Objective or subjective adjectives? A case study on UNESCO Global Geopark tourism texts

Abstract

This study depicts the usage of the adjectives in the UNESCO Global Geoparks (UGGp) tourism texts from English-speaking and non-English speaking countries. The aim of this paper is to find out if subjective adjectives are the main component of UGGp tourism texts as related to previous arguments. The texts analyzed in this research were collected from UGGp website. The tourism texts are nine texts from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the UK) as English-speaking countries and ten texts from Indonesia as a non-English speaking country. All the texts are published on UGGp’s official website. The research method implemented is a mixed method, both qualitative and quantitative methods. Based on the result, both the UK and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts dominantly applied objective adjectives in comparison with subjective adjectives. The research findings are slightly different from the argument that subjective adjectives are commonly used in tourism discourse. Based on the conclusion, it can be inferred that objective adjectives are commonly used in UGGp texts, particularly in tourism texts. According to the researchers, the findings have the potential to aid writers of tourism texts in choosing adjectives.

Keywords:

• Linguistics
• objective adjectives
• subjective adjectives
• tourism texts
• UNESCO global geoparks

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• Jeroen van de Weijer, Shenzhen University, Prof. of Linguistics, College of International Studies, Nanhai Ave 3688, China

SUBJECTS:

• Introductory Linguistics; Applied Linguistics; Linguistic Theory

1. Introduction

Tourism plays an important role in both developed and developing countries. Tourism has become a global industry that has a significant impact on the country (Sujatna et al., 2019). Many countries try to develop and maintain their tourist sites, including geoparks since the geopark’s resource is valued for sustainable tourism (Özgeriş & Karahan, 2021). Geopark is defined as a protected area including a number of geological heritage sites (Patzak & Eder, 1998). Geopark is believed to be a new tourism destination consisting of many geological sites (Farsani et al., 2014). The three main components of local sustainable geopark development that should be promoted are geotourism, geoconservation, and education (Ferreira & Valdati, 2023).

UNESCO Global Geoparks (in this paper is called as UGGp) are geoparks certified by UNESCO Global Geoparks Council. Now, there are 195 UGGp that have been certified by the council found in 48 countries throughout the world. Among the 48 countries with UGGps, the UK and Indonesia are particularly noteworthy. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the UK) has nine UGGp tourism texts since they have nine UGGp while Indonesia has ten UGGp tourism texts for their ten UGGp which are selected as the data. They were chosen as the source of the data since the UK represent the English-speaking countries while Indonesia, which uses Bahasa Indonesia as the official language, represents the non-English speaking country.

It is believed that tourism is one of the country’s revenue sources; it is a need to promote the tourism sites to potential tourists. To improve the number of tourists to visit the tourist sites, sharing the information through tourism texts is imperative. Tourism has a strong relationship with language as a tool of communication (Sujatna et al., 2021). Sharing information in tourism texts involves adjectives to describe the destination, the visitor’s feelings, and the experience of the adventure.

The choice and use of adjectives vary with the areas and types of discourse. It was reported that some researchers did their research on the contribution of positive adjectives to promote tourism (Durán-Muñoz, 2019; Pierini, 2009). They also argued that the adjectives could be categorized into at least two common classifications, they are objective and subjective adjectives. Following Durán-Muñoz (2019) and Pierini (2009), the two terminologies will be applied further in this study. It was also claimed that promotional texts commonly applied subjective rather than objective adjectives. This study is carried out to identify the objective or subjective adjectives commonly used in tourism texts of the English-speaking countries (the UK) and non-English speaking country (Indonesia).

2. Theoretical framework

Tourism could be defined as a discourse. As a tourism discourse, the adjectives are applied to describe the tourism objects in the texts. Through their tourism texts, the writers try to persuade the readers to get interested in visiting their tourism sites. Relating to the tourism discourse, it is in line with Cappelli (2006) who mentioned that tourism discourse is a type of discourse in its own right (Cappelli, 2006). Nigro (2006) and Dann (1996) also argue that tourism discourse usually uses metaphors, similes, and comparison to avoid unfamiliarity (Dann, 1996; Nigro, 2006).

