iintersezionitersections

Sabrina Francesconi

HERITAGE DISCOURSE IN DIGITAL TRAVEL VIDEO DIARIES

20Intersezioni/Intersections

Collana di anglistica

Sabrina Francesconi, Heritage Discourse in Digital Travel Video DiariesCopyright © 2018 Tangram Edizioni ScientificheGruppo Editoriale Tangram SrlVia Verdi, 9/A – 38122 Trentowww.edizioni‑tangram.it – info@edizioni‑tangram.it

Intersezioni/Intersections – Collana di anglistica – NIC 20

Prima edizione: aprile 2018, Printed in EU

ISBN 978‑88‑6458‑180‑4

DirezioneOriana Palusci

Comitato scientificoSilvia Antosa, Università degli Studi di Enna KoreMaria Teresa Chialant, Università degli Studi di SalernoRossella Ciocca, Università di Napoli L’OrientaleLidia Curti, Università di Napoli L’OrientaleLaura Di Michele, Università degli Studi dell’AquilaBruna Di Sabato, Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa, NapoliPaola Faini, Università degli Studi Roma TreMirko Casagranda, Università della CalabriaVita Fortunati, Università degli Studi di BolognaAlba Graziano, Università della Tuscia, ViterboGerhard Leitner Faha (Hon.), Freie Universität, BerlinCarlo Pagetti, Università degli Studi di MilanoBiancamaria Rizzardi, Università degli Studi di Pisa

Il regolamento e la programmazione editoriale sono pubblicatisul sito dell’editore: www.edizioni‑tangram.it/intersections

Immagine di copertina di Paolo Chistè

Stampa su carta ecologica proveniente da zone in silvicoltura, totalmente priva di cloro.Non contiene sbiancanti ottici, è acid free con riserva alcalina.

CONTENTS

Introduction 11

Volume Aim 11

Result dissemination 12

Volume outline 16

Chapter 1: Heritage Texts 19

1. Heritage 19

2. Text 20

3. Heritage texts: variety and variation 233.1. The printed medium 243.2. Digital media 243.3. Users 263.4. Genres 263.5. Language specialisation 283.6. Semiotic resources 29

4. Heritage text analysis 37

Chapter 2: Multimodal genre analysis 45

1. Heritage travel and tourism discourse 45

2. YouTube as a platform for heritage travel text sharing 502.1. Research on the YouTube environment 51

3. Research design 54

4. Research tools 55

5. Research procedure 57

6. Modes and modal resources within modes 596.1. Represented participants 606.2. Contact 616.3. Size of frame 626.4. Perspective 626.5. Camera movement 636.6. Modality 646.7. Sound 656.8. Intersemiosis 67

Chapter 3: Context, contest and texts 69

1. The context: the Basilicata region 69

2. The Can’t Forget Italy contest 76

3. The digital travel video diaries 80

Chapter 4: Multimodally expressed interdiscursivity 89

1. Represented participants 89

2. Human participants 92

3. Size of frame 95

4. Angle 98

5. Sound 100

6. Intersemiotically and interdiscursively shaped Basilicata 103

Chapter 5: Appraisal and Netspeak in YouTube comments 107

1. Research design 108

2. Popularity and appraisal 111

3. Netspeak in the comments 1173.1. Typeface 1183.2. Spelling 1183.3. Punctuation 1193.4. Vocabulary 1193.5. Syntax 120

4. YouTubers’ comments and Netspeak 121

Conclusion 125

Glossary 129

Bibliography 131

Index of names 143

HERITAGE DISCOURSE IN DIGITAL TRAVEL VIDEO DIARIES

9

Lists of figures and illustrations1

1 Screenshots from the digital travel video diaries are made available in copyleft.

2.2. Figure: ELAN screenshot 56

3.1. Table: List of the digital travel video diaries (data retrieved from Can’t Forget Italy YouTube Channel, accessed March 5th 2015). 78

