Tourism and natural imaginary in Sicily: an ecolinguistic perspective

Abstract In the modern period, tourism is one of the most important global industries. It often appears to guarantee contact with nature, claims to protect habitats and respect principles of ecological sustainability. This paper explores Sicilian tourism and its representation in publicitary material from an ecolinguistic perspective. It asks what kind of imaginary of nature in modern Sicily can be viewed through such shots of the natural world, how these imaginaries might reflect current ecosophy, and how compatible they might be with ecological principles. It applies the heuristic notion of ‘imaginary’, current in social sciences such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology, to the context of ecolinguistic enquiry, asks how our ideas of a place and its ecosystems may be socially or culturally determined, and how these factors play into a mindset which may, or may not, be ecologically sensitive. The findings suggest that tourism photographs tend to present place images that conform to strict generic criteria, responding to public expectations and pragmatic, commercial requirements. They neither present reliable images of Sicily, nor contribute to the propagation of a specific sense of place, but rather conform to a generic pattern that tends to homogenize tourist destinations at a global level.