writer Ski Norway Actor

Writer

Setting

Place Time

Norway Easter

Setting

Place Time

Nature A week

Norway Setting Time

A week’s holiday

Setting

Time Place

A week Trysi

Setting

Place Time

Trysil resort Day time Trysil mountain

Slopes Action

Skiing

Actor Writer

Actor Designer Anyone

Setting

Place Time

Restaurants A week Evaluation

Action Ski holiday Anticipation Experience Excitement Disappointment Approach to resort

Setting Place

Snow steppe landscape Geographical setting

Commentary

Event 9 Commentary

Commentary

Action Waterside walk Other activities

Actor Reader

Setting Place Town centre Snowy plains Commentary Setting

Place Time

Café Last morning

Norway Heathrow

Actor Families Source

Simon Calder

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Appendix A

Press and Journal Story

Episode 4

Episode 8

Episode 1

Event 7 Abstract

Lead

Event 5 Event 2

Event 1

Event 4

Episode 7

Episode 5 Episode 3

Event 6 Episode 2

Episode 6

Event 3

Event 10

Event 7

Commentary

Event 9

Event 8 Source

Amanda Hamilton

Action

Organizing Ski trip

Actor Ski Star Families Setting

3 Nov 2014

Action Building of resort Ski Holiday Ski pleasure

Action Arrival to hotel Yelps

Action Husky sledding Astronomy tours Art classes

Action Travelling Transfer

Action Surfing

Relaxing activities

Action Skiing

Comparison of resorts Pleasure of skiing Learning to ski

Actor Writer

Actor Writer’s daughter Writer’s children Actor

Writer Ski Norway Actor

Writer+

family Ski Norway

Setting Place Trysil

Setting Place Radisson Blu Setting

Place Time Aberdeen 2 h transfer Oslo Airport

Forests

Setting

Time Place Openings hours Trysil

The alps

Setting Place Trysil Landscapes Ski areas

Action Après-ski Party Dancing Action Drinking alcohol Costs/food/skir ental/ski passes

Action Various feelings on the resort

Actor

Writer’s daughter Surf pro

Actor Norwegians Scandinavians

Actor Reader Writer Ski Norway Ski School

Actor Reader

Setting Place Norway The alps Episode 9

Follow up

Setting Place Radisson Blu

Setting Place Trysil

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Appendix A

Snowmagazine Story

Episode 1

Abstract

Lead

Event 2 Event 1

Episode 3

Episode 2

Event 3 Commentary

Evaluation

Action Snow sure skiing Snow guarantee

Learning skiing/snowboarding

Actor Reader Young adults Setting

1st Jan. 2014

Action Hotel stay and acitivities Après-ski Stylish retreat

Action Skiing

Well prepared pistes

Actor Skiers Actor

Old people Young people

Setting

Place Time Radisson Blu Weekends Trysil hotel A week’s time

Bars Night clubs Scandinavia Setting

Place Norway

Closeness to Sweden Top Destination Trysil Great place

Setting Place Trysil mountain Skiing areas

Professional and Non-Professional Written Travel Texts – Do They Have Common Features?: A Comparative Investigation on Travel Texts on Trysil, Norway

Degree Project

BA Thesis