Concerning the tourism related to branding and naming, many researchers did their research on the geopark activation through geobranding and geotrails (Jeon et al., 2022); geopark and language (Sujatna et al., 2022), tourism sites naming in Ciletuh geopark (Sujatna et al., 2021), and Natuna tourism application design to learn a foreign language (Ying et al., 2019); geopark and education (Valencia-Arias et al., 2023).

In connection with tourism texts, an adjective displays an important role. In English, adjectives are identified as the third largest open word class after nouns and verbs (Durán-Muñoz, 2019). As one of the elements of the parts of speech, an adjective also has an important function in clauses. Adjectives classify events or entities, describe the qualities, express an opinion, a judgement or an emotional attitude related to the entity, or condense evaluation in a single lexeme (Pierini, 2009). In addition, Istianah and Suhandano (2022) argued that besides adverbs, verbs, and modalities, adjectives are the elements of the evaluation. Adjectives could also be applied in describing negative or positive feelings (Sujatna & Kuswoyo, 2023).

The usage of adjectives is also interesting to discuss; some scholars have published their papers, such as adjectives in Wordnet (Gross & Miller, 1990), adjectives in tourism discourse (Pierini, 2009), the use of adjectives in television advertisement (Abd Rahim, 2013), adjectives and their keyness in tourism discourse (Durán-Muñoz, 2019), adjectives in health advertorials (Sujatna & Yuliawati, 2019), adjectives in tourism websites (Al-Issawi, 2020), and adjectives in destination promotion texts (Thu, 2021). In this paper, the researchers aim to determine the type of the adjectives applied in tourism texts, especially on UGGp tourism texts.

Many scholars have discussed adjectives, such as the functions of adjectives in English as predication and attribution (Bolinger, 1967), the semantic orientation of adjectives (Hatzivassiloglou & McKeown, 1997), the significance of boundedness in adjectives (Paradis, 2001), prenominal adjectives in English (Vandelanotte, 2002), associative adjectives in adjective-noun construction (Giegerich, 2005), negated adjectives and their meaning (Fraenkel & Schul, 2008), and evaluative adjectives as image-formers/providers (Marzá, 2013).

Adjectives are defined as one of the major parts of speech after nouns and verbs. Adjectives, based on the relation of the head and modifier, could be categorized into ascriptive and non-ascriptive (Gross & Miller, 1990). Some scholars classified adjectives into dynamic e.g. careless, cruel and stative, e.g. tall, circular (Snell-Horby, 1990). Hunston and Thompson (2000) argued that adjectives as an evaluative are complicated phenomena since it depends on the writer’s attitude. Earlier, Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1980) classified adjectives into subjective and objective (Durán-Muñoz, 2019; Marzá, 2017; Soler, 2002). The subjective or evaluative adjective functions to evaluate and reflect a subjective stance while the objective or descriptive adjective functions to deliver factual and referential content. The objective and subjective classifications are applied in the data in this research. The subjective classification refers to adjectives that relate subjective stance (emotional or evaluative) while the objective classification associate to a factual and referential content. The Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s classification (1980), which was adopted by some scholars, is described in Table 1.

Table 1. Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s classification (1980) in Marzá (2017).

Objective	Subjective
	Emotional	Evaluative
		Non-axiological	Axiological
Single/married Male/female	happy pathetic heartbreaking	abundant hot large	correct nice good

Table 1 describes adjective division into two major groups: objective and subjective adjectives. The subjective adjective is categorized into two sub-categorizations, namely emotional and evaluative adjectives. Technical, scientific, and legal domains are dominated by descriptive adjectives while advertisement, literature and tourism primarily use evaluative adjectives. In addition, evaluative adjectives could be used as an evaluation to persuade potential visitors and to indicate the object quality by the writer of the promotional texts (Durán-Muñoz, 2019).

It could be summarized that the subjective adjectives describe or modify the nouns that relate to the personal feelings, opinions or the speakers/writers’ judgement. The objective adjectives are words to modify or describe the inherent or observable characteristic of the nouns and do not express the speakers/writers’ personal opinions or judgement. These typical adjectives are applied to describe specific, concrete details about the nouns being described.

Those classification, the subjective and objective adjectives are applied in this research to figure out the adjectives found in UGGp texts as tourism texts of the English-speaking countries (the UK) and non-English speaking country (Indonesia). The aim of this paper is to find out if subjective adjectives are the main component of UGG tourism texts as related to previous arguments. Based on the results, the researchers may obtain a different finding than in earlier studies. The researchers wish this paper could also enrich the readers’ information of the tourism text specifically and the linguistic context commonly.

