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Risk and Safety on Cruise Ships: Communicative Strategies for COVID-19

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Language as a Social Determinant of Health

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting ((PTTI))

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Abstract

The cross-cultural study presented in this chapter explores the websites of five different cruise lines (MSC, Costa Crociere, Royal Caribbean, NCL and Celebrity Cruises) to understand how health and safety discourse is rendered in this sector of the tourism industry. The economic crisis triggered by the pandemic has had a cascading impact on the tourism industry. Specifically, cruises can be overcrowded spaces, heightening the risk of spreading viruses. Drawing on investigations of the language of tourism and cruises, the chapter examines how cruise lines’ websites talk about risk, safety, and prevention. Through discourse analysis, the chapter compares examples of both written texts and non-verbal content (images, videos, colours) and scrutinizes cross-cultural elements and the role of images in localizing the message across the different languages.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See WHO’s information, ‘COVID-19 and mandatory vaccination: Ethical considerations and caveats’. Retrieved on May 8, 2021, from https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-2019-nCoV-Policy-brief-Mandatory-vaccination-2021.1

  2. 2.

    See ‘Cruise ship accounts for more than half of virus cases outside of China.’ The Guardian. 20 February 2020. Retrieved on May 28, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/20/coronavirus-live-updates-diamond-princess-cruise-ship-japan-deaths-latest-news-china-infections

  3. 3.

    For a complete report see Cruise Industry News 2020 Annual Report 33rd edition, at: https://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/store/product/annual-reports/2020-cruise-industry-news-annual-report/ last visited July 31, 2021.

  4. 4.

    Geographers have been using the term ‘touristification’ since the end of the twentieth century to describe a complex process in which through tourist activity various stakeholders interact, thus transforming a territory. However, over the years, this concept has become popular also in other disciplines thus acquiring a more negative connotation implying massification of a destination or gentrification and tourism-phobia (Ojeda & Kieffer, 2020). We are using the term ‘touristification’ in its broader sense and hence with a negative connotation.

  5. 5.

    Landing page, retrieved on May 29, 2021, from https://www.msccrociere.it/misure-di-salute-e-sicurezza

  6. 6.

    Landing page, retrieved on May 29, 2021, from https://www.msccruises.co.uk/cruise-with-confidence

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy

    Linda Rossato

  2. Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy

    Jessica Jane Nocella

Authors
  1. Linda Rossato
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  2. Jessica Jane Nocella
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Linda Rossato .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Translation Studies, University College London, London, UK

    Federico Marco Federici

Additional information

This chapter was prepared jointly by the two authors. However, Linda Rossato is mainly responsible for sections ‘Tourism Industry and Translation: An Overview’, ‘Tourism Communication and Cruise Tourism Promotion’, “Anti-Cruise Ship Movements, ‘Over-tourism’, and Safety Issues”, ‘Websites in the Pandemic’, while Jessica Jane Nocella is mainly responsible for sections ‘Tools and Methods’, ‘A Corpus-Assisted Analysis of Safety and Sicurezza’, ‘Distancing’, ‘Distancing and Bubbles’, ‘Primacy’, ‘Peace of Mind’.

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Rossato, L., Nocella, J.J. (2022). Risk and Safety on Cruise Ships: Communicative Strategies for COVID-19. In: Federici, F.M. (eds) Language as a Social Determinant of Health. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87817-7_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-87817-7_9

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-87816-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-87817-7

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