3.2. Graph: Multimodality in the digital travel video diaries 79

3.3. Screenshot: Luca Acito, Vintage diary 81

3.4. Screenshot: Antonio Passavanti, Memories 82

3.5. Screenshot: Mark Hofmeyr, Life is Beautiful 85

3.6. Screenshot: Caspar Dietrick, Red Drops of Life 86

4.1. Screenshot: Human Participants. Timmy Henny, Mini Matera 90

4.2. Screenshot: Cultural participants. Erika Kobren, Erica in Basilicata 91

4.3. Screenshot: Natural Participants. Erika Kobren, Erica in Basilicata 91

4.4. Graph: Represented participants in the four videos 92

4.5. Screenshot: Locals as Human Participants. Timmy Henny, Mini Matera 93

4.6. Screenshot: Visitors as Human Participants. Matthew Brown, Dreaming in Italy 94

4.7. Screenshot: Expatriates as human participants. Haleigh Walsworth, Basilicata through the Eyes of Women 95

4.8. Screenshot: The long shot. Timmy Henny, Mini Matera 96

4.9. Screenshot: The close‑up. Matthew Brown, Dreaming in Italy 96

4.10. Screenshot: The medium shot. Matthew Brown, Dreaming in Italy 97

4.11. Graph: Size of frame in the four videos 97

10

Lists of figures and illustrations

4.12. Screenshot: The high angle. Timmy Henny, Mini Matera 98

4.13. Screenshot: The low angle. Erika Kobren, Erica in Basilicata 99

4.14. Screenshot: The eye angle. Erika Kobren, Erica in Basilicata 100

4.15. Graph: Perspective in the four videos 100

5.1. Table: Popularity of the corpus of videos 111

5.2. Graph: Comment distribution in the corpus of videos 112

5.3. Table: Positive and negative appraisal in the corpus of comments 113

5.4. Table: Appraisal in the corpus of comments 116

11

Introduction

Volume AimSharing a discussion of the results of a four‑year‑long project, this volume is devoted to the analysis of multimodal and partic‑ipatory meaning‑making, in a corpus of 18 digital travel video diaries uploaded, over the years 2011‑2013, on the YouTube plat‑form. Directed by young and international web‑artists, video in‑stances variously narrate the Basilicata region in Southern It‑aly and participated in a competition launched by the regional tourism board. Focusing on 2.0 digital environments, this work first examines visual‑verbal intersemiosis as performing inno‑vative generic configurations in travel‑tourist literature. It seeks to explore how multimodal genre hybridity affects semiotic pro‑cesses of heritage site image formation. Then, it questions how text comments posted by YouTube participants co‑construct the meaning‑making process, prompted within the Can’t forget Italy competition. Ultimately, it addresses how regional heritage (nat‑ural, cultural, human) is (re)conceptualized, (re)configured and (re)negotiated in such an open and participatory communication situation, through digital technology.

The reasons for considering these online audio‑visual instances are multifold: first, the new, creative, hybrid and promising text genre of the digital travel video diary, which has raised consider‑able attention among Internet users, though there has been no critical investigation so far; second, the unusual involvement and participation of diverse tourism and travel agents, ranging from stakeholders to travellers, in the co‑construction of heritage trav‑el narratives; third, the interesting contact zone in‑between her‑itage and travel, enabling a challenging paradigm to be config‑ured, where mobility and culture constantly challenge their mu‑tual definitions; finally, the focus on the traditionally marginal‑

12

Result dissemination

ized, off‑the‑beaten‑track Basilicata destination, which is indeed developing alternative forms of tourism and being recognized as worth‑visiting.

This volume seeks to answer the following questions. How is heritage conceptualised and configured in the analysed texts? How does the mobile travel and tourist gaze frame natural and cultural heritage? What material supports, modes, modal re‑sources are adopted to encode and communicate heritage values, messages and stories? How does the moving image, and the au‑dio‑visual semiotic system more broadly, shape Basilicata? What target do the video diaries address and how does intended au‑dience affect communication? How do comments posted by You‑Tubers co‑construct the meaning‑making process prompted within the contest?