3. Research method

This research applied a mixed method. The qualitative and the quantitative methods were applied to gain a reliable description of the data. The qualitative was employed to deal with a natural setting (Cresswell, 2007), and the quantitative was utilized to involve establishing a database, open coding, focus coding, organizing the emergent theme, and presenting the finding (Merriam, 2009).

The first step was establishing a database. The data taken from UNESCO official website https://www.unesco.org/en/iggp/geoparks#full-list-of-unesco-global-geoparks were organized as a database. The first selected data were nine the UK UGGp tourism texts and ten Indonesia UGGp tourism texts, as described in Table 2.

Table 2. The UK and Indonesia UGGp.

No	Name of the UK UGGp	Name of Indonesia UGGp
1	Black Country UNESCO Global Geopark	Batur UNESCO Global Geopark
2	Cuilcagh Lakelands UNESCO Global Geopark	Belitong UNESCO Global Geopark
3	English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark	Ciletuh-Palabuhanratu UNESCO Global Geopark
4	Fforest Fawr UNESCO Global Geopark	Gunung Sewu UNESCO Global Geopark
5	GeomÔn UNESCO Global Geopark	Ijen UNESCO Global Geopark
6	Mourne Gullion Strangford UNESCO Global Geopark	Maros Pangkep UNESCO Global Geopark
7	North Pennines AONB UNESCO Global Geopark	Megrangin Jambi UNESCO Global Geopark
8	Nort-West Highlands UNESCO Global Geopark	Raja Ampat UNESCO Global Geopark
9	Shetland UNESCO Global Geopark.	Rinjani - Lombok UNESCO Global Geopark
10		Toba Caldera UNESCO Global

From the 19 UGGp tourism texts as the data obtained, then the texts were collected and converted into .txt format. The data obtained is generated through AntConc 3.5.8 for Macintosh OS X (Anthony, 2019).

The second step was open coding. After the corpus generation by the software, the corpus was identified and categorized into adjectives as the part of speech. Then, the data were coded as adjectives by the researchers. The third step was focus-coding. The data in both the UK UGGp tourism texts and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts identified as adjectives were separated then classified into sub-classifications. The fourth step was organizing the emergent types. The sub-classifications of adjectives were categorized into objective and subjective. The fifth step was presenting the findings. The analyzed data were presented and a conclusion was drawn.

4. Results

4.1. Frequency

This part discusses the results and discussion of the research. It was reported that the number of tokens from nine texts of the UK is 5200 tokens with 1466 word types while ten texts from Indonesia is 5197 tokens with 1499 word types as described in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Tokens, word types, and text average of UGGp in the UK and Indonesia tourism texts.

Figure 1 shows that the UK UGGp tourism texts have more tokens than Indonesia UGGp tourism texts although the UK number of texts is lesser (nine texts) than Indonesia (ten texts). It could be seen from the average of the UK tokens of 577.8 while the average for Indonesia is 519.7 tokens; in other words, the UK UGGp tourism texts are longer than Indonesian UGGp tourism texts. Figure 2 describes the total number and the types of adjectives in the UK and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

Figure 2. Adjectives in the UK and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

Figure 2 illustrates the usage of adjectives in the UK UGGp tourism texts which is much more than Indonesian UGGp tourism texts. There were 626 adjectives found in the UK UGGp tourism texts or it was about 12% of 5200 tokens. The number of 240 represents the number of adjectives types in the UK UGGp tourism texts. It was depicted that 571 adjectives were in the ten Indonesia UGGp tourism texts, or it was 11% of 5,197 tokens. The number of 225 represents the number of adjectives types identified in the Indonesia UGGp tourism texts. The following is the list of adjectives in UK UGGp tourism texts (Table 3) and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts (Tables 4 and 5).

Table 3. List of adjectives in the UK UGGp tourism texts.

