Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Discourse Analysis
Utilizing discourse analysis provides a much more effective means of determining the relations,
effects, and perspectives of participants and host communities than linguistic analysis of single words.
Discourse analysis relies on the actions, values, and language of the subjects--integrating thoughts and
experiences with verbal language. Discourse analysis draws connections between the speaker’s attitudes,
thoughts, feelings, and words, as described by Hample.
In analyzing phrases used by travel industries, Santos (2006) theorized that travel writing attempts
to fulfill a reader’s need for a distinct otherness. This draw to the otherness is based on human desire for the
mysterious and exotic, which the tourism industry capitalizes off of. The otherness is also founded in the
hypothesis that humans naturally posses a drive to conquer or dominate new frontiers, a label which
developed citizens may subconsciously apply to the developed world. The otherness draws in travelers,
who inject their culture into the “other,” and thus dilute the otherness: tourism often injects foreign culture
into host communities--usually meaning the cultural ideals of the developed world are introduced and begin
to penetrate local communities.
Contact Hypothesis
Allport’s Contact Hypothesis is often referenced in cross-cultural studies. It began as a hypothesis
that the continuation of racism in the US was due to white ignorance about blacks, predicting that
interaction between blacks and whites would decrease that ignorance and reduce racism. Today’s
interpretation of the Contact Hypothesis has expanded to apply to any cross-cultural interaction, relying on
the prediction that as interaction between two groups increases, prejudice decreases. Allport based his
theory on the idea that prejudice was based on antipathy and ignorance: it is a perspective socially ingrained
in individuals and based on false preconceptions, not an active, malicious belief. Thus contact between two
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