Result disseminationPrevious to the synthesis offered in the present volume, prelim‑inary results of this research were presented at conferences and published in some articles, both in Italy and abroad. A first pa‑per on “Generic Hybridity in Tourism‑travel Texts” was deliv‑ered at the seminar English for Specific Purposes and Tourism Discourse, organised by the University of Pisa on 28 November, 2014. This was followed by a talk on “Multimodal Genre Hybrid‑ity in Digital Travel Videos”, given at University College London on 20 April, 2015. A third paper was delivered on “Digital Trav‑el Videos as Ways of Visiting Basilicata: a Multimodal Genre Analysis” during the conference Ways of Seeing, Ways of Being: Representing the Voices of Tourism at the University of Berga‑mo on 23‑25 June, 2016. Last, the lectures on “Meaning‑mak‑ing in Digital Travel Videos” were given for the Master’s in Lin‑guaggi del turismo e comunicazione interculturale at the Uni‑versità di Roma Tre on 13‑14 March, 2017 and on February 20, 2018. Seminar and conference participants provided insightful and stimulating feedback, in the form of questions, comments and suggestions.

13

Introduction

With regard to publications, a preliminary small and quite spe‑cific pilot study (RomaTre Press 2015) focused on the hybrid ge‑neric configuration of the Dreaming in Italy digital travel dia‑ry (taken as a sample, since it was the winner of the first edi‑tion). Adopting methodological tools from Bhatia’s genre anal‑ysis (2004, 2010), the digital travel video diary was regarded as a new genre emerging from a process termed ‘interdiscursivity’ which derives from a contact between pre‑existing forms, from the mutual appropriation and exchange of generic resources in‑between genre colonies. Positioned in‑between aesthetic and promotional texts, in‑between travel writing and tourism dis‑course, the case study was identified as an aesthetic travel video (produced by a director), embedded within a promotional tourist video (launched by the regional tourism board).

The pilot article was followed by a second work (Peter Lang 2017), “Digital Travel Videos as Ways of Visiting Basilicata: a Multimodal Genre Analysis”, devoted to the analysis of multi‑modal meaning‑making, and specifically, to the multimodal‑ly enacted generic hybridity in the Basilicata diaries. Conducted with the support of the ELAN software for multimodal video an‑notation, the fine‑grained examination identified a) the adopt‑ed modes and their modal resources and, then, observed b) their interaction modes and forms. Owing to space constraints, only two sample videos (Dreaming in Italy, by Matthew Brown and Basilicata through the Eyes of Women, by Haleigh Halsworth) were inspected and a selection of data was considered, referring to visual, verbal and intersemiotic patterns. Visual analysis ad‑dressed shot content and size of frame (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, 2006); aural analysis concentrated on speech (van Leeuw‑en 1999), whereas intersemiotic analysis considered visual‑ver‑bal logico‑semantic relations. Ultimately, interdiscursivity in the video diaries proved to be multimodally enacted, which motivat‑ed the adoption of multimodal genre analysis for the whole re‑search project.

A third work, entitled “Audience Comments on Digital Travel Videos” (IGS 2017), examined meaning‑making enacted by text comments posted on the 18 Basilicata diaries by YouTubers, by addressing issues of popularity, response and appraisal (Mar‑

14

Result dissemination

tin and White 2005). Retrieved through the YouTube Comment Scraper software, comments were observed in terms of number, language, topic, appraisal, and linguistic features (Androuts‑sopoulos 2013, Androutsopoulos and Tereick 2016). Inspection revealed that, overall, instances show positive appraisal and are more focused on the videos, than on the depicted region, and their style epitomizes spontaneous and uncontrolled user‑to‑us‑er communication within the digital participatory environment (Crystal 2006). More than for their content, comments seem to offer a relevant contribution to destination image formation, es‑pecially through their presence and form. In contrast to formu‑laic and vertical tourism communication texts, they connote the Basilicata destination as open and welcoming, as spontaneous and authentic.

More broadly, this volume is the synthesis of fifteen years of academic research and teaching in the field of tourism and trav‑el language, texts, and discourses. Some of the results of this ex‑perience have been disseminated nationally and internationally by means of papers, essays and articles, as well as by three mon‑ographic volumes: Reading Tourism Texts: A Multimodal Anal‑ysis (Channel View 2014), Generic Integrity and Innovation in Tourism Texts in English (Tangram Edizioni Scientifiche 2012), English for Tourism Promotion: Italy in British Tourism Texts (Hoepli 2007), and a co‑edited volume, with Palusci, Translating Tourism: Linguistic/Cultural Representations (Università deg‑li Studi di Trento Press 2006). In all the works, a range of tour‑ist text genres, such as, brochures, leaflets, videos, online diaries, guides, postcards and souvenirs have been examined, in so far as they frame and communicate a tourist site as sight. The main re‑search concern has been the inspection of innovative and crea‑tive multimodal domain‑specific texts, whose semiotic configu‑rations transcend traditional boundaries between tourism and travel domains, and question stable and rigid conceptual and ge‑neric distinctions. Specifically, multifarious and multifaceted in‑stances have been observed as deploying an (anti)tourism dis‑course for tourist purposes.