No	Adjective	No	Adjective	No	Adjective	No	Adjective	No	Adjective
1	abundant	49	disabled	97	historical	145	new	193	simple
2	accessible	50	discrete	98	holy	146	northern	194	sizeable
3	acidic	51	dissected	99	hot	147	numerous	195	small
4	active	52	distinctive	100	huge	148	occasional	196	soaring
5	adjacent	53	disused	101	igneous	149	oceanic	197	social
6	adventurous	54	diverse	102	immediate	150	old	198	solid
7	agricultural	55	dominant	103	important	151	older	199	southern
8	algal	56	dramatic	104	impressive	152	oldest	200	special
9	amateur	57	dry	105	industrial	153	open	201	spectacular
10	amazing	58	earliest	106	informal	154	ordovician	202	stable
11	ancient	59	early	107	inner	155	original	203	strong
12	annual	60	eastern	108	intangible	156	outdoor	204	stunning
13	archaeological	61	economic	109	integral	157	outside	205	subsequent
14	arctic	62	educational	110	interglacial	158	outstanding	206	subterranean
15	atlantic	63	edwardian	111	international	159	overgrown	207	successive
16	available	64	effective	112	interpretative	160	palaeogene	208	suitable
17	beautiful	65	english	113	interpretive	161	past	209	susceptible
18	best	66	enigmatic	114	intrusive	162	permian	210	sustainable
19	black	67	enthusiastic	115	irish	163	popular	211	tectonic
20	boggy	68	entire	116	karstic	164	potential	212	terrestrial
21	brief	69	environmental	117	large	165	practical	213	territorial
22	british	70	equatorial	118	larger	166	precambrian	214	thick
23	broad	71	european	119	largest	167	prehistoric	215	thick
24	caledonian	72	excellent	120	late	168	present	216	tiny
25	cambrian	73	extensive	121	latest	169	primary	217	torridonian
26	carboniferous	74	extinct	122	lewisian	170	primitive	218	transnational
27	celtic	75	famous	123	little	171	promotional	219	tropical
28	central	76	fantastic	124	local	172	public	220	turbulent
29	certain	77	fascinating	125	long	173	quaternary	221	typical
30	characteristic	78	fertile	126	low	174	rare	222	unique
31	classic	79	finest	127	lower	175	recent	223	unrivalled
32	clear	80	formal	128	magnificent	176	recreational	224	unspoiled
33	coastal	81	fun	129	main	177	red	225	unusual
34	compact	82	fundamental	130	majestic	178	regional	226	urban
35	complex	83	general	131	marvellous	179	regular	227	varied
36	continental	84	gentler	132	mesolithic	180	remarkable	228	vast
37	core	85	geographical	133	metamorphic	181	remote	229	vertical
38	craggy	86	geological	134	misty	182	rich	230	victorian
39	crowded	87	geomorphological	135	modern	183	round	231	volcanic
40	crustal	88	gigantic	136	molten	184	rounded	232	warm
41	cultural	89	glacial	137	mountainous	185	rural	233	western
42	damaging	90	global	138	multiple	186	sandy	234	white
43	declining	91	good	139	napoleonic	187	sedimentary	235	wide
44	decreasing	92	great	140	national	188	senior	236	wild
45	deep	93	green	141	native	189	sheer	237	wonderful
46	defensive	94	high	142	natural	190	significant	238	worldwide
47	deltaic	95	highest	143	necessary	191	silurian	239	young
48	different	96	historic	144	neolithic	192	similar	240	younger

Table 4. Frequency of adjectives in UK UGGp tourism texts.

Adjectives	Frequency	Adjectives	Frequency	Adjectives	Frequency	Adjectives	Frequency
global	57	natural	16	cultural	8	rich	7
local	21	old	13	early	8	ancient	6
great	17	best	9	famous	7	coastal	6
northern	17	carboniferous	9	glacial	7	high	6
geological	16	important	9	industrial	7	precambrian	6

As a starting point of classification, nineteen texts were collected. After processing the nine UK UGGp tourism texts and ten Indonesia UGGp tourism texts separately by AntConc 3.5.8 for Macintosh OS X, the researchers extracted the wordlist based on the parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, determiner, and conjunction). The researchers classified the adjectives from the list as described in Table 3. Table 3 describes 240 adjectives identified in the nine UK UGGp tourism texts. After classifying the 240 adjectives, the researchers chose the 20 highest frequencies of adjectives found in the selected classification as described in Table 4.

Table 4 portrays the frequency of the 20 highest frequency of 240 adjectives in nine the UK UGGp tourism texts. The adjective of the highest frequency was global (57 times) while the lowest were the four adjectives ancient, coastal, high, and precambrian (6 times each).

