TOUR GUIDING CONVERSATIONS: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THEM?

This research presents conversations between guides and tourists during guiding tours. The data were taken from a larger research on tasks in tour guiding, collected from observations of several tours. The conversations were discussed in terms of how the guide and the tourist developed the topics of the conversations. This paper also analyses problems in the conversations using the framework from Varonis and Gass (1985). They suggest that problems in communication can be identified by looking at the ‘trigger’ and the ‘indicator’ of problems in conversations. The analysis of the conversations indicated that the guide and the tourist in their conversations were actively engaged in the topic. They gave opinions, contributed to the conversations, and provided information to the topic. The analysis also indicated that there were four types of indicators of communication problems: (1) explicit questions, (2) clarification requests, (3) confirmation checks, and (4) rephrasing