<?page no="0"?> Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Lavric / Pisek / Skinner / Stadler (eds.) The Linguistics of Football Eva Lavric / Gerhard Pisek Andrew Skinner / Wolfgang Stadler (eds.) The Linguistics of Football The first collection of articles on this topic is as international and varied as football itself. The publication covers media discourse, an online-dictionary of football terms, metaphors, the grammar of football commentary, emotions, football chants and football teams as multilingual eco-systems. Contributions from Sweden to Nigeria show how language operates in football. Would you know where footballing terms in Arabic come from? How does the German coach Otto Rehagel communicate with the Greek players? Which language did Materazzi use when insulting Zidane? Which special words do German, Polish and Igbo have for running, dribbling, penalty area and foul? In which country do the Canaries play the Roaring Lions? Where are famous footballers enshrined in a ‘Hall of Fame’? Which metaphors do Swedish, German and Russian football commentators tend to use? Are the British really less emotional than the Spanish when it comes to football commentating? And why are commentators from Russia to Italy speechless as soon as emotions really run high? That and much more is covered in this first wideranging compilation on the topic of football and language. Language in Performance LiP ISBN 978-3-8233-6398-9 026808 LiP 38 - Lavric 20.05.2008 16: 37 Uhr Seite 1 Scale: 100% <?page no="1"?> 38 Edited by Werner Hüllen† and Rainer Schulze Advisory Board: Thomas Herbst (Erlangen), Andreas Jucker (Zürich), Manfred Krug (Bamberg), Christian Mair (Freiburg i. Br.), Ute Römer (Hannover), Andrea Sand (Trier), Hans-Jörg Schmid (München), Josef Schmied (Chemnitz) and Edgar W. Schneider (Regensburg) <?page no="2"?> Eva Lavric / Gerhard Pisek Andrew Skinner/ Wolfgang Stadler (eds.) The Linguistics of Football Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen <?page no="3"?> Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über <http: / / dnb.d-nb.de> abrufbar. Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Bundesministeriums für Wissenschaft und Forschung in Wien, des Landes Tirol, der Stadt Innsbruck, der Universität Innsbruck (Aktion D. Swarovski & Co 2008 sowie Forschungsschwerpunkt »Mehrsprachigkeit«) und des Verbandes für Angewandte Linguistik (Verbal). © 2008 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem und alterungsbeständigem Werkdruckpapier. Internet: www.narr.de E-Mail: info@narr.de Printed in Germany ISSN 0939-9399 ISBN 978-3-8233-6398-9 <?page no="4"?> 1 Table of contents Eva Lavric Introduction ........................................................................................ 5 1. Football terminology ........................................................................ 9 Thomas Schmidt The Kicktionary: Combining corpus linguistics and lexical semantics for a multilingual football dictionary .............................. 11 Konrad Szczesniak, Marcus Callies “Europameisterschaft zu erdribbeln”: ‘Manner of obtainment’ constructions in sports reporting ...................................................... 23 Chinedu Uchechukwu Igbo verb roots and their realization of the ‘root schema’ within the football domain .............................................................. 35 Anita Pavi Pintari English and German loanwords in Croatian football language ....... 43 Sebastian S pek Is English injuring Polish? An analysis of the spread of English terminology in (and through) Polish football ................................... 53 Vladimir Dosev Football lexis and phraseology in contemporary Bulgarian ............ 63 Mélanie Bernard Football in France: Its history, vocabulary and place within French society .................................................................................. 71 Adel El Sayed Egyptian colloquial Arabic and the British occupation: The case of football .......................................................................................... 81 Muhammad Y Gamal The final whistle: How football terminology took root in Arabic ... 89 <?page no="5"?> 2 2. Football language ........................................................................... 99 Željka Matulina and Zrinka orali Idioms in football reporting ........................................................... 101 Henrik Nordin The use of conceptual metaphors by Swedish and German football commentators - A comparison ....................................................... 113 Stephan Vierkant Metaphor and live radio football commentary ............................... 121 Eric A. Anchimbe “Bend it like a banana” - Representing the ecology in live football commentaries ............................................................. 133 Magnus Levin “Hitting the back of the net just before the final whistle”: High-frequency phrases in football reporting ................................ 143 Marietta Calderón Kaká, Gallinas, gent blaugrana and other soccer-related onymic phenomena in the teaching of onomastics ..................................... 157 Khatijah Shamsuddin and Fauziah Kamaruddin “Canaries versus roaring lions”: Language and football in Malaysian newspaper reporting ............ 171 Barbara Sonnenhauser ‘Fidoness’ in football reporting: Proper names between demonstratives and common nouns .......... 179 3. Football discourses ....................................................................... 191 Arnaud Richard Televised football commentaries: Descriptions, narrations and representations of a non-victory. The European Club Championship Final 1976 (Bayern Munich vs AS Saint-Étienne) ........................................... 193 Julia Kuhn Gianni Agnelli - ‘un tifoso vero’: Thoughts on the discourse construction of identities in Italian print media ...................................................................... 203 <?page no="6"?> 3 Richard W. Hallett and Judith Kaplan-Weinger “The place every football fan wants to visit”: A discursive analysis of football and soccer halls of fame ............ 211 René Schiering Regional identity in Schalke football chants .................................. 221 Joanne Luhrs Football chants and ‘blason populaire’: The construction of local and regional stereotypes ........................ 233 Henryk Duda The words ‘kibic’ (sports fan) and ‘pseudokibic’ (hooligan) in Polish. Remarks on names of sports enthusiasts used during sporting events .................................................................... 245 4. Football and media ....................................................................... 253 Jan Chovanec Enacting an imaginary community: Infotainment in on-line minute-by-minute sports commentaries ......................................... 255 Torsten Müller “He held his head in his hands as it flashed past the post”: How grammar and football interact ............................................... 269 Cornelia Gerhardt Turn-by-turn and move-by-move: A multi-modal analysis of live TV football commentary .............. 283 Jim Walker The footballer’s perfect - Are footballers leading the way? .......... 295 Anastasia Makarova Deviations in sports commentator speech: Statistical and linguistic analysis ................................................... 305 John Wiredu and Jemima Anderson Adjectives in football reporting ..................................................... 317 5. Media and discourse: Emotions .................................................. 331 Irene Theodoropoulou Football register formation: The case of Greece’s triumph in EURO 2004 ............................... 333 <?page no="7"?> 4 Kerstin Jung World Cup football live on Spanish and Argentine television: The spectacle of language .............................................................. 343 Eva Lavric, Gerhard Pisek, Wolfgang Stadler, Andrew Skinner and Erika Giorgianni (The Innsbruck Football Research Group) “Zidane, Zidane, what have you done? ” - Emotions on TV in six languages ............................................... 359 6. Football and multilingualism ...................................................... 373 IreneGiera,ErikaGiorgianni,EvaLavric,GerhardPisek,AndrewSkinner and Wolfgang Stadler (The Innsbruck Football Research Group) The globalized football team: A research project on multilingual communication ....................... 375 Engelbert Thaler Two global languages: Football and English language teaching ........................................ .391 The Innsbruck Football Research Group The football and language bibliography . ....................................... 399 <?page no="8"?> 5 INTRODUCTION EVA LAVRIC The language of football offers many rewarding topics for linguistic research. One such topic is the lexicographic analysis of football vocabulary. Since, on the one hand, a football match is made up of a relatively small number of ever-recurring events (shots, passes, referee interventions, etc.), but, on the other hand, myriads of texts (written reports, spoken commentary, etc.) are produced every day which describe these events, a vocabulary has been developed in many languages which abounds with synonyms, with fine-grained semantic distinctions and with subtle stylistic variation. (SCHMIDT, in this volume) This volume is meant to illustrate the richness of linguistic analysis in connection with football. Combining these two fields of activity - football and linguistics - has hardly been attempted before, but the articles in this book clearly show how promising and fruitful, in terms of insights into both domains, such an undertaking can be. 1. Football terminology The language of football is first and foremost football terminology. Therefore the volume starts with several articles dealing with football terminology: in the first article, SCHMIDT presents his Kicktionary, a multilingual (English, German, French) electronic resource of the language of football, which combines methods from corpus linguistics, the theory of frame semantics and the concept of semantic relations in order to enable the user to explore relationships between lexical units in various ways. The Kicktionary also served SZCZESNIAK / CALLIES as the basis for their investigation of the syntactic and semantic properties of verbal constructions that carry an idiomatic interpretation of ‘obtainment’ effected in a specified manner. Using examples from German, Polish and English, they show the great similarities regarding the effects of certain particles and prefixes observable in the three languages. It comes as no surprise that the constant action on the pitch is closely related to verbs describing such action. UCHECHUKWU looks at such verbs - in the Igbo language of Nigeria, where a Root Schema of verb roots is used to express concepts like ‘kick football’. Due to its great popularity, football has become an area with a special terminology known all over the world; this is one of the reasons why it can be difficult to draw a clear line between words belonging to the general language, on the one hand, and special football terms, on the other. Several articles show that, in many languages, the question of football terminology is, above all, a question of English loan words and loan translations - which is, of course, due to the origin of the game. In this context, PAVI PINTARI analyses the Croatian language of football, while S PEK deals with POLISH, DOSEV with Bulgarian, and BERNARD with French; EL SAYED and GAMAL both look at Egyptian Arabic. <?page no="9"?> 6 2. Football language Not surprisingly, the language of football is characterised by a great variety of idioms - as shown by MATULINA / ORALI in their analysis of Croatian, Bosnian, German and Austrian newspapers - and metaphors, which can mostly be found in live football commentary. Several articles suggest that, although conflict, war and peace are the basis of many metaphors in all cultures and languages (cf. NORDIN on German and English, VIERKANT on German - both based on Lakoff / Johnson 1980), there exist interesting differences regarding their frequency or individual variation. AnCHIMBE, for example, shows that in the West Bank a shot at goal can be called a ‘ground-to-ground missile’, while in Cameroon ‘banana shots’ are possible. Focussing on phrases containing the words ‘net’, ‘minute(s)’ and ‘whistle’, LEVIN shows that the language of English football reporting largely consists of semi-fixed phrases with conventionalized functions to describe recurring events in a game. In relation to the language of football reporting, onymic aspects like the nicknames of players, the names of stadiums or terms used to describe one’s own or the opposing teams are also worth investigating (cf. the article by CALDERÓN). Onymic aspects are, among others, dealt with by SHAMSUDDIN / KAMARUDDIN, who present a general overview of the language of football reporting in Malaysian newspapers. SONNENHAUSER analyses the use of the indefinite article ein + proper name in German (e.g. ein Franz Beckenbauer), showing how proper names develop from demonstratives to common nouns. 3. Football discourses (Critical) discourse analysis is applied by RICHARD in his study of the French TV commentary of the 1976 European club championship final between Bayern Munich and St. Étienne; he shows with which linguistic means a defeat can be euphemised. Using the example of the Agnelli family and its close ties to Juventus Turin, KUHN investigates how politics and football are interwined in Italy, while HALLETT / KAPLAN-WEINGER draw interesting parallels between sports and religion in their study of football and soccer halls of fame and their respective websites, which are intended to mobilise sports fans into demonstrating their respect and devotion. A special kind of football discourse - namely discourse that is not about the game itself, but that is part of the event - is studied by SCHIERING and LUHRS, who both investigate football chants performed by supporters of German and English teams. SCHIERING explains how, in the industrial area of the Ruhr, regional identity is expressed through the chants and cheers of Schalke 04 supporters, while LUHRS describes the chants of English supporters as modern-day examples of the traditional ‘blason populaire’, as an expression of one group’s outlook and self-image that often involves denigrating other groups. In his study of Polish football language, DUDA focuses on the terms kibic and pseudokibic, the former denoting a real or ‘true’ fan, the latter a pseudo-fan or hooligan; <?page no="10"?> 7 he describes how these two terms are used by the media to marginalize the problem of football violence in Poland. 