Identifying Opportunities for the Development of Persian Language Tourism with an Interactional Socialinguistics Approach

Language tourism at the international level is one of the growing and attractive fields that can create opportunities for the growth and development of local communities. Investigating and identifying opportunities for the development of Persian language tourism can help the development of this field. Therefore, the aim of the current research was to identify the opportunities for the development of Persian language tourism with an interactional socialinguistics approach. The current research method is qualitative and exploratory, and in terms of its purpose, it is considered as a part of applied research. The participants in this research included experts and experienced people in the field of language tourism, professors of tourism and linguistics, tour guides, and the purposeful sampling method was used in the research. In order to collect information, in-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants and theoretical saturation was achieved with 27 interviews. To analyze the data, the data analysis method was used using MXQDA software. The research results show that the development opportunities of Persian language tourism consist of six main categories, which include local-regional opportunities, national-social opportunities, international development opportunities, environmental opportunities, economic opportunities, and growth and development opportunities. Finally, according to the results, it is necessary to formulate appropriate plans to use the opportunities.


1. Introduction

Iran, with its rich history and culture and suitable land size, is always known as one of the cradles of civilization in the world. The linguistic and literary heritage of this country has been very fruitful, and its literature, poets and scientists have always had world fame. Language tourism is one of the types of tourism that has received less attention in Iran.



2. Literature Review

In this part of the research, the researches that have been done in the field of tourism and focused on the opportunities and benefits of tourism have been investigated. (Rostampour and Etzadifar 2014) believe that Iran's capacities and relative advantages are very high for Arab tourists, especially ShiitesThe review goes under these subheadings.



3. Research Question(s)

The main research question of this study can be formulated as follows:

What are the opportunities for the development of Persian language tourism with the approach of interactional sociolinguistics?



4. Methodology

The current research is applied research in terms of its purpose, and qualitative research in terms of analytical and exploratory type. In this research, content analysis method was used for data analysis. The community of participants included experts and experienced people in the field of language tourism, professors in the field of tourism and linguistics, and tour guides. The number of participants in this research was 27 people who were selected by purposeful sampling and their opinions were recorded through face-to-face and offline interviews (online and offline). These interviews continued until the theoretical saturation stage. It took between 25 and 50 minutes to conduct them, and the average duration of the interviews was 30 minutes. After taking the interviews, the raw data were studied and reread in several steps, and the raw data was first coded. After that, the search was started to extract the possible main and sub-categories of tourism development, and the codes that were more related to each other were placed under one category. After several stages of revision, the classification and naming of the main and subcategories was ensured .



5. Results

Language tourism is one of the new and growing areas in the world, which can affect other tourism areas and be greatly affected by it. In this research, the opportunities for the development of Persian language tourism are carried out with the approach of interactive sociolinguistics. This approach is important for application in language tourism. Interactional sociolinguistics in language teaching emphasizes a kind of intercultural communication to understand the language of the audience. Gumpers (1982) defined the methodological approach of interactional sociolinguistics as generally focused on face-to-face interactions where there are significant differences in the socio-linguistic background of the research participants, and social interactions through analysis. The analysis of linguistic, anthropological and sociological perspectives that are intertwined examines the construction of a linguistic sign that has a qualitative and interpretative approach. The first main category was called local-regional opportunities, which included two subcategories of promoting cultures and introducing different dialects of Iran. The second main category was called national-social opportunities, which included five sub-categories of strengthening and interdependence of society, historical, religious, artistic and literary richness of Iran.

The third main category was called international development opportunities, which included two subcategories of producing attractive content and appropriate interactions with other countries. The fourth main category was called environmental opportunities, which included two subcategories of suitable geographical situation and various natural attractions. The fifth main category was called economic opportunities, which included two subcategories of economic improvement and affordability. The sixth main category was called growth and development opportunities, which includes three subcategories of proper Persian language education, training of qualified Persian language teachers, and comprehensive development of the tourism industry.