What has been particularly improved throughout the years is, on the one hand, an approach to tourism texts as expressing spe‑

15

Introduction

cific genres and, on the other hand, a methodological approach suitable for such instances. In order to explore modes and forms of meaning‑making in static, dynamic and hypertexts expressing such blurred and opaque contact zone, theories and tools from critical genre analysis (Bhatia 2004), multimodal analysis (Kress 2010, Jewitt 2013) and systemic‑functional linguistics (Eggins 2011, Halliday 2004, Thompson 2004) have been integrated. The methodological framework for the present study was devel‑oped and presented during a research period as Visiting Academ‑ic at London Knowledge Lab of University College London dur‑ing the spring of 2015, and then published as an article entitled “Dynamic Intersemiosis as a Humor‑enacting Trigger in a Tour‑ist Video”, which appeared in the international journal Visual Communication (Winter 2017).

The whole framework relies on the three Hallidayan metafunc‑tions or lines or strands of meaning (1978, 2004), which embrace the main, general purposes language is used for. The first is the ideational metafunction, which sees the clause as representa‑tion, and is concerned with representing the world, the content of the narrative, and the abstract structure of the reality, through which that content is interpreted. The second is the interperson‑al metafunction, enacting interpersonal relations among par‑ticipants, establishing social relations and perceiving the clause as exchange. The third is the textual metafunction, concerned with the construction of the text, in terms of organisation, cohe‑sion and coherence, and conceiving the clause as message. The metafunctional framework has been translated from the verbal into the multimodal meaning‑making system.

Hence, the present volume explores interdiscursive practic‑es of contact, tension, hybridisation in‑between tourism/trav‑el discourse and heritages discourse, whereby generic process‑es of embedding and bending emerge. It specifically observes how interdiscursive processes are multimodally expressed, that is, how they make meaning via the interaction of a variety of modes and modal resources. At the text‑external level, it ac‑knowledges the interplay of institutional and informal levels of communications, with official regional boards co‑operating with artistic stances. Ultimately, it foregrounds the endless reconcep‑

16

Volume outline

tualisation of heritage, through the development of new heritage texts, as well as through the privileged mobile lens of the trav‑el experience.

Volume outlineFollowing an introduction on the aim and structure of the vol‑ume, as well as the preliminary dissemination of research results, the first chapter considers a wide range of superdiverse heritage texts and how they change and shape our understanding of her‑itage. It addresses the breaking down of traditional textual forms and formats; the change of language used with loosening of its of‑ficial status and vertical directionality; the shift in language used to communicate heritage to increasing and diversifying tourist audiences; the textual and linguistic variety that reflects chang‑ing generational, professional, political, social, multicultural en‑gagement. The first chapter ends with a panoramic overview of heritage text analysis.

The second chapter discusses travel and tourism discourse for the description of the Basilicata diaries. Subsequently, it ex‑plores issues related to the communication, dissemination, and popularization of heritage travel and tourism texts, and address‑es YouTube as a site for video sharing, commenting, assessing, embedding and blending. Ultimately, it considers a multimodal framework of inspection, in order to examine modes and modal resources (represented participants, contact, size of frame, per‑spective, camera movement, modality, sound) co‑occurring and interacting for meaning‑making purposes in multimodal texts, discourses and phenomena.

The third chapter first presents the Basilicata region, followed by the Can’t forget Italy contest, and then the travel videos which have been produced by young web‑artists for participation in the pilot stage of the project. Of an average 4‑minute length, the videos were presented in the competition, launched by Basilicata Destination Marketing Organization. Hence, they variously de‑scribe, narrate and show this Southern Italian region and, more

17

Introduction

specifically, the selected 2019 European Culture Capital of Mat‑era. In the last part of this chapter, the diaries are organised into four main groups, by identifying some distinct traits.