Table 5 illustrates the 225 adjectives found in the ten Indonesia UGGp tourism texts, and the researchers picked 20 highest frequencies as illustrated in Table 6.

Table 5. List of adjectives in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

No	Adjective	No	Adjective	No	Adjective	No	Adjective	No	Adjective
1	acculturative	47	dry	93	intrusive	139	ongoing	185	sedimentary
2	acid	48	early	94	islamic	140	open	186	significant
3	active	49	eastern	95	javanese	141	ophiolite	187	silurian
4	aesthetic	50	economic	96	jurassic	142	original	188	similar
5	alkaline	51	educational	97	karstic	143	outdoor	189	single
6	ancestral	52	endemic	98	lacustrine	144	outer	190	small
7	ancient	53	eocene	99	large	145	pacitanian	191	social
8	annual	54	equatorial	100	largest	146	palaeovolcanic	192	south
9	antartic	55	essential	101	late	147	paleogene	193	southern
10	arabian	56	ethnic	102	lesser	148	paleolithic	194	southwestern
11	arabic	57	eurasian	103	local	149	particular	195	spectacular
12	archaeological	58	exceptional	104	long	150	past	196	stratigraphic
13	archipelagic	59	explosive	105	longest	151	pennsylvanian	197	stunning
14	arctic	60	extensive	106	low	152	perfect	198	subaerial
15	asian	61	famous	107	lower	153	permo	199	sulfuric
16	balinese	62	feminine	108	lowest	154	picturesque	200	sumatran
17	basaltic	63	finest	109	magmatic	155	plain	201	sundanese
18	better	64	first	110	magnificent	156	pleistocene	202	super
19	biggest	65	fluid	111	makassarese	157	pliocene	203	sustainable
20	blue	66	fresh	112	masculine	158	plutonic	204	sweet
21	calcareous	67	front	113	massive	159	popular	205	tectonic
22	cataclysmic	68	geodynamic	114	maximum	160	portrayal	206	terrestrial
23	center	69	geographical	115	mesozoic	161	prehistoric	207	tertiary
24	central	70	geological	116	metamorphic	162	present	208	traditional
25	chemical	71	geostructural	117	meteoric	163	primary	209	tribal
26	chinese	72	geothermal	118	micro	164	prior	210	tropical
27	classic	73	global	119	miocene	165	prominent	211	tuffaceous
28	clastic	74	grand	120	modern	166	prone	212	unique
29	close	75	gravitational	121	montane	167	public	213	valuable
30	coastal	76	greater	122	morphological	168	pyroclastic	214	various
31	collaborative	77	high	123	multicultural	169	pyroclastics	215	visible
32	complete	78	highest	124	national	170	quaternary	216	volcanic
33	complex	79	historic	125	natural	171	rare	217	western
34	continuous	80	hot	126	near	172	recreational	218	white
35	crucial	81	huge	127	neolithic	173	red	219	wide
36	cultural	82	hydrological	128	neutral	174	regional	220	wild
37	daily	83	hydrothermal	129	new	175	remarkable	221	wisdom
38	deciduous	84	igneous	130	north	176	residual	222	wooden
39	deep	85	important	131	northern	177	responsible	223	young
40	deeper	86	indigenous	132	northwestern	178	resurgent	224	younger
41	descending	87	indonesian	133	numerous	179	rich	225	youngest
42	different	88	initiative	134	observable	180	ritual
43	direct	89	inner	135	oceanic	181	rural
44	distinctive	90	intensive	136	old	182	sandy
45	diverse	91	international	137	oldest	183	scarce
46	double	92	intimate	138	oligocene	184	scientific

Table 6. Frequency of adjectives in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

Adjective	Frequency	Adjective	Frequency	Adjective	Frequency	Adjective	Frequency
global	49	old	10	unique	7	ancient	5
volcanic	27	active	9	miocene	6	coastal	5
local	25	complex	9	natural	6	diverse	5
geological	20	cultural	9	quaternary	6	early	5
south	11	traditional	7	sustainable	6	educational	5

Table 6 characterizes the frequency of the 20 highest adjective usages in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts. The 20 adjectives were selected as the highest frequency of the 225 adjectives collected from ten Indonesia UGGp tourism texts. It was informed the highest frequency from the 20 adjectives was the adjective global (49 times) and the lowest were five adjectives ancient, coastal, diverse, early, and educational (5 times each).

