Abstract
Despite the expanding body of literature on the discourse of sport, scholarly work in this field has been limited in terms of analytic scope, dimension and methodology. To address this limitation, Caldwell, Walsh, Vine and Jureidini explore in this cutting-edge collection language practices in sports communication from a social linguistic perspective, which sees language as both a tool for action and a scaffold for ‘human affiliation within cultures and social groups and institutions’ (Gee, 1990, p. 1). Using a wide range of theoretical approaches and analytic methods such as systemic functional linguistics (SFL), critical discourse analysis (CDA), conversation analysis (CA), interactional sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics and multimodal discourse analysis (MDA), the contributors examine closely instances of language-in-use in sports communication and explore how social practices shape the discourse of sport across the spectrum of contemporary sporting. By linking linguistic analysis with sports culture and practices, this collection sheds new light on the relationship between discourse and sports communication.
The collection begins with an introduction to the organization of and the theoretical assumptions underpinning the book. Consisting of 12 chapters, it is broadly sequenced based on the concept of experiential mode continuum (Martin, 1984), which argues that the function of language ranges from action to reflection. To capture the complexity of sports discourse, this collection adopts Gee’s (1990) definition of discourse, which identifies ‘big-D’ Discourse as ideologies and ‘little-d’ discourse as instances of language use.
Chapters 2–6 deal with discourses accompanying sports interactants and explore the language use of sports interactants using social linguistic methodologies and approaches. Considering ‘language as action’ in sports activities, these chapters unpack the multidirectional relationships among sports interactants in the production and negotiation of sports communication. Through the theoretical lens of SFL, Walsh and Jureidini (Chapter 2) examine how language choices of in-game coaching realize different discursive functions (e.g. analysing and strategising) in Australian rules football. Taking the same approach, Clarke (Chapter 3) compares transitivity choices (e.g. processes types) in football commentaries on TV (e.g. Sky Sports) with those on radio (e.g. BBC Radio Five) in the United Kingdom. He finds that while material and relational are the primary processes in both types of commentaries, the types of relational process used are markedly different in the two. Lavric and Steiner’s study (Chapter 4) draws on Steiner’s experience as a personal assistant to foreign football players and looks specifically at multilingual practices of coaches and foreign players at an Austrian football club. The authors identify integration strategies for newcomers, which involve interpretation services offered by players from the same team as well as translation and language coaching by an appointed person. Deploying the interactional sociolinguistic approach, File (Chapter 5) examines post-match media interviews on the BBC website and illustrates linguistic strategies used by English Premier League managers when talking about referees and their decisions. According to the author, main solutions to such potentially face-threatening interviews include avoiding engagement with journalists, maintaining neutral standpoints and making an accusation of referee bias. In Chapter 6, Wilton focuses on the notion of consensual evaluation, looking at how epistemic status and stance can be negotiated between interviewers and players in German post-match football interviews. Her choice of CA approach has proven productive in uncovering how participants contribute to the co-construction of evaluation in sports communication.
Chapters 7–12 focus on discourses reflecting sports activities, highlighting the social aspect of discursive processes that shape contemporary sports activities. Walsh and Caldwell (Chapter 7) compare appraisal features of the visceral discourse (i.e. people’s subjective evaluation of players) with those of the analytic discourse (i.e. evaluation of players through statistics). Their analysis shows that explicit affective resources are more salient in the former, while invoked attitudes are more prominent in the latter. Wrench and Garrett (Chapter 8) examine the Adam Goodes controversy, where the Indigenous Australian football player was booed by the audience in 2013 after he reported a teenage spectator who had insulted him to security, and again in 2015 when he performed an Indigenous dance after winning a match. The authors employ CDA to show how whiteness is constructed by the mainstream media (e.g. Fox Footy television) in Australia in their reporting of these two events. Lavric and Weidacher’s contribution (Chapter 9) is concerned with athletic rankings in Spanish sports media and looks specifically at the static (i.e. ranking is fixed) and dynamic (i.e. ranking changes over time) aspect of ranking metaphors in cycling. It shows that sports ranking metaphors (e.g. the metaphors of fight and pursuit) are dynamic and may be adopted in other domains (e.g. economics and business),
Chapters 10–12 include quantitative studies and multimodal analysis of sports news. Using a corpus approach, Ismail (Chapter 10) focuses on the representation of male and female athletes in English sports news in Malaysia. Although biased linguistic patterns (e.g. male-firstness construction) are detected, the findings suggest an absence of overt gender stereotypes. Fest (Chapter 11) has analysed keywords, tense choices and adverbial verbs in a large corpus of news reports from five English-speaking regions (i.e. Australia, Hong Kong, Kenya, the United Kingdom and the United States) and reveals regional variations in terms of field or the experiential domain. Caple (Chapter 12) conducts an analysis of text–image relations in online match reporting, highlighting the role of images in its generic structure. The analysis shows that male and female athletes are constructed in a similar way verbally and visually; that is, both genders are evaluated based on their performance and being characterized as determined.
By offering an engaging and accessible overview of sports discourse, the collection makes a cutting-edge contribution to sports communication. Theoretically, by analysing and interpreting various examples of sports practices, it takes a significant step towards applying linguistic theories to sports communication. Practically, the broad range of analytic methods and theoretical approaches open up new possibilities for future research on the discourse of sport. While existing literature predominantly focuses on sports media, this volume emphasizes the orientation to sociolinguistics and demonstrates how meanings are made in a diverse range of sports communication.
Despite its wide-ranging topics, the role of the audience in sports communication is regrettably missing from the volume. There are several applied linguistic approaches covered in the volume, therefore a glossary showing how theoretical terms such as ‘register’ are defined in different theoretical traditions (e.g. CA vs SFL) would have been helpful. Overall, this collection offers an innovative way of thinking about sports discourse and communication. Given its well-organized structure, extended scope and in-depth case studies, the collection would be of great interest to researchers in applied linguistics, discourse analysis, sports communication and media studies.