Touch tours

Given its growing role in enhancing engagement with the arts, touch has successfully been exploited to increase museum accessibility for people who are visually impaired. In this chapter, the relationship between art and touch is illustrated, and touch tours for visually impaired museum-goers are defined, their communicative moves identified, and the procedural instructions used to facilitate haptic exploration are exemplified. The chapter also explores the typifying language specificities and recurring patterns used to effectively guide the sequentiality of the exploratory activity and to overcome touch defensiveness. The frequency of verbs of activity and perception, of imperatives with a weak directive force, of verbs of choice as pragmatic markers, and of material names (vs. tactile adjectives, which are quite limited in number and variety) are just some typifying features of a text type that 4aims to instruct and involve visitors in a complex yet rewarding activity, and to facilitate the emotional reaction triggered by touch.