Mapping in process: discourse analysis of the Alpine Club’s periodicals

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Alpine Club of London, founded in 1857, was the first Alpine Club in the world. Its periodicals, Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers and The Alpine Journal provide important travel narratives which record the members’ mountain-explorations. This interdisciplinary article aims to show the alpinists’ contributions in two domains. First, by mapping the Alps their geographical accomplishments were considerable. Their additions to existing maps were also the result of their success in changing dead-ends into tracks and routes. Based on the exploration of a digitalised corpus of these periodicals (1858–1899), this article reveals some of the most salient traits of the discourse on their shaping of borders. This approach involves discourse analysis (pragmatics, linguistics of enunciation) as well as history and geography. On top of their existence as potent earthly landmarks and challenges for humans, the mountains have always been geographical objects in motion.