Phraseology and Culture in English

Corpus Travellers 
LOB
Member of Parliament, Colonial Secretary, President, Royal Family, 
Duke, Duchess, Count, millionaire (name), students, poets, correspon-
dent, (circus / exhibition people), (few business people), (individually 
named people)
8
FLOB
Chief Inspector, presidents, diplomats, students, artists, league players, 
actors, hitch-hiker, business people, gypsies / “travelling people”, re-
searchers, commuters, (large groups of people), (few individually named 
people) 
BNC
business people, aid-workers, President, Prime Minister, politicians, 
military, scientists, students, pensioners, athletes, back-packers, lovers, 
housewives, family, children, commuters, (few individually named peo-
ple), (masses of people), (people addressed anonymously, not indi-
vidually) 

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The phraseology of tourism 
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7. Package 
holiday 
“The package holiday is particularly appropriate to the personality traits of 
compliance and sociability which make up the typically British tempera-
ment” (BNC). 
The fairly recently created phrase package holiday accommodates new 
trends in the structuring of leisure time and is maybe partly responsible for 
generating new models of consumption. In the LOB and FLOB corpora, the 
phrase package holiday hardly exists. A detailed analysis of the patterns 
accompanying the phrase package holiday in the BNC can document im-
portant aspects of socio-cultural structure, stratification, conventions and 
preoccupations. The most frequent types of representation concern five 
main semantic fields: 
1.
Package holidays are an important economic factor and a highly com-
petitive market sector which concerns the operators on the one hand, 
and the customers on the other hand. This is obvious in frequent co-
occurrences with <market, industry, competition, business, commercial 
(success / failure), price/s, cost/s, (many individual sums of money)>,
adjectival classifications of these collocates, such as <booming, plung-
ing, (un)profitable> and some figurative expressions relating to con-
sumers’ reactions to prices and purchasing a package holiday <clinch-
ing a deal, beyond (the reach of) (someone’s) pocket/s, grabbing a 
bargain>.
2.
Package holidays are a kind of ready-made product for consumption. 
Everything is taken care of; no personal planning effort and responsi-
bility is needed. One simply chooses between several complete prod-
ucts according to personal tastes and financial possibilities. They are 
convenient and well structured. The three main collocational patterns 
here concern: 
ʊ
Events and activities that are declared touristic highlights, such as a 
<gathering of whales / dolphins (etc), seeing tigers (etc), an eclipse of 
the sun, walks in vineyards>.
ʊ
Specifically prepared destinations and forms of holidays, such as 
<beach-resorts, romantic getaways, snowy ski-resorts, golf-resorts> and 
<1 week shopping tour, 2 night weekend package, 3 night break in It-
aly, 14 day beach package tour, 2 day walking holiday, luxurious club 
holiday>.
ʊ
Relaxation and personal well-being, exemplified in collocates such as 
<sun-seeking, sunshine, romance, relaxation, breaks, wholesome, sport, 

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314
Andrea Gerbig and Angela Shek 
beach, museum, concert, opera, flee from reality, be away from home, 
travel away from stress, foster interests, broaden minds>.
3.
The equipment and provision the resorts have to offer are of paramount 
interest. Almost of a cliché character are the following, high-frequency 
collocates: <cheap, competitive, all inclusive, well arranged, free drinks,