4. Football and the media Football games are media events, and the media play a decisive role in how football is staged and presented. A series of articles analyse how football games are reported in various media, ranging from television and radio to newspapers and on-line minute-byminute commentaries. These commentaries are investigated by CHOVANEC, who - like ANCHIMBE in his article - stresses the infotainment element of such commentaries, which are also characterized by a high degree of involvement on the part of those participating in the discourse. The spectacularization of football and its language in Spanish and Argentine television broadcasts is the topic of JUNG’S article, in which features like players’ nicknames, national stereotypes and the expression of emotions are investigated. MÜLLER presents an analysis of radio football commentary, which he analyzes in connection with the corresponding television images of the same games; these in turn allow the identification of the extra-linguistic events leading to what is described in the commentary. He shows that the type of event described - and when it is being described - have important consequences for the commentator’s verbal output (e.g. syntactic complexity, pronouns, past time markers, etc.). The interplay between play-by-play reporting and colour commentary in live football commentary (BBC) is described by GERHARDT in her micro-analysis of this particular setting, and also mentioned by LAVRIC et al. In his article about the Past Simple and Present Perfect in English football interviews, WALKER demonstrates how the Present Perfect is used in such situations to recount events in past time, i.e. is used as a narrative tense, although conventionally in English only the Preterit is available for this purpose. Live football commentary is always done under great time pressure; as a result, speech errors tend to occur, as is demonstrated by MAKAROVA in her analysis of Russian television commentaries of tennis and football games. In newspaper articles the aspect post-match evaluation is of central importance, as is shown by WIREDU / ANDERSON in their study of the use of adjectives in Ghanaian newspapers, where they come to the conclusion that, despite football’s highly competitive nature, positive adjectives tend to dominate. 5. Media and discourse: Emotions Emotions in football commentary are dealt with by THEODOROPOULOU, JUNG and the second article by the INNSBRUCK FOOTBALL RESEARCH GROUP (LAVRIC et al.). Here, although there may be national differences between how emotions are expressed and staged, certain features like intonation, repetition, direct address to players, or pauses can be found in all languages and cultures. The expression of emotion is closely linked to the ‘spectacularization’ of football events, as decsribed by JUNG (Spanish and Argentine radio and television) and THEODOROPOULOU (Greek <?page no="11"?> 8 ‘triumphalese’ after winning EURO 2004). The following quotation from JUNG’S article illustrates the strong emotional involvement in connection with football: 1. “[...] esto ha sido un espectáculo, ¡que hemos vivido todos! ¡Que hemos sufrido todos! ¡Y que hemos disfrutado todos! ” - ‘This has been a spectacle that we all have experienced! During which we all have suffered! And that we all have enjoyed! ’ 6. Football and multilingualism The fact that international football, regardless of its presentation in the media, is also an activity where people work together in a multilingual context, is also taken into account by the INNSBRUCK FOOTBALL RESEARCH GROUP (GIERA et al.), which analyses strategies like ‘code choice’ and ‘code switching’, as well as aspects of intercultural and non-verbal communication. The article by THALER shows how the topic of football can be used for language learning, and why football definitely belongs in the EFL classroom. Let us give one of our contributors (ANCHIMBE) the last word: Football is perhaps the most popular sport in the present century. It has established itself not only as the most prestigious club and national sport, but also as one of the most lucrative sports (consider player contracts, transfers, club take-overs, television transmission rights, sale of Tshirts, etc.). Football more than many other team sports is unique in its ambiguous ability to unite and divide at the same time - consider national/ regional unity during football competitions and (in)famous hooligan violence during and after games or tournaments. Beside this, football is now a battlefield for several issues: the fight against racism (e.g. banners and flyers during games or information slots on television during transmission of football games); the resolution of conflicts (e.g. the match Israel-Palestine vs. World stars 2006); the alleviation of poverty (e.g. Michael Schumacher + friends vs. World stars, or Team Ronaldo vs. Team Zidane (2005 & 2006) both under the UN). What all this points to is that the sport has become so dynamic and diverse that it is used - both consciously and unconsciously - to represent reality, political and social issues, tastes in fashion, as well as racial and minority awareness. <?page no="12"?> 1. FOOTBALL TERMINOLOGY <?page no="14"?> 11 THOMAS SCHMIDT 1 THE KICKTIONARY: COMBINING CORPUS LINGUISTICS AND LEXICAL SEMANTICS FOR A MULTILINGUAL FOOTBALL DICTIONARY This paper presents the Kicktionary, a multilingual (English - German - French) electronic lexical resource of the language of football. In the Kicktionary, methods from corpus linguistics and two approaches to lexical semantics - the theory of frame semantics and the concept of semantic relations - are combined to construct a lexical resource in which the user can explore relationships between lexical units in various ways. This paper explains the theoretical background of the Kicktionary, sketches the data and methods which were used in its construction, and describes how the resulting resource is presented to users via a set of hyperlinked webpages. 1. Introduction The language of football offers many rewarding topics for linguistic research. One such topic is the lexicographic analysis of football vocabulary. Since, on the one hand, a football match is made up of a relatively small number of ever-recurring events (shots, passes, referee interventions, etc.), but, on the other hand, myriads of texts (written reports, spoken commentary, etc.) are produced every day which describe these events, a vocabulary has been developed in many languages which abounds with synonyms, with fine-grained semantic distinctions and with subtle stylistic variation. To analyse, describe and make accessible some aspects of this vocabulary is the aim of the Kicktionary presented in this paper. The Kicktionary is an electronic multilingual (English, German, French) lexical resource of the language of football. Its main idea is to combine methods from corpus linguistics and different approaches to lexical semantics in order to construct a dictionary which is better than (or at least as good in a manner different from) traditional paper dictionaries. The lexical resources constructed by the FrameNet (Fillmore et al. 2003) and WordNet (Fellbaum 1990) projects were used as a starting point for this task. This paper explains the design and construction of the Kicktionary. It is structured as follows: section 2 introduces the concepts of frame semantics and semantic relations, which constitute the theoretical background to the analyses carried out for the Kicktionary. Section 3 describes the empirical basis of the analyses - a multilingual corpus of football match reports - and explains the analysis method as well as the 1 The work presented here was carried out during my stay as a guest researcher with the team of the FrameNet project at ICSI in Berkeley, with the help of a research grant by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). I am grateful to the FrameNet team (Charles Fillmore, Collin Baker, Michael Ellsworth, Josef Ruppenhofer) and its visitors (Kyoko Ohara, Jan Scheffczyk, Carlos Subirats) for their support. I owe the original idea for this project to Seelbach’s (2001) and Gross's (2002) work on the lexicography of football language in the lexicon grammar framework. <?page no="15"?> 12 general architecture of the resource. Section 4 then demonstrates how the resource is presented to users on a website. Section 5, finally, sketches some plans for future developments. This paper can only give a brief overview of the Kicktionary and the ideas behind it. The interested reader is referred to Schmidt (forthcoming) for a more comprehensive account of the lexicographic analysis of football language and the challenges it poses to frame semantic theory. The more practical matters, on the other hand, are of course best studied by a look at the Kicktionary website itself (www.kicktionary.de). 2. Linguistic background 2.1. Scenes and frames in football Frame Semantics, as defined and developed by Fillmore (e.g. Fillmore 1977 and Fillmore e.a. 2003), is a means of relating linguistic items to one another through knowledge about prototypical event structures. The entities in which this knowledge is represented are called scenes and frames. The domain of football is very well suited to illustrate and apply frame semantic theory. As an example, consider the following set of sentences: 1a. [Zahovaiko] OPPONENT_PLAYER challenged [Manou Schauls] PLAYER_WITH_BALL [in the penalty area] AREA . 1b. [He] PLAYER_WITH_BALL turned inside to take on [Roma] OPPONENT_PLAYER and finish with his left foot from close range. 1c. [Hector Font] PLAYER_WITH_BALL tried to nutmeg [Ioannis Skopelitis] OPPONENT_PLAYER . 1d. [Ronaldo] OPPONENT_PLAYER dispossessed [Wisla goalkeeper Radoslaw Majdan] PLAYER_WITH_BALL [on the edge of the box] AREA . What the words challenge, take on, nutmeg and dispossess in these examples have in common is that they all apply to the same prototypical situation in a football match, namely a one-on-one situation. A general description of this situation could look as follows: a player in possession of the ball ( PLAYER _ WITH _ BALL ) is attacked by an opponent ( OPPONENT _ PLAYER ) at some location ( AREA ) on the field. The outcome of the situation is that the PLAYER _ WITH _ BALL either keeps or loses possession of the ball. The words differ, however, in the perspective they put on this event. Thus, in (1a) and (1b), the temporal focus is on the event itself, while (1c) and (1d) relate the event from the perspective of its outcome. Similarly, (1a) and (1d) foreground the point of view of the opponent player, while (1b) and (1c) focus on the player in possession of the ball. In frame semantics, such a prototypical event is called a scene; the different ways of taking a perspective on it are called frames; the actors and props taking part in the scene and frames are called frame elements; and the linguistic means used to describe scenes and frames (which, in Fillmore’s terminology, “evoke” a frame) are called lexical units (LUs). <?page no="16"?> 13 Usually, a frame contains more than one lexical unit. Thus, just like the LU nutmeg, the LUs beat, outstrip or sidestep describe the successful outcome of a one-onone situation from the perspective of the player with the ball. All these LUs are therefore assigned to the same frame ‘Beat’. Likewise, the verbal LU tackle and the nominal LU sliding tackle share their perspective on the one-on-one scene with the verb challenge. These LUs are therefore all assigned to the same frame ‘Challenge’. This latter case also shows that frames can accommodate lexical units from different parts of speech. Furthermore, scenes and frames are not language specific. It can be expected that a speaker of German has the same or very similar knowledge about prototypical events of a football match and of ways of taking a perspective on them as a speaker of English. When it comes to constructing a multilingual dictionary, frames can therefore be used to group meaningful lexical units from different languages. Thus the German verb tunnel and the French verb mystifier exhibit the same scene-and-frame characteristics as the English verbs nutmeg, beat, outstrip and sidestep: 2a. [Ailton] PLAYER_WITH_BALL tunnelte [Chris] OPPONENT_PLAYER und spielte Klasnic frei. 2b. [Giggs] PLAYER_WITH_BALL lui répondait en mystifiant [deux défenseurs] OPPONENT_PLAYER . All of these lexical units (and, potentially, LUs from an arbitrary number of other languages) can therefore be assigned to the same frame. 2.2. Semantic relations Scenes and frames are a very helpful means of structuring a domain vocabulary according to onomasiological criteria. They group lexical units with similar meanings and lexical units which denote different aspects or different variants of the same concept and thus create a structure which should be transparent to and exploitable by a dictionary user. However, a scenes-and-frame structure on its own fails to cater for a number of more basic tasks which a dictionary should fulfil: it does not tell the users which lexical units are actually synonymous and which are in a more complex semantic relation to one another. In the multilingual case, it also fails to provide the user with translation equivalents of a given lexical unit. As an example, consider the following list of lexical units, all of which are members of the ‘Shot’ frame in the ‘Shot’ scene (i.e. they all describe a shot from the shooter’s point of view): 3a. shot, drive, thunderbolt, volley, bicycle kick, overhead kick, header, diving header 3b. Schuss, Torschuss, Hammer, Volley, Direktabnahme, Fallrückzieher, Kopfball, Kopfstoß, Flugkopfball, Kopfballtorpedo 3c. tir, frappe, boulet de canon, vollée, retourné, tête, coup de tête, tête plongeante Among others, the following semantic relations can be established between individual members of this frame: • The LUs Kopfball (head ball) and Kopfstoß (head kick) are synonymous, as are bicycle kick and overhead kick, as well as tête (head) and coup de tête (head kick). <?page no="17"?> 14 • A thunderbolt is a special kind of shot, specifically, a very powerful one. The same hyponymy relation holds between the German LUs Hammer (hammer) and Schuss (shot) and the French LUs boulet de canon (cannon ball) and tir (shot). • The German LU Volley and the French LU vollée are both translation equivalents of the English LU volley. Likewise, Fallrückzieher and retourné are translation equivalents for both bicycle kick and overhead kick. The WordNet project (Fellbaum 1990) has developed methods for representing such semantic relations in a network-like structure. The basic unit of a WordNet is a synset, i.e. a set of synonymous lexical units. In the Kicktionary, this concept is extended to include not only synonymy in one language, but also translation equivalence between different languages. The set {bicycle kick; overhead kick / Fallrückzieher / retourné} is an example of such a multilingual synset. Other semantic relations like hyponymy/ hypernymy, holonymy/ metonymy and troponymy are then represented not as assignments between individual lexical units, but as relationships holding between two synsets. For example, a hyponymy relation holds between {thunderbolt / Hammer / boulet de canon} and {shot; drive / Schuss / tir; frappe}. Since semantic relations are transitive (if a relation holds between A and B as well as B and C, it will necessarily also hold between A and C), they can be used to construct hierarchies of synsets. The following is an example of such a concept hierarchy constructed on the basis of the hyponymy/ hypernymy relation (LUs on a lower level are hyponyms of LUs on a higher level): 4. {player / Spieler / joueur} {goalkeeper; custodian / Torhüter; Torwart / gardien } {defender / Verteidiger; Abwehrspieler / arrière; défenseur} {central defender / Innenverteidiger / défenseur central} {sweeper / Abräumer / } 3. Constructing the Kicktionary The Kicktionary was constructed on the basis of a corpus of football match reports from specialised websites. English, French and German texts were taken from the UEFA website (www.uefa.com). For German, additional material was acquired from the online edition of the Kicker magazine (www.kicker.de); a small number of transcribed radio commentaries (from the NDR and SWR broadcasting stations) were also added to the corpus. Table 1 gives an overview of the corpus. Language Source # texts # words Mode English uefa.com 535 ca. 230,000 written French uefa.com 482 ca. 240,000 written German uefa.com 486 ca. 200,000 written German kicker.de 1,242 ca. 700,000 written German German Radio 9 ca. 10,000 spoken Table 1: Details of the Kicktionary corpus <?page no="18"?