Rhetorical Structure of Ghanaian Tourist Destination E-Brochures

Abstract

Currently, Ghana‘s economy seems to be relying on income generated from the tourism industry to support national growth. However, interest in tourism appears unattractive as compared to developed countries. It is in the light of this that this research focused on conducting an investigation into one of the main means of persuading potential tourists. This research, therefore, used purposive sampling to select 20 Ghanaian tourist destination e-brochures from the website of the Ghana Tourism Authority. The texts were analyzed using the English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Swales' (1990) genre analysis approach. The purpose was to explore the rhetorical structure of the tourist destination brochures. The results showed that the Ghanaian tourist destination e-brochure could be constructed with seven different communicative functions which constitute its Moves (Identifying Tourist destination, Providing Background Information, Detailing Tourist Destination, Providing Service Information, Soliciting Response, Providing Extra Information, and Urging Action). However, their frequency of occurrence showed that only three of the Moves (Identifying Tourist Destination, Providing Background Information, Providing Service Information) occurred in all the texts. The first four Moves constituted the commonest sequencing pattern of the texts. In terms of length of the texts or textual space given to the Moves, the second Move occupied the largest space of the tourist e-brochures studied. This research has implications for the Ghana tourism industry in improving the rhetorical structure of its brochures and also academic research.