Semantic Semantic Roles of Adjectives in English Online Tourism Promotional Media: Constructing Destination Tourism Images of Ayutthaya Historical Sites
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Abstract
Adjectives, when examined in terms of their semantic roles, serve as strategic linguistic resources in tourism promotional discourse for constructing and reinforcing destination images. This study investigates the semantic roles of adjectives in English online tourism promotional texts related to the historical city of Ayutthaya, Thailand. The study adopts an integrated theoretical framework drawing on Cowan (2008), Larsen-Freeman and Celce-Murcia (2016), and Systemic Functional Linguistics proposed by Halliday and Matthiessen (2013). The data consist of six English-language tourism promotional articles published between 2023 and 2024 and collected from five official tourism websites. A total of 148 adjective tokens were identified, manually coded, and classified into four semantic roles: stative/dynamic properties, restrictive/nonrestrictive functions, positive–negative polarity, and gradability. The findings reveal that adjectives in tourism promotional discourse perform functions beyond simple description. They are systematically employed to construct destination images of Ayutthaya through representations of timelessness, sacredness, and cultural value. High-frequency adjectives such as large and old frequently occur in comparative and superlative forms and contribute significantly to positioning Ayutthaya as a historical destination within the competitive global tourism market. This study addresses a research gap in tourism linguistics within a Southeast Asian heritage context and proposes a refined conceptualization of adjectives as strategic linguistic resources in destination image construction.
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