4.2. Adjectives types in UK and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts

Based on Durán-Muñoz’s categories, the adjectives are identified as objective or subjective. In this part, the researchers classified the adjectives identified in the UK UGGp tourism texts and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

Table 7 reveals that 240 types were identified in the 626 adjectives, and the adjectives were categorized into objective and subjective. Table 7 also shows that the objective has a fewer types of adjectives than the subjective but the frequency of the objective is higher than the subjective. The objective adjectives have 111 adjective types (46%), but the frequency of the objective adjectives is 348 times (55.6%) while the subjective adjective type is 129 (54%) but the number is 278 times. In other words, the objective usage is more frequent compared to the subjective in nine the UK UGGp tourism texts.

Table 7. Objective and subjective adjectives in UK UGGp tourism texts.

	Adjectives
	Type	(%)	Frequency	(%)
Objective	111	46	348	55.6
Subjective	129	54	278	44.4
Total	240	100	626	100

The objective and subjective adjectives are extracted from the adjectives list. Then, the top five objective and subjective adjectives with their frequency were chosen and described in Table 8 (objective adjectives and subjective adjectives). The adjectives found under 16 times for the objective adjectives and under 8 times for the subjective adjectives were excluded from Tables 7–9.

Table 8. Top five objective adjectives in UK UGGp tourism texts.

Objective adjective	Frequency
global	57
local	21
northern	17
geological	16
natural	16

Table 8 demonstrates that the top five highest frequency objective adjectives is 57 times for the adjective global, followed by local (21 times), northern (17 times), geological and natural (16 times). The usage of the adjective in the UK UGGp tourism texts is described in the following excerpts of the corpus.

Excerpt 1

Most recently Shetland became part of a global industry following the discovery of the North Sea Oilfields to the west of the islands.

Excerpt 2

Famous local people include Sir Kyffin Williams R.A., a renowned local artist was a founding member of the Geopark; his great uncle, Sir Andrew Ramsay, was the “father of Welsh Geology”.

Excerpt 3

Of international significance are the rare Precambrian blueschists of southern Anglesey, the stromatolitic limestones (800-860 million years old) of northern Anglesey, that are the oldest fossils in England or Wales and the largest and most important copper mine in the world between 1780 and 1860, Parys Mountain in Amlwch.

Excerpt 4

In addition, educational enquiries, based on the geological stories of the Geopark have been developed with resources and materials for teachers, for Key Stages 1 (age 5 to7), 2 (age 7 to 11) and 3 (age 11 to 14).

Excerpt 5

The richness of the geology and geomorphology is the foundation for the many layers of natural habitat and human history that make the Shetland UNESCO Global Geopark so special.

The adjectives global, local, northern, geological, and natural in excerpts (1) to (5) are objective adjectives. The adjective global in excerpt 1 is applied to modify the noun industry that refers to Shetland which describes North Sea Oilfields to the west of the islands. In excerpt 2, the adjective local describes the noun people that refers to Sir Kyffin Williams R.A., a renowned local artist was a founding member of the Geopark as the factual information. In excerpt 3, the noun Anglesey is modified by the adjective northern that refers to a place or geographical description where the stromatolitic limestones (800–860 million years old) found. The word geological, in excerpt 4, is an adjective that describes the stories as a noun that refers to Geopark, while the excerpt 5 the adjective natural describes the noun habitat referring to the noun many layers. Besides the objective adjectives described, the following is the list of the top five subjective adjectives and their frequency found in the nine UK UGGp tourism texts.

Table 9 depicts the frequency of the top five subjective adjectives. They are adjectives great (17 times) as the highest, old (13 times), best and important (9 times of each), and early (8 times) as the lowest.

Table 9. Top five subjective adjectives in UK UGGp tourism texts.

Subjective adjective	Frequency
great	17
old	13
best	9
important	9
early	8

Excerpt 6

The UNESCO Global Geopark has great geological diversity in its solid rock foundation and glacially deposited cover.

Excerpt 7

During the 19th century, the so-called ‘Highlands Controversy’ raged over the relationships of these rocks, ending with the recognition of the complexities of the Moine Thrust Zone, now recognised as one of the most important structures of the circa 400-million-year old Caledonian Mountain belt.