The fourth and fifth chapters conduct an analysis and discus‑sion of the digital travel video diaries, in their multimodal com‑position and meaning‑making potential (Chapter 4), as well as in the text comments posted by YouTubers (Chapter 5). These two complementary chapters aim to offer methodological indi‑cations on how to analyse similar online multimodal and mul‑timedia participatory situations. Chapter 4 unpacks visual‑ver‑bal intersemiosis as performing innovative generic configu‑rations in heritage travel‑tourist literature. In order to examine this discursive horizon, it conducts: 1) a micro‑analysis on shot content, size of frame, angle, speech, logico‑semantic relations, based on shot‑by‑shot observation, followed by 2) a macro‑anal‑ysis addressing heritage tourism text genres, within the context of tourism and travel discourse. Ultimately, it seeks to explore how multimodal genre hybridity affects semiotic processes of heritage site image formation. By addressing issues of populari‑ty, response and appraisal, Chapter 5 examines meaning‑making performed by text comments posted by YouTubers. This chapter aims to check what the comments actually deal with, and if they make use of a distinct verbal code. Retrieved through the You‑Tube Comment Scraper software, the comments are inspected in terms of number, language, topic, appraisal and linguistic fea‑tures.

In the last part of the volume, concluding remarks address how heritage (natural, cultural, human) is (re)conceptualized and (re)configured in such superdiverse, open and participatory commu‑nication situations, through digital technology and multimodal‑ly‑expressed interdiscursivity. This is visible at various levels. First, an inclusive definition of heritage is offered, in the choice of a traditionally marginalised area. Second, a mobile and dynam‑ic gaze is privileged, which questions and subverts borders be‑tween places, disciplines, discourses and genres. Third, a multi‑plicity of modes and modal resources are acknowledged, in their meaning‑making potential. Fourth, a plurality of comments and polylogue are addressed in feedback analysis.

19

Chapter 1: Heritage Texts

Applying the superdiversity paradigm (Vertovec 2007: 3) to her‑itage textuality, the present chapter considers a wide range of heritage texts and how they change and shape our understand‑ing of heritage. It addresses the breaking down of traditional tex‑tual forms and formats; the change of language used with loos‑ening of its official status and vertical directionality; the shift in language used to communicate heritage to increasing and diver‑sifying tourist audiences; the textual and linguistic variety that reflects changing generational, professional, political, social and multicultural engagement. First, it discusses the complex and unstable notions of heritage and text. It then outlines variety and variation within heritage discourse, in order to showcase in‑ter‑linkages between superdiversity, heritage and language, and by considering diverse media, modes, genres, users and degrees of language specialisation. The first chapter ends with a pano‑ramic overview of heritage text analysis.

1. HeritageSome terminology, namely ‘heritage’ and ‘text’, needs prelim‑inary clarification, in light of the superdiversity paradigm con‑ceptualised by Vertovec. As a matter of fact, Vertovec’s claim of the diversification of diversity (2007) implies “multi‑scaled and polycentric systems of meaning” (Blommaert 2013: xi), unpre‑dictable uncertainties and fluctuations in semiotic practices, “lay‑ered simultaneity” (Ibid.) of superdiverse heritage texts. It, thus, invites questioning given and fixed definitions. Overall, the no‑tion of heritage refers to objects (paintings, artefacts, buildings),

20

Text

places (islands, towns, mountain chains) and practices (languag‑es, music, ceremonies) that have some significance in the pres‑ent, which relate to the past (Harrison 2010). Consistently with the ‘complex’ and ‘open’ approach of superdiversity (Arnaut et al. 2016), heritage may, indeed, be cultural, as in the case of the seven Megalithic Temples of the Islands of Malta and Gozo, or natural, as in the case of the mountain range of the Dolomites, in the Northern Italian Alps. It may also be expressed by intan‑gible forms (Smith and Akagawa 2009), as in the case of Ebru, a Turkish art of marbling, and as the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage shows (http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/lists). Officially considered her‑itage items are included on the UNESCO World Heritage List and, therefore, considered ‘different’ from other sites, i.e., they are ac‑knowledged as distinct and unique. What motivates such ‘differ‑ence’ is a variety of historic, architectural and aesthetic values, but also spiritual and emotional ones, depending on heritage site type, as well as socio‑cultural and historical factors, like the case of the Sicilian puppet theatre performed on the Italian island.