> 15 Candidates for lexical units were initially selected from a wordlist of the whole corpus without considering their membership in a specific frame or scene. Only in a later stage of the analysis, when a relatively stable scenes-and-frames hierarchy had been established, was the choice of new lexical units guided more directly by the existing structure of the resource. This manner of proceeding was intended to ensure that the scenes-and-frames hierarchy evolves on the basis of an empirical process rather than predetermining the empirical analysis by an ‘introspective’ postulation of frames which are then to be ‘filled’ with lexical material. The assignment of lexical units to synsets and the analysis of semantic relations between synsets were done only after the scenesand-frames analysis had been more or less completed. The analysis was carried out with the help of a combined concordancing and annotation tool. For each lexical unit, a KWIC concordance was first created. Suitable example sentences were then selected from this concordance, and the lexical units in these sentences, as well as the frame elements, were marked and annotated with appropriate labels. Example 5 shows different annotations for the lexical unit pass. Note how these examples document different options for realizing frame elements with the LU - the ‘recipient’ frame element is realized in 5a and 5c, but not in 5b, which has the ‘ball’ and ‘target’ frame elements instead; the prepositional phrase which describes the ‘recipient’ frame element is headed by ‘to’ in 5a, but by ‘for’ in 5c, and so on: 5a. After just three minutes, [veteran striker Gert Verheyen] PASSER […] passed [to team-mate Rune Lange] RECIPIENT . [79240 / p3] 5b. […] and with three minutes remaining [substitute Marcelo Zalayeta] PASSER passed [the ball] BALL [into the middle] TARGET where the unmarked Trezeguet made it 4-1. [79345 / p7] 5c. [He] PASSER then passed [for Zé Roberto] RECIPIENT to increase their lead […]. [1077165 / p2] Regarding the cross-lingual part of the analysis, the partly parallel nature of the corpus could be exploited - for about half of the texts from the UEFA website, it was possible to automatically detect that they are direct translations of one another and to establish a cross-lingual alignment of these translations on the paragraph level. During the analysis, this alignment could then be used to discover and compare translation equivalents. The result of this process is a lexical resource whose basic entity is the lexical unit together with a set of annotated example sentences, each of which can be reconnected to the corpus from which is was extracted. Two structures are built on top of the list of LUs: on the one hand, each LU is assigned to a frame, and each frame becomes part of a scene. On the other hand, the list of LUs is partitioned into synsets, and synsets are related to one another via semantic relations, yielding a number of concept hierarchies. The scenes-and-frames hierarchy and the concept hierarchies are thus based on the same lexical material, but are otherwise independent of one another. The Kicktionary in its present state contains altogether 1926 lexical units (599 English, 792 German, 535 French), with a total of 8164 example sentences. A total of 16 scenes were defined consisting of altogether 104 frames. The LUs were partitioned into 552 synsets, and these synsets are organised in 36 different concept hierarchies. <?page no="19"?> 16 4. Presenting the Kicktionary Since the Kicktionary is mainly intended as a lexicographic resource for human users, great attention was paid to an adequate, user-friendly presentation of lexical units and their structural organisation. The resource is presented as a website on www.kicktionary.de. 2 Figure 1: Homepage of www.kicktionary.de 4.1. Presentation of lexical units Figure 2 depicts an exemplary entry for the lexical unit bicycle kick. The entry starts by indicating the lexical unit’s scene and frame assignment, followed by a list of frame elements which were encountered with the LU. After this, the annotated example sentences are listed in two different forms - once as full text and once in a schematic overview which is intended to facilitate the discovery of regularities with respect to the realisation of frame elements. Below the example sentences, other synset members (i.e. synonymous lexical units and translation equivalents) are given as well as superordinate synsets with hypernyms or holonyms. To support dictionary navigation, each component of this presentation is hyperlinked to the corresponding other parts of the resource. For instance, clicking on the name of the scene will take the user to a description of that scene, and clicking on a synonym will display the corresponding entry. Likewise, examples are linked to the corpus text from which they were taken, and the synsets are linked to a presentation of the corresponding concept hierarchies. 2 The site is password-protected. Interested users can request a free account to view the data. <?page no="20"?> 17 Figure 2: Presentation of the LU bicycle kick and its examples 4.2. Presentation of scenes As explained above, a scene, by definition, corresponds to a kind of knowledge which is not (or not exclusively) linguistic in nature. From the point of view of dictionary design, this means that a textual description, a short film or a schematic diagram may all be equally adequate representations of a scene. In fact, if one is interested in using scenes as language-independent entities in the organization of a multilingual vocabulary, there are even good reasons to prefer non-linguistic forms of presenting a scene over linguistic ones - scenes can thus become a common point of reference for dictionary users with different language backgrounds. The Kicktionary therefore illustrates most scenes with one or more schematic diagrams such as the following one from the ‘Shot’ scene: Figure 3: A diagram illustrating the ‘Shot’ scene <?page no="21"?> 18 This graphic information is usually supplemented with a prose description of the scene which lists the frame elements, explains their roles in the action, and sketches the typical course of events in the scene. After the scene is explained in this way, the user is given links to the various corresponding frames which, in turn, refer to the presentation of individual lexical units as described above. The Shot scene is centred around the event of a player directing the ball to a target on the field. Typically, the target is the opponent's goal, and the shot is carried out with the intention of scoring a goal. The main protagonist of the scene is the SHOOTER . Using a PART OF HIS BODY , the shooter directs the BALL towards the opponent's goal. The ball moves from the SOURCE location on the field along a PATH to a TARGET location. In some cases, the MOVING BALL (typically a pass from a team-mate) that brought the shooter into a position to carry out the shot can be mentioned. Sometimes, a shot is construed as the final stage of a MOVE by the shooter's team. The frame Shot contains LUs which describe a shot from the shooter's point of view. The Finish frame contains LUs that construe a shot as the last stage of a move by the shooter's team. […] Figure 4: A textual description of the ‘Shot’ scene 4.3. Other elements of the presentation In addition to the information outlined above, the web version of the Kicktionary provides a separate visualisation of the organisation of LUs into hierarchies of synsets. There is a two-way link between these representations and the representations of individual LUs so that a user can navigate from a given LU to one of its hyponyms or co-hyponyms via such a hierarchy, as illustrated in Figure 5. Figure 5: Presentation of the ‘Individual_Actors’ concept hierarchy <?page no="22"?> 19 The Kicktionary also provides a full-text display of the corpus texts, which can be accessed via the link provided in the example section of the LU presentation (see Figure 2 above). This allows users to study the larger context in which the annotated example sentences appear. Finally, several means for top-level navigation provide the user with points of entry to explore the full list of LUs and their various forms of organisation. For top-down access, the user can either start with an overview of scenes and frames or with a list of concept hierarchies. For bottom-up access to the Kicktionary, a simple alphabetical list of LUs, separated by language, is provided. Alternatively, users can start with an annotated parallel text in which occurrences of LUs are linked to the respective entries in the resource, as is shown in Figure 6. English text German text French text Barcelona glee in Glasgow Tuesday , 14 September 2004 Barcelona mit historischem Sieg Dienstag , 14. September 2004 Le Barça jubile à Glasgow Mardi , 14 septembre 2004 By Alex O ' Henley at Celtic Park Von Alex O ' Henley aus dem Celtic Park Par Alex O ' Henley à Celtic Park FC Barcelona became the first visiting team to win a UEFA Champions League match at Celtic FC as goals from Deco, Ludovic Giuly and the homecoming Henrik Larsson secured maximum points in their Group F opener . Der FC Barcelona hat als erste Mannschaft ein UEFA Champions League-Spiel bei Celtic FC gewonnen. Beim 3: 1-Erfolg im Celtic Park trafen Deco, Ludovic Giuly und “Heimkehrer” Henrik Larsson und sicherten so den Katalanen zum Auftakt in der Gruppe F drei Punkte. Le FC Barcelona est la première équipe à remporter un match d'UEFA Champions League à Celtic Park. Deco, Ludovic Giuly et Henrik Larsson, qui effectuait son grand retour, ont marqué et offrent les trois points au Barça dans le Groupe F. Larsson clincher Entscheidung durch Larsson Larsson buteur Larsson's goal, on his return to the club where he scored 242 goals in a seven-year spell, sealed a victory which had looked in doubt after Chris Sutton grabbed a dramatic equaliser for Celtic just short of the hour mark . Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard had named Larsson as a substitute with Brazilian ace Ronaldinho coming in to form a front three with Ludovic Giuly and Samuel Eto ' o. Larssons Tor gegen seinen ehemaligen Verein, für den er in sieben Jahren 242 Mal getroffen hatte, sorgte für die endgültige Entscheidung. Zwischendurch nahm die Partie dramatische Züge an, als nach etwa einer Stunde Chris Sutton der umjubelte Ausgleich gelang. Barcelonas Trainer Frank Rijkaard hatte Larsson zunächst nur auf die Ersatzbank gesetzt, um im Angriff mit dem brasilianischen Star Ronaldinho sowie Ludovic Giuly und Samuel Eto'o zu beginnen. Le but de Larsson , pour son grand retour au club pour lequel il a marqué 242 buts en sept ans , scellait une victoire qui ne semblait pas acquise après l'égalisation de Chris Sutton à l'approche de l'heure de jeu . Le coach du Barça , Frank Rijkaard, décidait de reléguer Larsson sur le banc des remplaçants, alors que le prodige brésilien Ronaldinho faisait son entrée pour former un trio de tête avec Ludovic Giuly et Samuel Eto'o. Figure 6: An annotated parallel text, linked to the lexical resource 5. Outlook At this point in time, the Kicktionary is complete in the sense that a reasonably large 3 number of LUs from the football domain have been analysed and integrated into the described architecture. It is also complete in the sense that this architecture is accessible via a website. There are, however, various ways in which it could be improved and extended. First, an extension of the corpus is likely to uncover new LUs, and a larger corpus could be used to increase the number of annotated examples for existing LUs. In both cases, the additional material may make it necessary to remodel parts of the scenes-and-frames hierarchy and parts of the concept hierarchies. Further text materials from the UEFA website have been acquired for this purpose and are presently being processed. Second, user feedback for the Kicktionary website should make it possible to evaluate the quality of the resource and its presentation. One possible way of improving 3 “Reasonably large” meaning that a) the number of lexical units for each language is considerably higher in the Kicktionary than in comparable printed dictionaries (e.g. Y ld r im 2006, Colombo et al. 2006) and that b) a further analysis of the corpus would turn up no or very few additional LUs. <?page no="23"?> 20 the presentation might be the inclusion of additional films and pictures into the description of scenes. Third, the existing architecture, together with the concordancing and annotation tool developed for the analysis, should make it relatively easy to supplement the Kicktionary with data from other languages. Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese corpus material is available for lexicographers interested in constructing versions for these languages. Finally, I think that the Kicktionary could be regarded as a promising test case for the development and application of methods for a collaborative creation of specialized multilingual lexical resources. This is so because (1) football is a welldelimited special domain with a large, but manageably-sized vocabulary, and (2) contrary to many other specialized areas, it is not too difficult to find ‘experts’ who are competent users of that vocabulary (in different languages) and who may be able and willing to contribute to such a collaborative effort either as lexicographers or as evaluators of the resulting resource. 4 First steps towards a client-server architecture in which dictionary creators and dictionary users can work together to construct an improved version of the Kicktionary have already been taken. References Bisang, Walter / Schmidt, Maria G. (eds.) (2001): Philologica et Linguistica. Historia, Pluralitas, Universitas. Festschrift für Helmut Humbach zum 80. Geburtstag am 4. Dezember 2001. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier Boas, Hans Christian (ed.) (forthcoming): Multilingual FrameNets. New York: De Gruyter Colombo, Roberta / Heimeroth, Klaus / Humbert, Olivier / Jackson, Michael / Kohl, Frank / Ràfols, Josep (2006): PONS Fußballwörterbuch. