Irish Music and Dance in Tourism Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study of Irishisms.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15811075

Abstract

This article investigates the role of culturally marked realia – namely Irishisms related to the semantic field of traditional music and dance – in shaping Irish national identity within tourism discourse. Traditional Irish music and dance are central not only to Ireland’s cultural heritage but also to the linguistic strategies used to promote authenticity, heritage, and communal values to global audiences.

To explore this, we formulated two research questions: How are music- and dance-related Irishisms distributed and contextualized in corpus data? Do their representations reinforce or challenge the notion of authenticity? Among key objectives were examining frequency and collocational patterns in corpus-based data, exploring their pragmatic use in tourism discourse, and finding potential hidden meanings through deconstructive analysis.

Using GloWbE (Global Web-based English) corpus, the study analysed lexemes such as “céilí”, “session”, “craic”, “bodhrán”, “uilleann pipes”, “clarsach”, “reel”, and “jig”. A complementary qualitative analysis of 50 tourism texts related to music and dance – travel articles, forum threads, events descriptions, and branding materials – was conducted. Discourse analysis uncovered both explicit messaging and underlying identity constructs. A deconstructive lens revealed contradictions in the portrayal of Irish music as ‘ancient’ and ‘authentic’. 

Findings show that Irishisms play a crucial role in marketing and transmitting cultural identity, especially through contexts like festivals and pub culture. The idea that tourism discourse merely reflects heritage is challenged: narratives of marketing campaigns commodify cultural symbols and reshape tradition. For instance – traditional Irish music: much of what is presented as “ancient” actually developed after the Great Famine in the late 19th century.