„Da pendelt sich die Sprache automatisch so ein“: Sprachliche Identität, Akkommodation und Management von innerer und äußerer Mehrsprachigkeit bei Tiroler Privatvermietern
Authors: Dannerer Monika , Franz Marianne , Ortner Heike 
Published: September 2017

Tourism is one of the most important sectors of the Tyrolean economy, one based on intensive contact between tourists and hosts. In the SPIRIT Tirol research project (Sprachen und Varietäten in Regionen mit intensivem Tourismus am Beispiel Tirols) [Languages and varieties in regions with intensive tourism using the example of Tyrol], we deal with situations involving language contact in tourism. By analysing interviews with individuals from different age groups, both service providers and hosts renting different types of accommodation in different Tyrolean locations, we try to identify the linguistic strategies and attitudes toward language that these tourism professionals adopt. In this article, we concentrate on one group: hosts who rent private accommodations. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the rental market for private accommodations expanded enormously, bringing with it an intrusion of tourists into private living space that quickly exerted a noticeable influence on the personal language use of tourism professionals. While interaction with renters requires multilingual competence, varieties of German are especially important: by far the largest percentage of tourists are from Germany.

Our research questions concern the handling of the following situation: How do hosts who rent private accommodations deal with the complex relationships between standard and regional varieties of German? How do they manage lexical differences? Which parameters influence the way hosts accommodate (or not) to their guests? How do hosts appraise their multilingual competence? Have there been considerable changes over the course of three generations?

First, we establish a theoretical framework by discussing tourism as an object of linguistic research, the general conditions of tourism in Tyrol, the context and the design of the study presented in this article, and the sociolinguistic situation with respect to multilingualism and the many varieties of German, an aspect in which accommodation theory plays a prominent role.

The answers to our research questions are grouped into three thematic blocks: 1) clarity and mutual understanding as the central goal of communication with tourists, 2) the management of identities, and 3) the establishment of proximity and distance by language. Our results show a professional, but nonetheless natural handling of situations of language contact, a high awareness of regional varieties, and a hands-on approach to multiple languages. Several strategies for managing lexical differences are employed, such as explanation, paraphrasing, and a borrowing of lexical variants from tourists that not only facilitate understanding but also mark linguistic identity. One’s linguistic identity is not protected by joking about tourists and out-grouping them. Attitudes towards local dialects and their self-defining function are strongly positive. However, the awareness that language is a marketing tool coupled with a desire to protect one’s linguistic identity have become more important for the middle and younger generations.