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag Fellbaum, Christiane (1990): English verbs as a semantic net. In: Miller et al., 278-301 Fillmore, Charles J. (1977): Scenes-and-frames semantics. In: Zampolli, Antonio (ed.): Fundamental studies in computer science, No. 59, North Holland Publishing, 55-88 Fillmore, Charles J. / Johnson, Christopher / Petruck, Miriam R.L. (2003): Background to Framenet. In: International Journal of Lexicography 16/ 3, 235-250 Gross, Gaston (2002): Comment décrire une langue de spécialité? In: Cahiers de lexicologie 80, 179-200 Miller, G. A. et al. (1990): WordNet - an online lexical database. (= International Journal of Lexicology 3/ 4) Seelbach, Dieter (2001): Das kleine multilinguale Fußball-Lexikon. In: Schmidt / Bisang, 323-350 Schmidt, Maria G. / Bisang, Walter (eds.) (2001): Philologica et Linguistica. Historia, Pluralitas, Universitas. Festschrift für Helmut Humbach zum 80. Geburtstag am 4. Dezember 2001. Trier : WVT Schmidt, Thomas (forthcoming): The Kicktionary - A multilingual lexical resource of football language. To appear in: Boas Y ld r m, Kaya (2006): Fußballwörterbuch in 7 Sprachen (Kauderwelsch 203). Osnabrück: Reise-Know- How Verlag Peter Rump Zampolli, Antonio (ed.) (1977): Linguistic structures processing (Fundamental studies in computer science 59), Amsterdam / New York: North Holland Publishing 4 Feedback so far shows that the Kicktionary seems indeed capable of getting both linguists and laymen interested in lexicography. <?page no="24"?> 21 Dr. Thomas Schmidt Sonderforschungsbereich 538 ‚Mehrsprachigkeit’ Universität Hamburg Max Brauer-Allee 60 D-22765 Hamburg e-mail: thomas.schmidt@uni-hamburg.de http: / / www.kicktionary.de <?page no="26"?> 23 KONRAD SZCZESNIAK AND MARCUS CALLIES “EUROPAMEISTERSCHAFT ZU ERDRIBBELN”: ‘MANNER OF OBTAINMENT’ CONSTRUCTIONS IN SPORTS REPORTING The present paper focuses on the syntactic and semantic properties of a family of constructions which carry an idiomatic interpretation of ‘obtainment’ effected in a specified manner. A constructional analysis of such forms will be proposed, as their interpretation cannot be accounted for in terms of the individual conceptual structures of the lexical items composing the sentence. Based on a multilingual corpus of football commentaries, this paper will investigate various types of particles and prefixes in verbs like herausspielen or ermogeln. It is suggested that, despite some minor semantic differences, their syntactic effects are similar across particle categories and across languages like German, Polish, and English. A cross-linguistic correlation will be shown to hold between a language’s ability to express event conflation (Talmy 1985, 2000) and the occurrence of some form of the construction in that language. This will be taken as an indication of a resultative nature of those types of directional phrases which involve the semantic interpretation of boundary crossing. 1. Introduction Sport is not about winning; it is all about ‘obtaining’. Whether literally or metaphorically, competition is thought of as an event where teams collect points or gain an advantage. Even a draw, when it is welcome, is said to be secured or achieved. Lexically, the act of ‘obtaining’ or winning can be conveyed either by specific verbs (score, shoot, salvage, win, gain) or by complex predicates such as particle verbs, representing productive patterns which are best analysed as autonomous constructions. This paper will discuss the latter, with special focus on verbal structures exemplified in (1). It will be shown that in German, English, Polish, and other languages, such structures bear striking similarities in what meanings they serve to convey and how they behave syntactically. 1a. Dietz und Roth ergrätschen jeden Ball [...]. (German) 1b. [...] die Copa Americana-Teilnahme zu erbolzen. (German) 1c. The team has fouled their way to victory. (English) 1d. Smolarek wydryblowa gola. (Polish) Smolarek wydribbled goal. ‘Smolarek scored a goal by dribbling.’ Of special interest here is the semantic structure of the event described by the verbs and their objects in (1). In each of the examples, the entity realized as the object is ‘obtained’ in a manner specified by the verb. In (1a), the ball is ‘obtained’ by tackling the opposing player; in (1b), the Copa Americana is won through a consistent playing style which involves ‘slamming’ the ball, etc. What needs to be stressed is that this <?page no="27"?> 24 semantic pattern is replicable in any sentence exemplifying the construction in question - it is based on the same two semantic components, namely the elements of ‘obtainment’ and manner. These regularities make it possible to consider the above complex predicates as examples of a construction in the sense of Construction Grammar - that is, a syntactic construction which conveys a meaning expressed on top of the meanings of the individual words used in that construction, or a conventional, stored pairing of form and semantic meaning or discourse function whose form/ function is not strictly predictable from its component parts (Goldberg 2003, Goldberg / Casenhiser 2006). The type of constructions under consideration will be referred to as ‘Manner of Obtainment Constructions’ (MOCs). The constitution of the MOCs is analogous to Talmy’s (1985) decomposition of co-event conflations of manner and directional movement. Talmy argues that in examples like (2), there is a deep unexpressed verb MOVE conflated with a manner of motion expressed overtly. 2a. The craft floated 2 into the hangar on a cushion of air. (example 10 in Talmy 1985) 2b. The craft MOVED WITH-THE-MANNER-OF [floating 1 ] into the hangar on a cushion of air. Thus, there are actually two verbs ‘float’. Float 1 is the “pure” version of the verb, specifying only the manner of motion, and float 2 is a verb of directed motion MOVE conflated with the manner of floating. Talmy lists a number of deep verbs which can be conflated with a manner, including an agentive A MOVE, which will be relevant for the present discussion of ‘obtainment’. The deep verb A MOVE differs from MOVE in that it is transitive and involves an extra argument; for example, it is found in situations where an agent moves a theme into or out of a location, as in (3). 3. Smith slid the ball into an open goal. Smith A MOVED the ball into an open goal WITH-THE-MANNER-OF sliding the ball. Talmy observes that, although the pairing of manner with motion seems a natural linguistic operation to fill an obvious expressive need, not all languages provide this option. In Romance languages, for example, if a speaker wishes to convey information about both manner and directed motion, these two elements would have to be expressed separately. In Spanish, (4a) would be grammatical, although in most contexts manner is normally left out. But Spanish does not allow for conflating manner with directed motion as in (4b). 4a. El balón entró en la meta rodando. The ball entered in the goal rolling. ‘The ball entered the goal by rolling.’ 4b. *El balón rodó en la meta. The ball rolled in the goal. ‘The ball rolled into the goal.’ What is interesting here is that a correlation seems to hold between a language’s potential for co-event conflation and the occurrence of the MOCs. If a language <?page no="28"?> 25 conflates manner and directed motion, it is also likely to have the MOCs as part of its expressive inventory and, conversely, if a language does not have manner conflation, the MOCs will not be found in it either. It will be argued that the MOCs use the ‘manner conflation’ based on the verb A MOVE. Although a deep verb ‘OBTAIN’ can be hypothesized for all such examples, the ‘obtainment’ effect is achieved through a directional movement metaphor, and the verb ‘OBTAIN’ is really an implicit interpretation of A MOVE. This point will be discussed in more detail in section 2. The interpretation of ‘obtainment’ is an integral semantic part of the meaning in the above examples. Sentence (5a) does not mean ‘fought in order to score a goal’, but ‘managed to score a goal by fighting’. 5a. Odonkor erkämpfte sich ein Tor. Odonkor *erfought himself a goal. ‘Odonkor fought his way to a goal’ It is quite clear that the scoring is not a mere implicature, but a true entailment, because it passes the test of non-cancelability. The ‘obtainment’ reading cannot be cancelled by saying (5b). 5b. *Odonkor erkämpfte sich ein Tor, aber es gelang ihm keins. ‘Odonkor fought his way to a goal, but he didn’t succeed.’ For comparison, where ‘obtainment’ is not entailed, but merely implicated, it is possible to cancel it, as in (5c). 5c. Odonkor arbeitete und kämpfte für ein Tor, aber es gelang ihm keins. ‘Odonkor worked and fought for a goal, but he didn’t succeed.’ 2. Constructions that express ‘manner of obtainment’ There are a number of formal lexical realizations of ‘manner of obtainment’ available. In German, instantiations of the construction include the prefixes er-, ein-, herausand ab-. In English, the ‘obtainment’ interpretation is also conveyed by several particle verbs and more complex structures such as the X’s way construction. It will be assumed here that all these structures, including the X’s way construction and verb-particle constructions in other languages, are instances of the MOCs. Although the German prefixes are not interchangeable with one another and the meanings they serve to convey are not always equivalent to the English X’s way construction, they seem to share their basic selection criteria. The X’s way construction has been shown to select unergative and transitive verbs, but not unaccusative verbs (Levin 1993: 99). Of course, the MOCs are not confined to verbs typically found in the language of football such as einköpfen or abstauben. They normally take agentive verbs of manner (sprinten, bolzen) or verbs naming specific activities (mogeln, boxen, schlagen, bowlen, bluffen, joggen, skaten). <?page no="29"?> 26 2.1. Verbs participating in prefixed MOCs - A cline Verbs which participate in one type of MOCs − prefixed verbs − can be represented as forming a cline from fairly established items, used frequently in speech and writing, to completely new verbs which are invented on the spot and recognized by most language users as creative formations. At the established end of the cline of verbs carrying the ‘obtainment’ interpretation, there are e.g. erforms which do not possess an unprefixed base, such as ergattern or erobern (forms like gattern or obern do not exist in German). In (6), the ‘obtainment’ interpretation is conveyed by the verb, but it is retrieved from the lexicon and not computed online from the constituent parts of the verb. (The following examples like most examples in this paper come from Kicktionary, a multilingual electronic dictionary of the language of football; see Schmidt 2006.) 6a. In der Schlussphase hätte Rosenborg fast doch noch einen überaus wichtigen Punkt ergattert, […] (KICKTIONARY) 6b. Christian Poulsen eroberte sich den Ball im Mittelfeld, […] (KICKTIONARY) Next on the cline are seemingly compositional erverbs such as erhalten, exemplified in (7). However, verbs like erhalten are problematic because, although bases like halten do exist, their semantic contribution to the ‘obtainment’ interpretation is not very straightforward and cannot be explained in terms of any regular conflational pattern. 7. 30 Minuten vor dem Spielende kam Mittelfeldspieler Ayhan Akman von Galatasaray SK für Fatih Tekke ins Spiel, wodurch Bastürk mehr Freiheiten in der Offensive erhielt. (KICKTIONARY) Next come verbs such as erarbeiten, erkämpfen, or erzwingen, which are listed in dictionaries as independent lexical entries; these are fairly regular in the sense that their meaning can be captured in terms of a conflational pattern ‘obtain as a result of V-ing’. Thus, example (8) could be paraphrased as ‘VfL getting their first opportunity as a result of working hard to get it.’ 8. Die erste Chance erarbeitete sich der VfL nach nur drei Minuten. (KICKTIONARY) The cline is then occupied by verbs of various degrees of frequency which are not normally listed in dictionaries, such as erfoulen, erkicken, erbolzen, or erdribbeln. These verbs regularly follow the above-mentioned conflational pattern. 9a. (Der Österreicher Denis Berger) (h)at sich einen Stammplatz in Kassel erdribbelt. (http: / / www.kicker.de/ news/ fussball/ regionalliga/ sued/ artikel/ 145663? view=print) 9b. Der kantige kroatische Nationalspieler erfoulte sich am Sonntag gegen Bremen seinen dritten Platzverweis in zwei Monaten. (http: / / www.tagesspiegel.de/ sport/ ; art272,522218) 9c. Österreich top: Platz zwei hinter Finnland erkickt. (http: / / www.networld.at/ index.html? / articles/ 0721/ 20/ 173856.shtml) 9d. Am Ende roch es nach einem typischen Bayern-Sieg, doch Wolfsburg hielt dem Schlusssturm des Rekordmeisters stand und ermogelte sich einen Punkt. (http: / / www.fussballdaten.de/ news/ 1739/ ) <?page no="30"?> 27 These last examples show that the cline is open-ended. There is no reason why nonce verbs could not be formed on the basis of the pattern. In principle, any verb can participate in the construction as long as it meets the MOCs’ selection criteria. 2.2. Agents and recipients Given its ‘obtainment’ interpretation, the MOCs involve the presence of a recipient. Most often, the agent and the recipient are both denoted by the subject, in which case an extra pronoun is used. In German and Polish, it is the reflexive dative, respectively sich and sobie. In both languages, the dative is optional, although it is likely to accompany the verb whenever the agent and the recipient are expressed by the subject. 10a. Kurz nach Pause (sic! ) erzwang (sich) die Alemannia zwei weitere Möglichkeiten. (KICKTIONARY) 10b. Napastnicy Legii Warszawa wypracowali (sobie) kolejnego gola. It is of course not used if the recipient is another participant, such as seiner Mannschaft or für ihre Mannschaft. 3. The MOCs as constructions This section will focus on the syntax of the MOCs and their constructional nature as used to convey ‘obtainment’ meanings in the language of football as well as in more general domains other than sports reporting. We will also review some current knowledge of the resultative construction to point out a number of features which it shares with the MOCs. The above discussion of prefixed verbs in German may have made it seem as though their meaning is the sum of the meanings of the verb and its prefix. Upon closer inspection, however, the meaning we would be tempted to attribute to the verb alone turns out to originate differently, and we will now review reasons why the meaning of ‘obtainment’ is not fully predictable from the component parts of the verb. There will also be reasons to classify the MOCs as constructions with a semantic contribution, which will equally apply to highly frequent expressions, even if fully compositional/ predicable (Goldberg 2003: 220). An MOC is idiomatic in the sense that its meaning could not be figured out in an “uninformative context” (Nunberg et al. 1994). The MOCs are regarded as idioms of decoding, as “expression[s] which the language users couldn’t interpret with complete confidence if they hadn’t learned [them] separately” (Fillmore et al. 1988: 507 following Makkai 1972). Syntax has traditionally been assumed to be separate from semantics, and syntactic constructions have been taken to be devoid of meaning. This generativist assumption was exposed by Jackendoff (1997: 48), who called it “syntactically transparent semantic composition”. Under this assumption, one can account for the meaning composition in sentences only in terms of individual semantic contributions of the lexical items found in those sentences. Recent research in Construction Grammar, however, has shown dozens of cases of grammatical constructions which do not seem to be so neutral toward the semantic composition of a sentence. The MOCs are one <?page no="31"?