The Cultural Side of Venice: Institutional Promotion to Mainstream Tourists and Museum Buffs

The Chapter analyses the English version of Venezia Unica and Musei Civici di Venezia, two institutional websites promoting Venice to mainstream tourists and museum buffs, respectively. The study carries out a linguistic and a visual analysis of the web pages, exploring how language and images contribute to the effectiveness of the communicative techniques used to attract prospective visitors. In Venezia Unica the use of general terms contrasts with an overall redundant style, while the use of images and their relation with the surrounding text meets the requirements of the website’s informative function. Conversely, the language in Musei Civici di Venezia is in line with the website’s descriptive function, characterised by the combination of general and technical terms, manageable by its target public. The descriptive function is reinforced by the extensive use of images which, however, sometimes do not relate very well to the text.