“WHAT YOUR HEAD!”: SIGNS OF HOSPITALITY IN THE TOURISM LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPES OF RURAL JAPAN

Abstract

This article explores signs of hospitality in the tourism linguistic landscape (LL) of the Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage Trail in Wakayama, Japan. We argue that the multilingualization of visible tourism public signage in this rural region raises important philosophical questions of hospitality. With the help of Jacque Derrida to navigate this terrain, we examine how rural communities communicate and negotiate hospitality in a rapidly internationalizing rural tourism destination. Combining photographic data, participant observation, and open-ended interviews, we offer a close reading of the tourism LL at three gathering points along the Nakahechi route: Shingu City station, Kumano Hongu Taisha, and the small village of Chikatsuyu. The article is structured as follows. We begin by defining LL studies and draw attention to the current research in tourism settings. Next, an overview of Derrida’s contribution to the philosophy of hospitality is presented, which acts as a guide for reading the trail’s tourism LL. The discussion then revolves around three main themes: the host as hostage to hospitality; the reproduction of the conditional hospitality through tourism LL; and the work of hospitality understood as an ethic of negotiating the threshold of the unconditional and conditional, the impossible and the unavoidable. Bringing together a philosophy of hospitality with tourism LL research, the article adds new theoretical perspectives to the study of LL. It also deepens our understandings of the relationship between hospitality, tourism, and linguistic landscapes.