> 28 example of constructions where some part of the meaning of a sentence is not found in the individual words composing that sentence. None of the lexical items composing MOCs features the semantic element ‘OBTAIN’ or GET; this meaning cannot be attributed to the object noun, the verb, the prefix alone, or even the prefix and the verb combined. If used in a sentence without an object, the prefixed verb in (11) does not carry the idea of ‘obtainment’. 11. *Klose erbolzte. Klose *erhammered. ‘Klose hammered’. It should be stressed that a sentence with an objectless verb erbolzen is not only ungrammatical, but also deprived of the ‘obtainment’ interpretation. By comparison, when the verb put is used without a direct object, a sentence like The boy put on the floor will be ungrammatical, but its ‘putting’ interpretation is preserved. If erbolzen alone can at all evoke an ‘obtainment’ interpretation, it is only when a person makes an association with sentences containing an effected object, and it is questionable whether all native speakers will be able to make that association, especially with ad-hoc and rare erverbs like erfoulen in German or wyfaulowac in Polish. When faced with an objectless wyfaulowac, Polish native speakers cannot provide even an approximate interpretation to the effect of “he ‘obtained’ something by committing a foul, but I don’t know what it was”. It is only when the prefixed verb takes an object that the ‘obtain’ interpretation arises, and that is a problem for mainstream Generative Grammar, as there are no general rules of syntax saying that combining a prefixed verb with an object yields this meaning. The best that can be achieved by way of general principles is the direct causation interpretation (directness effect) or wholeness interpretation (holism constraint) associated with direct objects (Pinker 1989: 66). But unlike these, the ‘obtainment’ interpretation is a more local semantic effect, and as such this meaning can only be imputed to the unique operation of the MOCs. It is thus an idiomatic construction in the sense of Fillmore et al. (1988), who suggest it is “something a language user could fail to know while knowing everything else in the language” (1988: 504). 4. The mechanisms behind the ‘obtainment’ meaning 4.1. MOCs as resultative constructions To appreciate the resultative nature of the MOCs, it is useful to start by looking at the behaviour of one of its English instantiations, the X’s way construction. Although the syntactic status of the X’s way construction is still uncertain, some researchers, most notably Levin, suggest that “it shows certain resemblances in its distribution and its syntax to the resultative construction and might be subsumed under that construction” (1993: 99). One such resemblance is that the X’s way construction serves to express a resulting location or state. In fact, the inherent relation between the expression of a path and a change of state is so strong that in some resultative sentences it is hard to <?page no="32"?> 29 dissociate the two readings. In (12), a large river could be both a location or a final state. 12. The stream broadens into a large river. In the X’s way construction, the resulting state is conceptualized as a final destination reached by performing an activity which serves as a way towards that final destination, as in (13). 13a. After a rough first game, the Cougars found their rhythm in the second and swept their way to the win. (http: / / www.byucougars.com/ Filing.jsp? ID=6188) 13b. Man U just fouled their way to a 7-1 pasting. (http: / / blogs.guardian.co.uk/ sport/ 2007/ 04/ 10/ blip_or_trend.html) 13c. Portugal dove, taunted and cried their way to the win. (http: / / www.cbc.ca/ sports/ worldcup2006/ yourview/ 2006/ 07/ your_view_portugal_vs_france_w_1.html) It could further be ventured that the resulting locative and state readings are not only related, but that the latter reading is built on a spatial/ locative syntax. Ettlinger (in print) shows that, when a resultative contains a prepositional phrase, the preposition must be directional, not locative: 14. The bull broke the china into/ *in pieces. (Example 18c in Ettlinger in print) A locative preposition is allowed only if the verb is inherently directional. In other words, the resultative construction is based on the metaphor of directed motion. This characteristic also holds for the MOCs. The phrase one’s way obviously expresses a path in English, the prefix wyis directional in Polish, and so is erin German. Another distinctive feature of resultative phrases is that they cannot be duplicated. This is captured by the “Unique Path Constraint” (Goldberg 1991: 368): If an argument X refers to a physical object, then more than one distinct path cannot be predicated of X within a single clause. Thus the sentences in (15) are ungrammatical because they have a pile-up of phrases attached to the object. 15a. * The soldier kicked the door open to his unit. 15b. * The house burned to a crisp to the ground. Non-resultative phrases can be serialized freely: 16a. The soldier kicked the door open on the first floor in a fraction of a second. 16b. The house burned to a crisp in front of our eyes. <?page no="33"?> 30 The Unique Path Constraint also applies to the MOCs. Here, too, no extra resultative path phrase can be added because one path, that of ‘obtainment’, is already attached to the object. 17a. *Kahn erbolzte den Ball zu Klose. 17b. *Borowski arbeitete zu Podolski mehrere Chancen heraus. 4.2. ‘Obtainment’ as a path The assumption that the ‘obtainment’ reading of the MOCs uses the metaphor of directed motion could be taken on trust, based on the observation that such constructions do not allow extra path phrases. But it can be substantiated more directly by examining the morphology of the MOCs. In many languages that have such constructions, ‘manner of obtainment’ is conflated by means of directional markers, be they prepositions, adverbial phrases, prefixes or verbs. For example, in Slovene the equivalent of the German prefix eris the suffix pri-, which expresses ‘bringing in’ or movement ‘to oneself’. This is also the underlying function of the Chinese verb particle lai added to verbs of manner for the ‘obtainment’ interpretation. The Polish wyconveying the meaning of ‘retrieving’ or ‘pulling out’ is similar to the Estonian adverbial välja. Although at first look the German erdoes not seem to be a directional prefix, it should not be eliminated from the sample prematurely. The prefix eris historically related to the Old German uz-, usand urprefixes, all of which convey the meanings of ‘aus, hinaus, hinauf’ (Krahe 1967: 39). To be sure, in German the directionality is less straightforward than it is in Polish or other languages with the MOCs. It is certainly not the case that native speakers are aware of the directional frame in erverbs, but it nevertheless serves as a source domain for the ‘obtainment’ reading. 5. Complex event structure 5.1. In other languages If a language allows manner conflation, it is also likely to have the MOCs in its inventory of constructions. Although a comprehensive list of languages allowing or disallowing these conflations has not been compiled yet, those that have been studied seem to confirm a strong correlation. To take just a few random examples of languages studied by Slobin (2003), Chinese, all Slavic, Finno-Ugric, and most Germanic languages have some form of conflating manner with the ‘obtainment’ interpretation. On the other hand, languages without manner conflation, such as the Romance, Semitic, Turkic languages as well as Japanese and Basque, do not have an equivalent of erverbal formations. Why should this cross-linguistic correlation be true? It is our hypothesis that manner conflation and the MOC are driven by a common mechanism. That is, whatever their surface disparity, sentences representing both syntactic forms, as in (18), exhibit the same event structure. 18a. Anton Vötter zirkelt den Ball ins rechte Eck. (Manner Conflation) <?page no="34"?> 31 18b. Die Gastgeber erzwangen zwei Ecken in den ersten fünf Minuten. (Manner Obtainment Conflation) In both cases, within one clause a complex event is expressed, where manner is conflated with a qualitative change of state. In (18a), manner combines with directional movement involving a boundary crossing, and in (18b), manner is paired with the resultative reading of ‘obtainment’. Here it should be stressed that manner conflation is not merely about a change of location, but about crossing a boundary, as in entering a specific place or leaving it. The following example illustrates the difference: 19. Owen scampered into the penalty area before dinking the ball over the exposed Carlo Cudicini. (Guardian) Only the first clause is an example of a true boundary-crossing manner conflation: Owen traverses the line separating the penalty area from the surrounding area. What happens to the ball in the second clause is movement over a simple trajectory, but one which does not place the ball in a qualitatively different location. The second clause could be translated freely into languages which block manner conflation. However, in those languages the first clause would have to be rendered using two verbs, namely enter and a manner verb. Although the nature of the above correlation is still not well understood, it could be ventured that the pairing of conflation and the MOCs in some languages has to do with the fact that combining manner and a resultative is a rather delicate operation which languages handle with caution. Many languages (e.g. the Romance languages, Japanese) do not allow it within a single clause; others (including English, German and Polish) do allow it at the clause level, but block it within a verb (Levin / Rappaport Hovav 2006). As a result, in languages blocking the combination, neither manner conflation nor the MOCs are found. In languages which allow the combining within a clause but not within a single verb, one finds manner conflation and the MOCs (but of course, not unprefixed verbs which would convey at the same time a resultative meaning and a manner in which a result was ‘obtained’). These cross-linguistic contingencies not only suggest that conflation and the MOCs both contain a resultative component, but also that the resultative nature of ‘obtainment’ has an element of Slobin’s motion across a boundary. 5.2. The container metaphor The complex event structure of ‘manner of obtainment’ is clear from the morphology of the constructions in different languages discussed in section 4.2 above. In all these languages, there is some marker of change of location involving a boundary-crossing. The question remains why constructions use this event structure, most probably universally, to convey ‘obtainment’. A possible answer is that since in constructions ‘obtainment’ is not expressed directly by means of a specific verb or other morpheme, an alternative option that can be used is a metaphor. In this case, it is the container metaphor. More specifically, this particular metaphor expresses the idea that to take something out of a container (or to put something into a container) is to come to possess it. This ‘obtainment’ reading of the container metaphor is also found in more traditional <?page no="35"?> 32 non-constructional figures of speech such as snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. In Polish, the MOCs use the very same morphology as verbs conveying retrieval across a boundary: 20a. Magik wyciagnal królika z kapelusza. Magician *wypulled rabbit-ACC from hat. ‘The magician pulled a rabbit out of the hat.’ 20b. Zawodnicy wybiegali remis. Players *wyran draw-ACC. ‘The players secured a draw by running around the pitch a lot.’ In both English and German, the container metaphor is clearly visible in verbs accompanied by the particles in, out, up and home in English, and heraus and ein in German, as in fire home, battle out, herausspielen, or einköpfen. The X’s way construction, too, is based on the container metaphor, and it additionally involves the metaphor of the path. Here, ‘obtainment’ is conceptualized as entering or bringing something into a container (just like putting something ‘in the can’ means completing it) or moving up/ forward along a path (despite potential difficulty). 6. Differences with the English translational equivalent The different instantiation of the container metaphor in English, along with a few other differences discussed below, entails some differences in usage. Although the X’s way construction can be used to render in English most meanings conveyed in German or Polish by the MOCs, for reasons of non-analogous argument structure it behaves differently, and there are meanings which are not expressed by means of this construction as felicitously as they are in German or Polish. In these languages, the ‘obtainer’ is an agent and the ‘obtained’ is a theme. 21a. Beckham wydrylowa gola. Beckham *wy-dribbled goal. AGENT THEME. ‘Beckham won a goal by dribbling’. 21b. als Scholes einen Elfmeter herausholte. as Scholes a eleven meter *heraustook. AGENT THEME. ‘as Scholes won his team a penalty.’ In English, the X’s way construction is configured differently, with the ‘obtained’ being expressed as a location, and the ‘obtainer’ as a theme: 22a. Beckham dribbled his way into the box. 22b. Beckham worked his way to several scoring chances. THEME PATH? LOCATION <?page no="36"?> 33 One consequence of this is that, because locations are not open to passivization, the following sentence is not possible in English, whereas its Polish or German translation in the passive voice would be well formed. 23a. *Several scoring chances were worked his way to by Beckham. 23b. Mehrere Torchancen wurden von Beckham erarbeitet. 23c. Okazje strzeleckie zostaly wypracowane przez Beckhama. It is important to rule out alternative causes behind the incorrectness of (23). Surely, the reason why this sentence is ungrammatical is not that in the active voice the verb and the object are separated by an extra phrase (24a), for English freely allows such passives as long as the object is a true theme or patient, as in (24b) 24a. Beckham took advantage of the absentmindedness of the defense. 24b. The absentmindedness of the defense was taken advantage of by Beckham. Another difference is that the X’s way construction cannot express ‘obtainment’ in scenarios where the agent and the recipient are two different participants. It can render ‘obtainment’ where the subject is at the same time the agent and recipient. 