Bergnatur zwischen Schutz, Nutzung und Imagebildung: Sprachliche Perspektiven auf die Peaks of the Balkans

This paper examines how mountain environments are multimodally constructed in tourism discourse at the intersection of conservation, tourism development, and image-building. Taking the transnational hiking project Peaks of the Balkans as a case study, it explores how mountain regions in Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo are portrayed as nature-oriented destinations associated with promises of sustainability and authenticity. Particular attention is paid to the interplay between language and imagery in selected German-language online tourism texts. The analysis focuses on lexical condensation, evaluative and metaphorical language patterns, and visual representation strategies through which mountain landscapes are presented as aestheticized spaces of experience and, at the same time, as embodiments of ecological values. The findings reveal that sustainability is frequently communicated through positively connoted terms and idealized visual representations, while concrete environmental problems and conflicts over land use remain largely excluded from the discourse.