‘Different’ and ‘distinct’ as markers of otherness: A corpus-driven study of the (re)creation of privilege in high standard hotels

Abstract

The present study seeks to offer an understanding of how high-end hotel websites produce privilege, creating a sense of belonging and entitlement for their 4/5-star guests. The experience of tourism is intrinsically linked to embracing otherness, and as a reflection of this, hotel websites offer a characterization of cultural otherness in an attempt to make it resonate with the potential expectations of a socioeconomically privileged client. The study considers the question of what elements of experience of otherness the website will address, relying on a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective and drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus as related to lifestyle, difference and distinction. Specifically, the words different and distinct are addressed in this study as markers of otherness and privilege. Based on Fairclough’s sociocultural approach, and specifically on Halliday’s transitivity system, the use of these words in clause construction patterns yields an understanding of how specific representations of reality revolving around the idea of otherness are built up. The research is corpus-driven and qualitative, its conclusions also offering some insight as to how hotel websites recreate forms of in-group similarity