25a. Odonkor erkämpfte sich ein Tor. Odonkor battled his way to a goal. 25b. Odonkor erkämpfte seiner Manschaft ein Tor. *Odonkor battled his team his way to a goal. 7. Conclusions We have presented an analysis of examples of what we have termed ‘Manner of Obtainment Constructions’. We have argued that instantiations of the MOCs such as edge your way to victory, ein Tor erkicken, or einen entscheidenden Sieg erbolzen, typically found in the language of football, carry an idiomatic meaning of ‘obtainment’ which is entailed by the construction and not by any overt lexical items used. In the MOCs, the ‘obtainment’ reading is expressed along with a manner which is specified overtly by means of a concrete verb. We hope to have demonstrated that, in terms of their syntactic behaviour and semantic composition, the MOCs are similar to event conflation (Talmy 1985, 2000), where, within one clause, manner is expressed alongside directional movement. In fact, the syntactic structure of the MOCs is analogous to that of Talmy’s event conflation in so far as the MOCs, too, involve the simultaneous expression of manner and directional movement, and the ‘obtainment’ interpretation is a consequence of an event structure involving directional movement. A complex event structure associated with directional movement across a boundary (Slobin 2003) calls up the container metaphor, which serves to convey the ‘obtainment’ interpretation. This parallel with event conflation justifies postulating a deep verb ‘OBTAIN’ which is present in the interpretation of the MOCs without being overtly realized as a lexical item. <?page no="37"?> 34 References Aarts, Bas / McMahon, April (eds.) (2006): The handbook of English linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, http: / / www.blackwellreference.com/ subscriber/ tocnode? id=g9781405113823_chunk_g97814051 1382316, 05/ 03/ 2007 Ettlinger, Marc (in print): The syntactic behavior of the resultative phrase: Evidence for a constructional approach. To appear in: Proceedings of 41st Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society . Chicago Linguistics Society: Chicago Fillmore, Charles / Kay, Paul / O’Connor, Mary C. (1988): Regularity and idiomaticity in grammatical constructions: The case of let alone. In: Language 64, 501-538 Gärtner, Hans-Martin / Beck, Sigrid / Eckardt, Regine / Musan, Renate / Stiebels, Barbara (eds.) (2006): Between 40 and 60 puzzles for Krifka: A web festschrift for Manfred Krifka. Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (ZAS), http: / / www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/ 40-60-puzzles-for-krifka, 10/ 02/ 2008 Gentner, Dedre / Goldin-Meadow, Susan (eds.) (2003): Language in mind: Advances in the investigation of language and thought. Cambridge: MIT Press Goldberg, Adele E. (1991): It can’t go down the chimney up: Paths and the English resultative. In: BLS (Berkeley Linguistics Society) 17, 368-378 Goldberg, Adele E. (2003) Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. In: Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7/ 5, 219-224 Goldberg, Adele / Casenhiser, Devin (2006): English constructions. In: Aarts / McMahon Jackendoff, Ray (1997): The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge: MIT Press Krahe, Hans (1967): Germanische Sprachwissenschaft. III: Wortbildungslehre. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter Levin, Beth (1993): English verb classes and alternations: A preliminary investigation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Levin, Beth / Rappaport Hovav, Malka (2006): Constraints on the complexity of verb meaning and VP structure. In: Gärtner et al., http: / / www.zas.gwz-berlin.de/ publications/ 40-60-puzzles-for-krifka / pdf/ levin_and_rappaport.pdf, 10/ 02/ 2008 Makkai, Adam (1972): Idiom structure in English. The Hague: Mouton Nunberg, Geoffrey / Sag, Ivan / Wasow, Thomas (1994): Idioms. In: Language 70, 491-538 Pinker, Steven (1989): Learnability and cognition. Cambridge: MIT Press Schmidt, Thomas (2006) Kicktionary, available at http: / / www.kicktionary.de/ , 10/ 02/ 2008 Shopen, Timothy (ed.) (1985): Language typology and syntactic descriptions. Volume 3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Slobin, Dan I. (2003): Language and thought online: Cognitive consequences of linguistic relativity. In: Gentner / Goldin-Meadow, 157-191 Talmy, Leonard (1985): Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In: Shopen, 57-149 Talmy, Leonard (2000): Toward a cognitive semantics. Volume II. Cambridge: MIT Press Konrad Szczesniak Marcus Callies Uniwersytet Slaski Philipps-Universität Marburg Instytut Jezyka Angielskiego Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Zytnia 10 Wilhelm-Röpke-Str. 6D 41-205 Sosnowiec, Polen 35032 Marburg, Deutschland Tel.: +48-601-143-668 email: callies@staff.uni-marburg.de email: kport@us.edu.pl http: / / www.staff.uni-marburg.de/ ~callies/ http: / / ultra.cto.us.edu.pl/ ~kport/ <?page no="38"?> 35 CHINEDU UCHECHUKWU IGBO VERB ROOTS AND THEIR REALIZATION OF THE ‘ROOT SCHEMA’ WITHIN THE FOOTBALL DOMAIN The ‘newness’ of football within the Igbo-speaking region of South-Eastern Nigeria raises the interesting question of how the language comes to terms with the various activities involved in the game, especially in playing football itself and the emotions it raises. Language and football have not been a major issue in Igbo language studies, in spite of the prominence of football in Nigeria. This paper presents the first attempt at an analysis of specific Igbo verb roots used within football. First of all, the majority of the verb roots of the language are usually not given simple equivalents in Igbo dictionaries (Williamson 1972; Igwe 1999); instead, they are given such equivalents mainly in their combination with nominal or prepositional phrases. This gives rise to a [Verb+NP/ PP] structure. For example: -gbá s ‘run’, -gbá b l ‘kick football; play football’, -gbá égwú ‘dance’. A system of image schema motivation (Lakoff 1987; Johnson 1987) in the form of the ‘Root Schema’ has been confirmed for some verb roots like -gbá, -mà, and -kpá (Uchechukwu 2004, 2005, 2006). The schema has not been related to football at all. The paper explores how the identified Root Schema of these verb roots is productively used in football within the Igbo speech community. Football further strengthens the initial conclusion concerning the image schema motivation of these verb roots. 1. Introduction Although there have been some discussions in Igbo linguistics on the structure and semantics of the Igbo verb roots, these discussions have not been extended to their use within football. This gap needs to be addressed. According to Uchechukwu (2004), the traditional view is that the Igbo verb root is empty. This view was pioneered by Ida Ward, who observed that the verb root gbá, for example, usually combines with different nominal and prepositional phrases to express what in many European languages is realized with one lexical item. Examples of such structures are: -gbá s ‘run’, -gbá égwú ‘dance’, -gbá mír ‘exude water’, -gbá àkwùnà ‘prostitute’, -gbá n’éz ‘lay about’. The author came to the conclusion that the verbal complement of the structures is vague, with the nominal or prepositional phrases providing the meaning of the whole expression (Ward 1936: 129). The entire structure [Verb + NP/ PP] has been described as a “verbal complex” (Emenanj 1975) or “inherent complement verb” (Nwachukwu 1987) in Igbo linguistics, while the nominal or prepositional phrases are described as the ‘inherent complement” to the verb. The traditional view of the ‘emptiness’, ‘vagueness’ or ‘lightness’ of the verbal component of the structure has been extensively explored in various forms over the years (Emenanj 1978; 2005, Nwachukwu 1983a; 1987; Hale / Ihionu / Manfredi 1995). Williamson’s (1972) Igbo-English Dictionary seems to strengthen this position because the lexical semantics of the inherent complements are used to form various sub-sense groups for each verb root. For example, the verb root -gbá has 18 sub-senses, and each sub-sense is determined by the lexical semantics of the specific nouns that fall within the group. <?page no="39"?> 36 What, however, has often been acknowledged but neither addressed nor resolved in the course of examining the [Verb + NP/ PP] structure in Igbo linguistics (Emenanj 1984; walaka 1988) is the simple fact that these verb roots do not just combine with any noun or prepositional phrase. The traditionally assumed emptiness of the verb root cannot explain the fact that the verb restricts the possible NP/ PP it can combine with. For example, a combination of b l ‘football’ with different verb roots yields the following equivalents: 1. -gbá b l ‘kick football’ -má b l ‘throw football’ -kpá b l ‘dribble football’ If, in the above verbal complexes, the verb roots -gbá, -má and -kpá are ‘empty’, ‘light’ or simply ‘dummies’, their inherent complement, b l , should give them the same or similar meanings. There should not be any difference in the activities involved in playing the ball with each one of the verbs. It is also relevant to mention that most of the football commentaries in Nigeria are usually in English. While this has had the aim of reaching the wide multilingual audience within the country, it has not stopped the average native speaker of the Igbo language from speaking about or describing the game in his mother tongue. The consequence is that there is an uninfluenced use of the Igbo verb roots in such a manner that indicates a non-emptiness of these verb roots. For some years now, the image schema approach has been used to address this issue of the emptiness of the Igbo verb root (Uchechukwu 2004, 2005, 2006). The approach indicates that these verb roots are not vague, empty, or dummies. Football, which is indeed a ‘new’ domain within the Igbo-speaking region, is a useful domain for exploring both the kind of meanings given to the verb roots within this domain, as well as the conclusions arising from my earlier image schema approach to the phenomenon. Section 2 summarizes the main points in this approach and the concept of the Root Schema connected with it, while section 3 elaborates on the Root Schema of specific Igbo verb roots and illustrates their individual applications within football. Section 4 forms the summary and conclusion. 2. The Root Schema of Igbo verb roots The concept of the Root Schema arose from the recognition of the Image Schema motivation of specific Igbo verb roots. This section presents a summary of the basic points of the Image Schema approach, explains its application within Igbo language studies, and the connection with the Igbo Root Schema. <?page no="40"?> 37 Image schema has been explained as a condensed and abstract dynamic redescription of perceptual interactions or experiences of human beings that not only function as organizing structures for partially ordering and forming human experiences, but are also modified by concrete human experiences. They are not specific to any sensory modality (Johnson 1987: 29-30; Lakoff, 1987: 453). Image schemas are also seen as being made up of “a small number of parts standing in simple relations” (Johnson 1987: 28). Image schema can be transformed through mental operations that are analogues of spatial operations (Johnson 1987: 25). For example, Lakoff explains the path-focus end-point-focus transformation as when we “follow the path of a moving object until it comes to rest, and then focus on where it is” (Lakoff 1987: 442). The same can also be applied to the movement of an object that has been set in motion by throwing it. The concepts of image schema and schema transformation are most prominent within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics and have been used extensively in the analysis of the English preposition over (Brugman 1983: 22; Lakoff 1987: 434; Tyler & Evans 2003: 86; Kreitzer 1997: 296). It has also been applied in the analysis of the linguistic phenomena in various languages. The application of the concepts in Igbo language studies began with my initial attempt at an image schema analysis of the verb root -gbá (Uchechukwu 2004), followed by the analysis of two other verb roots, -má (Uchechukwu 2005) and -kpá (Uchechukwu 2006). It can be confirmed that the apparent ‘emptiness’ of these Igbo verb roots is connected with an oversight of their cognitive motivation in the form of their specific image schemata. A recognition of their image schema motivation, however, not only gives a great insight into the role of the verbs in the Verb + NP/ PP combinations, but also highlights the connection between the verb roots and their selectional restrictions in terms of the combinability with specific nouns, as well as the role of their image schema in the productivity of the verb root in forming new verbal complexes. Finally, I have also adopted the approach of designating the image schema of the verb roots as the Root Schema. There are various reasons for this, but the two most important are as follows. Having confirmed that the image schema of some verb roots do have the ‘gestalt’ of some of the image schemata already identified in the literature, the need for a terminological distinction becomes unavoidable. For example, the arcshaped image schema identified for the English preposition over is similar to the arcshaped trajectory of the image schema of the Igbo verb root -t (Uchechukwu, forthcoming). To describe the image schema of this verb root as OVER would blur the difference and also bring about some confusion. The second reason is that the root is not only the least divisible morphological unit, but it is also a concept or expression that is widely accepted in the study of African languages. For example, although one speaks generally of the ‘verb root’ in the different African languages (Hyman 2004), it is a known fact that its actual realization can vary to some extent from language to language. Similarly, the term ‘Root Schema’ is a general categorization of the image schema associated with the verb roots, while its actual instantiations are the verb roots themselves with their specific image schemas. For example, the Root Schema is instantiated in the verb roots -gbá , -má , -t , etc., as the -gba-Schema, the -má-Schema, the -t -Schema. This approach avoids a possible terminological confusion and also imbues the traditional term of ‘root’ with a new insight. <?page no="41"?> 38 3. Instantiations of the Root Schema in football The four verb roots whose Root Schema will be explored here are -gbá, -má, -t and kpá. 3.1. The -gbá-Schema According to Uchechukwu (2004), the schema associated with the verb root -gbá is the ‘gestalt’ of a general release of force. The nature of the force can be in the form of MOTION, SOUND, PROJECTILE, or DISPERSAL, all of which could be spelt out in the different domains of experience. For football, this involves MOTION of various sorts, including that of a projectile, all of which could also be highlighted through a schema transformation. First of all, the simple, forceful impetus given to a football is expressed as -gbá b l ; this can be specified through different suffixes with which -gbá forms a compound verb: 2. Èméká gà àgbá b l áh . (gbá ‘kick’). Emeka AUX-kick ball DET ‘Emeka is going to kick that ball.’ 3. Èméká gbáp r b l áh . (gbá ‘kick’). Emeka kick.off -rV-Past ball DET ‘Emeka kicked off that ball.’ 4. m ák nà-àgbá b l . (gbá ‘play’). Children AUX-kick football. ‘The children are playing football.’ 5. gbábà rà b l nà góòlù. (gbá ‘kick’). He kick.enter-rV-Past ball PREP goal ‘He kicked the ball into the goal.’ 6. gbànyè -rè gòlíì b l n’ áká. (gbá ‘kick’). he kicked.into -rV-Past goal keeper ball PREP hand ‘He kicked the ball into the goalkeeper’s hands.’ 7. gbàlì rì b l él . he kick.up-rV-Past ball up ‘He kicked the ball upwards.’ <?page no="42"?