Excerpt 8

Some of the best development opportunities lie in tourism, with the areas natural beauty, unspoiled recreational resources and welcoming people.

Excerpt 9

The unique landscapes strikingly reflect the underlying geology, dominated by the internationally important Moine Thrust Zone, which runs from north to south.

Excerpt 10

From Ordovician to Carboniferous times the area was located on a stable Midland Platform and sedimentation was influenced by changes in sea level in response to the latest Ordovician, early Silurian and Carboniferous ice ages.

The adjectives great (excerpt 6), old (excerpt 7), and best (excerpt 8) were utilized by the writer to evaluate the geological diversity, Caledonian Mountain belt, and development opportunities. The subjective great, old, and best were used to persuade the tourists to visit the sites. In excerpts 9 and 10, the researchers employed the adjective important to modify Moine Thrust Zand (excerpt 9) and early to modify Silurian (excerpt 10) and both subjective adjectives were applied to convince the tourists or potential visitors to visit the places.

The ten Indonesian UGGp tourism texts also have more objective adjectives than subjective adjectives, which is similar to the finding of UK UGGp tourism texts.

It is demonstrated in Table 10 that in the ten Indonesian UGGp tourism texts, the objective adjectives are 126 types (56% of the total), and it is more frequently used (358 times or 62.7% of the total) than the subjective adjectives. In Table 11, the researchers picked the top five objective adjectives found in the Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

Table 10. Objective and subjective adjectives in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

	Adjectives
	Type	(%)	Frequency	(%)
Objective	126	56.0	358	62.7
Subjective	99	44.0	213	37.3
Total	225	100	571	100

Table 11. Top five objective adjectives in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

Objective adjective	Frequency
global	49
volcanic	27
local	25
geological	20
south	11

Similar to Table 8 (the UK UGGp tourism texts), the three adjectives global, local, and geological as the objective adjectives are often used in the ten Indonesia UGGp tourism texts (Table 11). The frequency of the objective adjective global is 49 times as the highest, followed by volcanic (27 times), local (25 times), geological (20 times), and south (11 times). The adjectives found under 11 times for the objective adjectives and under 6 times for the subjective adjectives were not described in Table 11. Tables 8 and 11. The following are the excerpts of the corpus containing each objective adjective.

Excerpt 11

These reef islands, representing a part of the global coral triangle, exemplify modern equatorial carbonates and contribute to the understanding of Sulawesi’s paleogeography evolution.

Excerpt 12

Additionally, the karstic formations exhibit a cross-cutting relationship with Neogene volcanic rocks.

Excerpt 13

The Raja Ampat UNESCO Global Geopark was established through a collaborative effort, involving the regional government, local communities, and stakeholders.

Excerpt 14

The geopark’s geological structures, such as joints and faults that facilitate erosion and result in the formation of distinctively shaped limestone islands, are found in Wayag, Kabui, and the eastern islets of Misool.

Excerpt 15

Gunung Sewu UNESCO Global Geopark is a classic tropical karst landscape in the south central part of Java Island well-known in the world, and dominated by limestone.

In excerpt 11, it is described that the adjective global describes the noun phrase coral triangle that is represented by the reef islands. The adjective volcanic in excerpt 12 refers to the noun rocks or the word volcanic describes the visual material of rocks. The noun phrase volcanic rocks is modified by the word Neogene. In excerpt 13, the adjective local refers to the noun communities; the word local describes the type of communities that is involved as a collaborative effort of establishing the Raja Ampat UNESCO Global Geopark. The adjective geological, in excerpt 14, describes the structure of the geopark while the adjective south in excerpt 15 refers to central part of Java Island as a geographical description of a classic tropical karst landscape as Gunung Sewu UNESCO Global Geopark.

It is a similarity of subjective adjectives identified in the UK and Indonesia UGGp tourism texts. Both of them often used the adjective old in their texts, and the adjective is one of the top five subjective adjectives, as seen in Tables 9 and 12.

Table 12. Top five subjective adjectives in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts.

Subjective adjective	Frequency
old	10
active	9
complex	9
unique	7
sustainable	6

The top five subjective adjectives found in the Indonesia UGGp tourism texts are the adjective old as the highest frequency (10 times), followed in order by the adjective active and complex (9 times each), unique (7 times), and sustainable (6 times) as outlined in Table 12. The following are the examples of the corpus found in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts containing subjective adjectives.

