Culler’s Views on Travel and Cultural Stereotypes Education Essay (Essay Sample)

Culler’s Views on Travel and Cultural Stereotypes
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Culler (1981) observes that tourists are interested in everything as a sign of itself. Semioticians, the tourists, travel all over the world in search of signs of a typical foreigner behaviour. He insinuates that the tourist is looking for certain preset characteristics in places they visit that denote the people’s culture. For them, these behaviours they have previously seen or read about is a sign of that people’s culture (p.106).
He further observes that even though tourism is barely being used as the subject of research by cultural critics, a theoretical semiotic approach can be very informative in explaining a people’s contemporary culture. As a result, Culler deliberates the semiotic code, the differences between the natural or authentic; and the touristy or inauthentic; traveller and tourist. He also tries to explain the relationship between the site and marker, and the touristic attraction and how all this is related to international capitalism.
By the end of it, I will find out if travel journalism tends to confirm or challenge cultural stereotypes. To achieve this, I will explore Culler’s views and relevant theories to find out the relation between travel and cultural stereotypes.