> 39 In all of the above sentences, -gbá has the meaning of ‘kick’. It is the forceful impact or release involved in the -gba-Schema that facilitates the encoding of ‘kick a football’ with this verb root. An additional point is that the general activity of kicking a football and the football game itself is also expressed with this verbal complex. Thus, ígb b l ‘to play football’ is used to encode both the act of forcefully kicking a football, as well as the general activity of playing the game of football. In most Igbo dialects the activity of forcefully hitting something with a hard object is expressed with the verb -k ‘hit’. The different acts of kicking a football that are all expressed with the verb root -gbá can also be expressed with this verb root within some dialects. However, -gbá b l is more widely used in everyday Igbo speech. Nevertheless, the possibility of using both verbs to express the same activity points to what they have in common. For the -gbá-Schema, this is a profiling of the sudden motion arising from the ‘impact of released force’: this harmonizes with the impact when something is ‘hit’ as expressed through the verb -k . 3.2. The -t -Schema and the-má-Schema Both verb roots, -má and -t , are often glossed as ‘throw’. A closer look at their image schema, however, indicates that there is a fine difference in the particular trajectory described by the thrown object. This is connected with the transformation of their image schemas. The -t -Schema involves an arc-shaped trajectory as when someone at point A throws an object and it rises high through the air and lands on the opposite side B. In connection with the ball (and not just football), the verbal complex ít b l ‘to throw ball’ involves the activity of more than one person i.e., one person throwing a ball to another, as in a game of handball. This verbal complex is also always used in this sense, even within football, as in the following examples: 8. Gòlíì gà àtú rú Èméká b l . Goal keeper AUX-throw-APPL Emeka ball ‘The goal keeper is going to throw the ball to Emeka.’ 9. Gòlíì t -r Èméká b l Goal keeper throw -rV-Past Emeka ball ‘The goal keeper threw Emeka the ball.’ There are not many such sentences with -t + b l .; but even in combination with other verbs or suffixes, the verb still retains the schematic arc-shaped trajectory of a thrown object: 10. Gòlíì túpù tà rà b l Goal keeper throw.go.out -DIR -rV-Past ball ‘The goal keeper threw out the ball.’ <?page no="43"?> 40 11. Gòlíì t bà -rà b l nà gòolu. Goal keeper throw.enter -rV-Past ball PREP goal post ‘The goal keeper threw the ball into the goal.’ From sentences (10) and (11) above, it can be seen that the arc-shaped trajectory of the t -Schema is maintained within football. Hence, within this domain, the verb root can rightly be translated as ‘throw in an arc-shaped manner’. The verb root -má, which can also be glossed as ‘throw’ in the language, differs in how the -má-Schema is profiled. First of all, the -má-Schema involves a schematic flatness (Uchechukwu 2005), which can be in the form of the horizontal flatness of a plane or the flatness of a surface. This can easily be illustrated with the combination of this verb root with different flat body parts. For example, a combination of -má with rá ‘slap’ gives rise to -má rá, which involves giving a slap with the flat of the palm. Similarly, áká n’àkpà means ‘hand in the pocket’; when combined with the verb root we get -má áká n’àkpà, which means to flatten one’s hand and slip it into another’s pocket, in other words, ‘to pick someone’s pocket’. With regard to its general use for handling any form of ball (whether football or not), the verb root -má differs from -t because while ít b l means both ‘to throw a ball’ as well as ‘to play a game of throwing and catching balls (involving the arc-shaped movement of the ball from one end to the other)’, ím b l has the general meaning of ‘to throw a ball at’. This meaning is connected with the horizontal plane of the -má-Schema and can be profiled as: 12. Gòlíì ma ra Emeka b l goalkeeper throw.at -rV-Past Emeka ball ‘The goal keeper threw the ball at Emeka The activity ‘throw’ executed with -má is always conceived as a straight line or horizontal trajectory, as when one aims a throw/ shot at an object. Thus, although both verbs -t and -má can be used to express ‘throw’ within football, they differ with regard to how their image schema contributes to the conceptualization and specification of the trajectory of the thrown object. 3.3. The -kpá-Schema The verb root -kpá has a schema motivation of an oblong ‘gestalt’ (Uchechukwu 2006), and can involve the manipulation of any oblong object like a stick, a spoon, a human hand, or even the human leg. It is especially the use of the (oblong) human leg to move the ball that is involved in football: <?page no="44"?> 41 13. Èméká kpà rà gòlíì b l . [kpá ‘dribble’] Emeka verb -rV-Past goal keeper ball ‘Emeka dribbled around the goal keeper.’ An interesting illustration of the -kpá-Schema is the combination of the verb root -kpá with the suffix ghari ‘around’, which gives rise to the compound verb -kpághari, with the general meaning of ‘move around [+oblong object]’. The nature of the object can, however, be specified through the inherent complement that the verb combines with. For example, the combination of -kpághari + ófé ‘soup’ involves the use of an oblong object to stir the soup: a long spoon. Similarly, -kpághari + b l involves the use of an oblong object to move the ball. The oblong object in this case refers to the human leg. No other verb root of the language is used in a similar manner to express ‘dribble’ within football. 4. Summary and conclusion The focus in this paper has been to show how the image schema motivation of the Igbo verb root is relevant within football. The examples presented here not only strengthen the image schema approach to the Igbo verb roots, but also explain the use of the Igbo verb root within football in a principled manner, in contrast to the different forms of the traditional approach, which would only explain them as meaningless dummies. References Akinlabi, Akinbiyi (ed.) (1995): Theoretical approaches to African linguistics. Trento et al.: Africa World Press Inc. Brugman, Claudia M. (1983): Story of OVER. Indiana: Indiana University Linguistics Club Echeruo, Michael J.C. (1998): Igbo-English Dictionary. New Haven et al.: Yale University Press Emenanj , Nolue (1975): Aspects of the Igbo verb. In: Ogbal / Emenanj , 160-173 Emenanj , E. Nolue (1978): Elements of Modern Igbo Grammar. Ibadan: Oxford University Press Emenanj , E. Nolue (1984): Igbo verbs: Transitivity or complementation? Paper presented at the Linguistics Association of Nigeria conference at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka Emenanj , E. Nolue (2005): Igbo verbs: Transitivity or complementation? In: Ndimele, 479-497 Hale, Kane / Ihionu, U. P. / Manfredi, Victor (1995): Igbo bipositional verbs in a syntactic theory of argument structure. In: Akinlabi (ed.) 83-108 Hyman, Larry M. (2004): How to become a ‘kwa’ verb. In: Journal of West African Languages 30/ 2, 69- 88 Igwe, Egemba G. (1999): Igbo-English Dictionary. Ibadan: University Press Plc Johnson, Mark (1987): The body in the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Kreitzer, Anatol (1997): Multiple levels of schematization: A study in conceptualization of space. In: Cognitive Linguistics 8/ 4, 291-325 Lakoff, George (1987): Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Ndimele, Ozo-Mekuri (ed.) (2005): Trends in the study of languages and linguistics in Nigeria. A Festschrift for Philip Ak juoobi Nachuckwu. Port Harcourt: Grand Orbit Communications and Emhai Press Nwachukwu, P. Akujuoobi (1983a): Transitivity. In: Nwachukwu 1983b, 99-120 <?page no="45"?> 42 Nwachukwu, P. Akujuoobi (ed.) (1983b): Readings on the Igbo verb. Onitsha: Africana-Fep Publishers Ltd Nwachukwu, P. Akujuoobi (1987): The argument structure of Igbo verbs. (Lexicon Project Working Papers, 18). Cambridge: The Center for Cognitive Science, MIT Ogbal , F. Chidozie / Emenanj , Emmanuel Nolue (eds.) (1975): Igbo language and culture. Vol. I. Ibadan: Oxford University Press Solovyev, Valery / Polyakov, Vladimir (eds.) (2004): Text processing and cognitive technologies. Moscow: MISA Tyler, Andrea / Evans, Vyvyan (2003): The semantics of English prepositions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Uchechukwu, Chinedu (2004): The cognitive basis of the Igbo verb cluster: The ontology of the -GBÁ cluster. In: Solovyev / Polyakov, 256-269 Uchechukwu, Chinedu (2005): How many meanings should a verb root have? The example of an Igbo verb root. In: APAL 3, 67-87 Uchechukwu, Chinedu (2006): Was verrät uns das Image-Schema der Igbo-Verbwurzeln über die deutschen Funktionsverbgefüge? Sprachwissenschaft 31/ 3, 293-326 Uchechukwu, Chinedu (forthcoming): Igbo verb configuration: The case of the verb root -t walaka, M.A.A.N. (1988): The Igbo verb: A semantico-syntactic analysis. Wien: Afro-Pub Ward, Ida C. (1936): An introduction to the Ibo language. Cambridge: Heffer and Sons Williamson, Kay (1972): Igbo-English Dictionary. Benin City (Nigeria): Ethiop Publishing Corporation Dr. Chinedu Uchechukwu Institut für Deutsche Philologie LMU München Schellingstr. 3 RG 80799 München email: neduchi@yahoo.com www.okwuigbo.org <?page no="46"?> 43 ANITA PAVI PINTARI ENGLISH AND GERMAN LOANWORDS IN CROATIAN FOOTBALL LANGUAGE The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of Anglicisms and Germanisms in the Croatian language of football. The corpus comprises borrowings used in the sports section of a Croatian daily newspaper. It is shown that the English language is the source of football and sports terminological borrowings, whereas most of the Germanisms analysed appear in everyday communication and many fields of use. The following aspects are taken into consideration in the analysis: a) determining Anglicisms and Germanisms used in the language of football; b) the morphological and semantic adaptation of loanwords (many loanwords, especially Germanisms, show a change in meaning); c) the use of loanwords in the texts analysed (whether the loanwords appear in headlines or in the text, whether they are used more in interviews, commentaries or reports); d) the presence of the borrowed football terminology in the dictionaries of the Croatian language. 1. Introduction Sports pages are usually a separate section in newspapers, designed both to inform and entertain the reader. Sports journalists have developed a specialised code’ (Beard 1998: 48) when writing about different sports. “To understand how sport is represented to the public, you need to look at the language that is used and the values and associations which come with that language. In doing this you will gain a greater understanding of sport’s place in society and how it reflects the values that society holds.” (Beard 1998: 33) “In sport you either know the language or you don’t - you’re either an insider or an outsider. […]” 1 Football is the most popular sport in many countries around the world. Croatia has a long tradition of playing football. According to football chronicles, the sport goes back to 1880, but there are discrepancies as to when and where in Croatia football was played for the first time. Some records mention the first football matches played by English sailors in 1866 in Zadar and in 1873 between Hungarian and English workers in Rijeka. 2 In 1893 football was introduced in Zagreb, while the rules of the game were published in 1896 in Zagreb. The game was originally called football, but soon Slavko Rutzner Radmilovi suggested calling it nogomet, as it has been called to the present-day. (Gifford 2006: 56) When writing about football, Croatian journalists use German and English loanwords which belong to sports jargon and are often used as a sign of prestige. The number of German and English loanwords differs in terms of use. English terms prevail in denoting players’ positions or rules of the game, whereas German loanwords are not so specialized and can be found in everyday communication. 1 British Council s.a. 2 Jutarnji list, 8.06.2006, p. 64, author J. e evi . <?page no="47"?> 44 2. Corpus The basis for this paper are sports pages in Jutarnji list, one of Croatia’s daily newspapers. The sports section comprises 8-9 pages (4-5 of which refer to football). The analysis covers 202 editions from January 2006 to June 2007. The corpus consists of 112 German and 111 English loanwords (30 Anglicisms and 16 Germanisms referring to football terminology). English German Nouns 80 64 Verbs 18 34 Adjectives 11 12 Adverbs 2 2 Table 1: Anglicisms and Germanisms in the corpus 2.1. English loanwords The Croatian language, as almost all languages in the world, has been greatly influenced by English. English loanwords in Croatian belong to different semantic fields, e.g. computer technology, economy, fashion, sports, food, politics and others. In many cases there are equivalent Croatian words, but Anglicisms are often preferred. “With respect to Anglicisms, one can discern two basic trends: descriptivist, trying to approach the phenomenon in a detached and objective way, and ideological, i.e. purist, demanding the purging of foreign, especially English, influences from the language” (So anac / Nikoli -Hoyt 2006: 307). Babi (2004: 229) believes that especially journalists should avoid the overuse of Anglicisms. So anac / Nikoli -Hoyt (2006: 313) note another interesting fact concerning Anglicisms: “[S]ome Anglicisms which were borrowed and adapted in earlier periods, today appear in the non-adapted, English form, which is characteristic of recent borrowings from English into Croatian starting from the 1990s.” Nikoli -Hoyt (2005: 181) sees the reason for this phenomenon in the prestige of the English language, which adapts less to the system of the receiving language. Our corpus shows the tendency of using English words in their original form but highlighted in texts by using quotation marks (e.g. bookmaker, dream team, knock down, look, playmaker, pole position, score, team spirit, top-ten, trademark). 3 2.1.1. Morphological level English loanwords have gone through phonological and morphological adaptation to the system of Croatian. (see Filipovi 1986, Filipovi 1990, Filipovi / Menac 2005) 3 A number of sports terms originate in England, the cradle of many sports. When the USA took over the role of leading sports nation, English influence was not weakened (cf. Kolka 1988: 55). <?page no="48"?> 45 2.1.1.1. Nouns The morphological adaptation of nouns includes both the form and the gender of loanwords. 4 • Some of the loanwords keep their (natural) gender, especially nouns denoting male persons, e.g. bek (< back), skaut (< scout). • Nomina agentis from our corpus kept their original suffix -er, “which is considered an innovation” (Vel i 1972-1973: 759), e.g. dribler, fajter (< fighter), lider, sprinter, starter, trener. • Nouns ending in a consonant (neuter in English) took the masculine gender in Croatian 5 (e.g. bunker, dres, dribling, dril, faul, fotofiniš < photofinish, klub, korner, kup < cup, limit, ofsajd, skor < score, sprint, rejting < rating, tim < team, trening). • There is also a case of borrowing an English word in its plural form, but using it in Croatian as a singular form with features of loanwords ending in a consonant: kiks (< kicks, ‘faux pas, gaffe; blunder’). • Some nouns ending in a vowel also took masculine gender (e.g. derbi, lobi). • Feminine gender can rarely be found among the loanwords in our corpus - e.g. press-konferencija / presica, top-forma, gol-linija, mixed-zona. • Verbal nouns are derived with the suffix -nje and are of neuter gender (e.g. blokiranje, lobiranje, šutiranje, treniranje). Other examples of derivation are trenirka (‘tracksuit’; feminine gender, derived from to train), šut (a masculine noun derived from the verb to shoot). 