An exclusive and hegemonic definition of heritage, based on se‑lected and accredited material assets, is, however, progressive‑ly being questioned, in favour of a more inclusive, fluid and su‑perdiverse one, which deals with people’s attachments, identities or sense of belonging (Smith 2006). Unofficial forms of heritage are usually experienced at a local, popular and community lev‑el, through the relationship between people, objects, places and memories and as instantiated, e.g., in ethnic dances, ceremonies, songs, or handicraft items. Such profound reconceptualisation car‑ries multiple and significant implications for heritage textuality, in terms of polycentricity, mobility, instability and unpredictability. In this vein, the following section discusses the meanings of ‘text’.

2. TextA highly debated notion, that of text has been differently defined over time, in diverse disciplines, as well as from different ap‑

21

Heritage Texts

proaches and perspectives. The word ‘text’ itself, deriving from the past form of the Latin texere, meaning to weave, originally designed something woven. The text is, thus, a textile, is “capable of being woven” and has the property of texture, has “the qual‑ity of woven cloth” (Carter 2005: 142). Far from being smooth and finished, the texture of a superdiverse heritage text constant‑ly and unpredictably weaves and reweaves a plurality of threads, materials, and patterns.

Systemic functional approaches (Halliday 1978, Halliday and Hasan 1985) address, define and investigate authentic texts ac‑cordingly, as “actual instances of language that have been used (or are being used) by speakers or writers” (Bloor and Bloor 2004: 5). This conceptualisation foregrounds the genuine nature and the actual use of texts, expressed as “any stretch of language, regardless of length, that is spoken or written for the purposes of communication by real people in actual circumstances” (Ibid.).

Consistent with the extended and superdiverse gaze upon the notion of heritage, a more inclusive and mobile definition of her‑itage text should go beyond verbal instances and include more complex semiotic forms, such as, websites (Stoian 2013), films (Vidal 2012), handicraft items (Varutti 2015), postcards (Horn‑stein 2011), exhibitions (Ravelli 2006) and libraries (Ravelli and McMurtrie 2016), among others. In this vein, a text is to be un‑derstood as a multimodal system of communication, which fulfils specific functions, and makes sense within a specialised heritage discourse, that is, within a range of socio‑cultural practices real‑ising meaning (Fairclough 2014, Jaworski and Coupland 2014).

The notions of heritage and of text are indeed inextricably in‑tertwined, basically in a threefold way; first, heritage may ma‑terialise in text instances; second, texts may be remediated into other texts; third, heritage objects, places and performances are represented by the means of texts.

As for the first sense, heritage materialises in text instances: Shakespeare’s First Folio, held and displayed at the British Li‑brary in London (www.bl.uk), is a text of cultural heritage in it‑self. Collated and published in 1623, seven years after the play‑wright’s death, it is universally considered a prestigious book item. Featuring 36 plays, an engraved portrait of the author on

22

Text

the title page, and an introduction by Ben Johnson, this authen‑tic, unique and irreplaceable text is valuable in itself and is, ac‑cordingly, preserved and displayed. Reference to preservation leads onto the second meaning.

In order to allow consultation without damaging fragile ancient documents, heritage items are digitalised and their entire con‑tent is made available, access being still relatively restricted, gen‑erally within the scientific community. While making content ac‑cessible, digitalisation, nevertheless, prevents the appreciation of the original printed form, of its related aesthetic, historic, scien‑tific or symbolic value. This second sense, thus, refers to heritage undergoing a process of text “remediation” (Bolter and Grusin 2000), whereby content is preserved, albeit rendered in a differ‑ent form. Systematically carried out by libraries and archives, re‑mediation processes are advocated and supported by the 1992 UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, devoted to the pres‑ervation of documentary heritage (Prodan 2013).