Excerpt 16

The acculturation process can be seen in the cultural heritage of Lombok shown in temples or old traditional mosques.

Excerpt 17

This is the most active Caldera Resurgent in the world (de Silva, et al., 2015) The 90 × 30 km² large (+1130 km²) of Toba Caldera is filled by rain-water, it’s the largest volcanic-lake origin, consist of +240 km³ of fresh-water with a maximum depth about 505 m.

Excerpt 18

Ijen UNESCO Global Geopark is characterized by a high concentration of volcanic cones, craters, and lava flows, showcasing the complex geological processes that have shaped the region over millions of years.

Excerpt 19

The weathering and aberration process affected several rock formations and resulted in a unique formation of animal-shaped rocks.

Excerpt 20

The involvement of local communities in initiatives related to Geopark conservation, education and promotion is therefore a principal factor in the sustainable development program of the Geopark.

The five excerpts illustrate the usage of subjective adjectives. In excerpts (16) to (20), the researchers of the texts chose the adjectives old, active, complex, unique, and sustainable to describe their noun phrases. The word old (excerpt 16) referring to the phrase traditional mosques is applied to compare them to the temples as the examples of the process of acculturation. In excerpt 17, the word active refers to Caldera Resurgent; the word complex (excerpt 18) modifies geological processes; the word unique (excerpt 19) refers to formation of animal-shaped rocks, and the word sustainable refers to development program (excerpt 20). It is outlined that the five adjectives represent the writer’s review to reflect the writer’s subjective stance.

5. Conclusion

The UK as the representation of English-speaking countries produced the UGGp tourism texts that applied 626 adjectives from 5200 tokens or 12% from the total tokens with 240 different types of adjectives. Indonesia as a non-English speaking country created 579 adjectives from 5197 tokens with 225 various types of adjectives or 11% adjectives from the token number.

From the 240 adjectives types found in the UK UGGp tourism texts, it is reported that 111 types of adjectives are objectives (348 times), and 129 types of adjectives are subjective adjectives (278 times). The 225 adjectives types used in Indonesia UGGp tourism texts are 126 types of objective adjectives (358 times) and 99 types of subjective adjectives (213 times).

It is stated that the objective adjectives are more frequently used than subjective adjectives in both the UK and Indonesian UGGp tourism texts in the UNESCO Global Geopark website. This finding of the research is slightly different from the argumentation that subjective adjectives are commonly used in tourism discourse. Based on the result, it could be concluded that the objective adjectives are commonly found in UGGp texts as tourism texts.

Acknowledgments

The research was conducted under the Visiting Researcher program with the contract No 15/II/HK/2023. The researchers wish to thank the Head of Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, Indonesia and the Rector of Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia for supporting the process of the research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eva Tuckyta Sari Sujatna

Eva Tuckyta Sari Sujatna is a professor of linguistics in Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran, Indonesia. Her currently publications are “An appraisal perspective on students’ use of attitudinal resources in university EFL academic oral presentations” (2023) with Heri Kuswoyo. She can be contacted at [email protected]

Ade Mulyanah

Ade Mulyanah is a researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia (BRIN). Her research interest is in linguistics, and she has done some linguistic research: syntax, pragmatics, education, sociolinguistics, language revitalization, and translation. Her present research are on cross-cultural understanding in intercultural communication studies.

Sjane F. Walangarei

Sjane F. Walangarei was born on 5 February 1970 in Minahasa, North Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. Now, she is a researcher in the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia. In 2018, completed the Doctoral Programme in Linguistics at the Postgraduate Programme of Sam Ratulangi University Manado.

Bayu Permana Sukma

Bayu Permana Sukma is a researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia. His research interests include discourse analysis and systemic functional linguistics, notably in political and legal discourse. His publication “Constructing and promoting national identity through tourism: A multimodal discourse analysis of Indonesian official tourism website” (2021).

Anis Rahmawati

Anis Rahmawati is a junior researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia. Her publications focus on discourse analysis and linguistic landscapes. Her last publication on tourism is entitled “Preservation of National Identity and Identity through Tourism Villages: Linguistic Landscape Study of Jatimulyo Tourism Village” in 2022.