Constructions Of Cities In German And Chinese Travel Guides

This Master-thesis presents a cross-culture comparative analysis in the context of Intercultural German Studies, by examining differences in the construction of the image of Berlin between a German travel guide and a Chinese one. The author of this thesis believes that travel guides from different publishers provide the readers with different impressions of Berlin. When delivering the impression of a city the publishers are conveying certain culture images simultaneously. Hence, the different presentations of Berlin lead to different cultural representations. According to the cross-cultural theory, "culture" represents not only the things created by human beings, but a system of symbols. Therefore, travel guides, as systems of written symbols, are particularly suitable for culture research.The scientific study of the construction of a city’s image in guidebooks is something new in both the Western and the Eastern research area. In Germany, although travel guides have been objects of research from various disciplines for more than 30 years, with numerous city/state image studies already accomplished, the city image construction, as a dynamic process, remains unfamiliar. In China, the limited research works on travel guides focus mostly on translation studies. In this respect, the present work is an addition to travel guides research both in Germany and in China.From the cross-cultural perspective, cultures are not balls which are isolated from each other. Contrarily there are intense interactions between the cultures. The representations of the city in the two travel guides make a cultural overlap-situation, in which plenty of differences can be discovered. The existence of these differences is also a testament to the interculturality between the German and Chinese guidebooks, because it simultaneously promotes a change of perspective of the Chinese and German readers:This enables an insight into their own and the other culture and thus a better understanding of each other. The cross-cultural research considers also, that the comparing method cannot only be used in result-comparing, but also in progress-comparing. Consequently, the construction of Berlin in guidebooks includes both the outcome image of Berlin, which is called "construct", and the constructing process of this image. The differences in these two aspects arise furthermore on other grounds. Accordingly, the present study addresses the following question:To what extent and why the construction of the image of Berlin differs in German and Chinese travel guides? This question can be divided into three sub-questions in turn:A. What are the differences? B. How do these differences arise? C. Why are there such differences at all?For the first sub-question the analysis is performed in two steps:Berlin construct in general and in specific terms. In the general analysis the role of Berlin’s history, identity of Berlin and structure of Berlin in the two guidebooks will be discussed. On the structure of Berlin, Kevin Lynch’s theory about the image of the city will be contemplated. The results of the general analysis show us, that Berlin in the Chinese guide is the Berlin before the reunion in 1990. It is an industrial metropolitan, whose structure is not readable. In contrast, Berlin in the German guide has a clear city structure. Also it is a new kind of big city, because its famous for its creative industries. But at the same time it has many migration problems. In the specific viewing the places of interest in the travel guides and the language style of description form the objects of the research. While the Chinese guide attaches great importance to the story, the description of attractions plays in the German guide a major role. In addition, the Chinese guide uses an anecdotal language, while the German guidebook remains plain. For the second sub-question the constructing processes of Berlin in the two guidebooks are analyzed from the structural, thematic and linguistic perspective. For the third sub-question two possible reasons of the differences between the two guidebooks are listed. One reason is the cultural characteristic of the text style-the travel guide. The other reason concerns the diversity between German and Chinese culture.The present work is a practical realization of the cross-cultural theory. But not like the other cross-cultural research works, which emphasize the cultural otherness between the research objects, this work stresses the construction of the city and is therefore a good example for future research of this kind.