As for the third sense, heritage texts are defined as represent‑ing heritage in a broader and more plural way, if compared with the previous definition. By means of various material supports, semiotic resources, modes and forms of communication, herit‑age texts indeed ‘re‑present’ heritage objects, places and prac‑tices. Seen from this viewpoint and drawing on the etymologi‑cal root, heritage texts make heritage ‘present’ again because – and only because – the heritage object, place or practice is absent (meaning lost, passed or distant). Accordingly, Shakespeare’s First Folio may be displayed on a leaflet illustrating the British library treasures, in a literature schoolbook, or, again, on a TV programme on British theatre; all these three texts may be en‑joyed by different and layered social groups and audiences, with diverse interests and backgrounds, in variously privileged so‑cio‑cultural contexts. Indeed, they mark the Folio, shape an im‑age, enable that image to extensively circulate and achieve vis‑ibility, accessibility, and fruition. It is mainly through heritage texts, widely‑circulating across multiple and unpredictable ‘tex‑tual trajectories’ (Blommaert and Rampton 2016: 32), that her‑itage objects, places and practices are recognised and consumed worldwide, and over the centuries.

23

Heritage Texts

That said, the study of heritage texts as intended in the first meaning implies specialised competence proper to scholars in the specific heritage discipline, whereas addressing remediation requires skills in technology, ITC, and digital communication. This work is mainly concerned with the third meaning, name‑ly with issues of textual representation, circulation and fruition. By adopting a more fluid perspective, it seeks to observe an ev‑er‑expanding range of heritage texts that accompany heritage and help us to understand it.

Plural and mobile, heritage texts in this third sense are socially ubiquitous and show global range and impact. They pervade our everyday life: when we read the newspaper or hear the news on the radio, when we watch a film or check our unsolicited email. Exploiting the communication potential of technology, audio, visual, audio‑visual heritage narratives populate a global horizon and experience a global circulation and consumption. For this reason, superdiverse heritage texts have the ideological poten‑tial to influence and orient perceptions, ideas, values attached to polycentric heritage assets and, subsequently, social, cultural and political actions (Fairclough 1995, 2014). Participating in a circu‑lar process where issues of hegemony and legitimacy are at stake, superdiverse heritage texts may variously depict their (tangible or intangible) object as dangerous, appealing, worth visiting (if they are to be experienced on a yourney). As a consequence, they may generate admiration, resistance, conflicts, fund‑raising, or tourism arrivals, depending on the audience status, profiles, in‑terests and motivations (Kirshenblatt‑Gimblett 1998).

3. Heritage texts: variety and variationBy taking into account notions of variety and variation, this sec‑tion discusses superdiverse heritage textuality in terms of varia‑tion over time, polycentricity and multidirectionality, as well as technological advances. The complex, layered and fluid dimen‑sion of heritage texts is also related to discourse, genre, medium and language.

24

Heritage texts: variety and variation

3.1. The printed mediumFrom a socio‑semiotic perspective, heritage text configuration patterns are deeply rooted in the socio‑cultural and historical age in which they are produced and availed, and of which they provide valid insights. Over the course of time, forms such as travel books, travel guides, printed brochures, audio and video wands, apps have variously accompanied, informed, instruct‑ed, and guided socially privileged visitors in their appreciation of heritage monuments, sites and places. In his 1625 essay Of Travel, Francis Bacon recommended the practice of reading to the rich sons of the British aristocracy during the Grand Tour: a travel book was meant to offer a key to the understanding of the visited place and of the local heritage it narrated and described. Two centuries later, the birth of the modern guidebook – almost at the same time, in the 1830s, in Germany with Baedecker and in the UK with Murray – signalled the tight bond between trav‑el and literature, and devoted accurate, detailed description to must‑see heritage sites (Leed 1991). Not only were cities, mon‑uments or squares described through the system of writing, but also visually captured. It is not surprising that Grand Tourists themselves kept drawing sketches of visited places and monu‑ments, in order to fix their visual memories, and that the first pic‑ture postcard appeared in 1889 during the Paris exhibition, an event of global range and impact, whose aim was to celebrate the French capital by crystallising its view (Urry 2002). Albeit total‑ly different in terms of purpose, style and content, all the men‑tioned text genres share the printed medium as a common de‑nominator.

3.2. Digital mediaContemporary heritage discourse is, undoubtedly, affected by the different generations of digital media and by their revolu‑tionary impact on the perception, representation and concep‑tualisation of heritage site, place and practice, as well as upon discussion on heritage (Bath 2006). As anticipated, printed doc‑uments, such as, official heritage texts, heritage guides and cat‑