2.1.1.2. Verbs, adjectives, adverbs Verbs from our corpus took the Croatian infinitive suffixes -ati and -irati 6 . Some examples: -ati: driblati (< to dribble), drilati (< to drill), kiksati (< kicks), miksati (< to mix), startati (< to start). -irati: bojkotirati (< to boycott), ekirati (< to check), faulirati (< to foul), iskeširati (< to cash), lobirati (< to lobby), skautirati (< scout), stopirati (< to stop), šutirati (< to shoot), trenirati (< to train). Croatian verbs express perfective and imperfective aspect. Imperfective verbs in our corpus are: miksati, trenirati; perfective: nokautirati, startati, izdriblati, iskeširati, izlobirati 7 . English adjectives borrowed into Croatian have either kept their original form and cannot be inflected (e. g. fer, fit) or have been derived from English nouns by means 4 Gender in the Croatian language is determined grammatically and the natural gender in English must be converted when a word has been borrowed into Croatian. 5 A great number of loanwords take masculine gender according to the principle called ‘masculine tendency’ (Filipovi 1986: 130). 6 The suffix -irati is actually a hybrid suffix consisting of German -ier and the Croatian infinitive suffix -ti. The suffix -irati was borrowed from German in the 17th c. and is still very productive (cf. Muhvi - Dimanovski 1995: 268-269). 7 The perfective aspect can easily be identified by prefixes iz/ is-, na-, od-/ ot-, po-, pro-, za-. <?page no="49"?> 46 of Croatian adjectival suffixes: -ski, - ki, -ni, -an, -ov (finalni, klupski, rekordan, sprinterski, timski, trenerov). The adjective cool, which appears very frequently in Croatian (cf. Nikoli -Hoyt 2005: 182), was not found in the language of football, except as a noun - kuler (‘a person who acts cool’). Adverbs are not often borrowed from other languages 8 . The English adverb aut / out is frequently used in the Croatian language of football, but as a noun. An adverb is used in its original form: 1. Iako je dan ranije ‘off the record’ kazao…. (13.5.2006, 90; ‘Though the day before he said off the record that….’). 2.1.2. Semantic level English loanwords in the Croatian language of football can be divided into several semantic groups. The most interesting are the following ones: a) players: bek, centarhalf, centarfor, play / playmaker, starter; b) technical performance: bunker, centaršut, centrirati, hat-trick, driblati / dribling, pas / dupli pas / double; c) rules of the game: aut, korner, ofsajd; d) other sports: faul / faulirati, fer igra ‘fair play’, (top-)forma, fotofiniš, kup, me ‘match’, playoff, skaut / skautirati, skor / score, sparing partner, sprint, šut / šutirati, trening; e) others: bookmaker, dril, drilati, fan, hendikep / hendikepirati, imperativ, kiks / kiksati, lider, lobirati, presing, tandem, trend. There are also pseudo-Anglicisms, hybrid Anglicisms and calques in the corpus analysed. The prestigious position of the English language worldwide favours both the increasing tendency of keeping English words in their original form, as well as the playful use of English and the hyperproduction of pseudo-Anglicisms, words that look like English words, but are actually not to be found in English […] As an issue of new, hybrid forms of languages (and cultures), pseudo-Anglicisms are a result of global influences meeting local traditions. (So anac / Nikoli - Hoyt 2006: 317) According to Filipovi (1986: 193-194), pseudo-Anglicisms are formed by means of composition (in our corpus - aut-linija ‘out + line’, centaršut ‘centre shoot’ - kicking the ball from the furthest wing of the sports field into the penalty area, autogol ‘own goal’), derivation (presing from pressure in the meaning ‘stress, urgency; compulsion’) and ellipsis (centarfor ‘centre-forward’, hepiend ‘happy-ending’, parking ‘parking space’). Hybrid Anglicisms (cf. Filipovi 1990: 71) are formed with one borrowed and one Croatian component: fer igra ‘fair play’, gol-crta ‘goal-line’, gol-razlika ‘goal difference’, test-utakmica ‘test match’. 8 Muhvi -Dimanovski (1995: 267) cites the ratio of frequency of borrowing nouns, verbs and adjectives in many languages given by Haugen (1969: 406): noun: verb: adjective - 75%: 18%: 3%. <?page no="50"?> 47 The corpus shows football terms translated from English (‘calques’), e.g.: prijateljska utakmica < friendly match; crveni karton < red card; žuti karton < yellow card 9 ; slobodan udarac < free-kick, duga lopta < long ball. There are also Anglicisms in the corpus which are used in the text together with Croatian equivalents, e.g. oproštajni party / bye bye party; ofsajd / zale e; gol-linija / gol-crta. The semantic adaptation of English loanwords in the language of football as well as in other sports (cf. Vel i 1972-1973: 761) can be analysed according to zero semantic extension (no change of meaning), restriction of meaning and extension of meaning (Filipovi 1986: 161-174). Zero semantic extension can be found in the following examples: centarfor, centarhalf, fotofiniš, gol-linija, hat-trick, ofsajd, trener, trening. “The most frequent semantic change is the restriction of meaning; as is well known, in cases of polysemy, loanwords do not retain all the meanings they had in the donor language. In rare cases the meaning of some anglicisms has become specialized in Croatian due to the specific social context.” (So anac / Nikoli -Hoyt 2006: 312) The original meaning from English is restricted and specialized in sports jargon: driblati, faul, korner, kup, skaut (‘one employed to search for talents in sports’ - however, this meaning has not been recorded in Croatian dictionaries: it only appears in the corpus), skor. Loanwords expand their meaning after they had been integrated into the receiving language (cf. Filipovi 1986: 169). The following examples from the corpus show this expansion of meaning: • aut (‘1. lines of the sports field; 2. the space outside the lines of a sports field’); bunker (‘defensive game style in football’); • derbi (‘an important or the most important match, a match between the best contestants or teams’); when used in the original meaning it is denoted with the adjective ‘local’: lokalni derbi; • dres is an English loanword, but the meaning ‘jersey’ was taken from the German language; • džoker (‘a player who can help win the match’); • sparing partner (expanded to all sports not only boxing). 2.2. German loanwords The long history of the contact with German has left traces in the Croatian language 10 . As Babi (2004: 207) says: “Living in the Austrian Empire from 1527 until 1918 we lived together with the German language […] and during these 400 years we borrowed about 4000-5000 German words, to be exact in our dialects and spoken language (only 40 German loanwords came into the standard Croatian language.)” German loanwords in our corpus are mainly those present in everyday communication and are mostly used by speakers (journalists, players, trainers) coming from the northern parts of Croatia, where the German influence has been especially strong. One more reason for the wide 9 Red and yellow cards were first used at the World Championship in 1970 (Gifford 2006: 14). 10 There are numerous studies of German loanwords in Croatian. For the history of the German language in Croatia, see Žepi 2002. <?page no="51"?> 48 spread of German loanwords is also the position of German as the mediator language. According to Dragi evi (2005: 89), many international or European loanwords (mostly lexemes from science and art) have come into Croatian through German. 2.2.1. Morphological level German loanwords in Croatian were borrowed in different historical periods (cf. Babi 1990a: 219) and have been well adapted to the system of Croatian. 2.2.1.1. Nouns There are different ways of morphological adaptation of German nouns in Croatian. • German -e (denoting the feminine gender) < Croatian -a (feminine gender): generalna proba, rang-lista, rola, špica (< Spitze). • Masculine nouns have kept their consonant endings and gender: feler (< Fehler), liebling, respekt, štos (< Stoß), transfermarkt, zicer (< Sitzer). Only in one example from the corpus has the German ending -er changed to -ar: Becher < pehar. Neuter and feminine nouns in the corpus have taken masculine gender (see 2.1.1.1.), e.g. animozitet (< Animosität), ceh (< Zeche), fušeraj (< Pfuscherei), šlagvort (< Schlagwort), štimung (< Stimmung). • Nomina agentis have kept the suffix -er: druker, gastarbajter, golgeter, hohštapler, špilmaher. Compound nouns are typical of German, but not of Croatian 11 , so they are written either hyphenated or as two words: rang-lista < Rangliste, generalna proba < Generalprobe, kardinalna greška < Kardinalfehler. 2.2.1.2. Verbs, adjectives, adverbs German verbs ending in the suffix -en take the Croatian suffix -ati, whereas verbs ending in German -ieren take the Croatian suffix -irati. Verbs of German origin also show the perfective and imperfective aspect (see 2.1.1.2.). Some of the examples from the corpus are: -ati: drukati, pumpati, (iz)raubati, šmekati, šopati, štimati, štopati, zaribati. Many of the verbs with the suffix -irati have stems from other languages (French, Latin) but were adapted to German and borrowed into Croatian, e.g. Latin stem 12 : asisitirati, demonstrirati, detektirati, figurirati, inicirati, isfabricirati, izolirati, kalkulirati, konkurirati, korigirati, lamentirati, potencirati, profititrati, respektirati; French stem: debitirati, forsirati, garantirati, konsolidirati, kotirati, motivirati, plasirati se, poentirati. The verb živcirati has the Croatian stem and is a translation of the German verb nervieren (cf. Babi 2002: 508). Two German verbs with the infinitive suffix -en appear in Croatian with the suffix -irati: pakirati (< packen), planirati (< planen). Adjectives in the corpus do not show their original form, but are derived from German nouns (bundesligaški < Bundesliga), adjectives / adverbs (ziheraški < sicher). 11 The Croatian language, like other Slavic languages, prefers derivation over composition (cf. Turk / Sesar 2003: 331). 12 The etymological entries with these verbs denote German as the mediator language, Latin and French as origin (cf. Ani / Goldstein 2004). <?page no="52"?> 49 Other examples are participle forms of German verbs, e.g. ispeglan (< bügeln), raštiman (< stimmen). Among adverbs, only glat has its original form (the form adapted to the Croatian system is glatko): 2. etiri puta smo ih ‘glat’ tukli u prvenstvu… (6 5.2006, 95) ‘We beat them easily four times in the championship’. The adverbial phrase pod mus (‘obligatory’) is often heard and read in Croatian. It consists of the Croatian preposition pod (‘under’) and the German verb müssen in the form for 1 st and 3 rd person singular. 2.2.2. Semantic level Semantic grouping of German loanwords in the Croatian language of football is a little different from grouping English loanwords. There are fewer football terms and more other, generally used German loanwords. a) players: elf (denoting the whole team), golman, golgeter 13 , rezerva, stoper, špica / špic-igra / polušpica (< Spitze), špilmaher; b) technical performance: škare (< Schere), španer, zicer 14 (‘a certain opportunity to score a goal, sth. that cannot be missed’ - the meaning used not only in a game, but also in an everyday situation, cf. Ani / Goldstein 2004); c) rules of the game: jedanaesterac (translation of < Elfmeter); d) other sports: drukati / druker, hakl, rezerva; e) others: fajrunt, feler, fušeraj, pikzibner, produkt, rola, šmeker, štih, štimung. Some Germanisms appear as calques, e.g. pun pogodak (< Volltreffer). German loanwords which do not belong to sports terminology were borrowed into the Croatian language a long time ago, and most of them have changed their meaning. Specialized terms mostly show the restriction of meaning (e.g. rezerva, stoper, špica). The most interesting feature of language contact is the extension of meaning. The following nouns have expanded their meaning in sports: • parirati (< parieren; ‘sports: respond accordingly to offensive moves’), • pehar (< Becher expanded its meaning to ‘trophy, cup’), • škare (< Schere, ‘kicking the ball over the head when the player is with his back to the goal’), • šopati (‘constantly pass a player balls to kick the goal’), • španer (< Spanner 15 ) has a completely different meaning in Croatian - ‘a football player showing good technical skills’. 13 Croatian dictionaries denote golgeter as an Anglicism, but it is a German pseudo-Anglicism, especially used in Austria and Switzerland (cf. Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, p. 665). 14 The Croatian dictionary of foreign words by Ani / Goldstein (2004) gives the German word Sitzer as the etymology of the loanword zicer. Sitzer probably came from English sitter into the German language. (cf. http: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Sitter_(football)). 15 The etymology according to Ani / Goldstein 2004. <?page no="53"?> 50 Some of the many Germanisms with expanded meaning used in the corpus are: fajrunt (< Feierabend; ‘closing time of bars and restaurants’), marka (< Mark; ‘sb. who is an expert, has a good reputation’), štih (< Stich; ‘a recognizable trait of a whole’), štos (< Stoß; ‘a trick, a stunt’). 3. Anglicisms and Germanisms in context The readers of daily newspapers have different educational and social backgrounds. Thus, the texts must be written for all and the headlines should attract the reader. The information a text contains is often condensed in headlines since their purpose is to attract the reader’s attention. (cf. Burger 1998: 147) The entertaining part of sports pages lies in the fact that there are interviews with football stars, articles about their personal lives, as well as gossip items or stories about money and power. (cf. Beard 1998: 85) In fact football reports rarely provide only news; many people who read the sports pages already know the result, and may have seen the game live on television. This helps to explain some of the vivid language used in newspaper reporting, as its function is not just to give the score. Reports also have to give opinions and explanations, and engage the reader on an emotional level. […] There is also an obsession with after-match quotes from players or managers; another ‘angle’ on the game has to be found.“ 16 “One of the most common pieces of sports coverage is the post-event interview. In many sports players and officials are obliged by contract to give interviews […]. Football team managers are some of the most frequently interviewed, being asked to account for the performance of their team.” (Beard 1998: 65) Among the sports pages analysed, most headlines contain information on match results or statements of players, trainers and selectors. 83 loanwords were found in headlines (48 German and 35 English loanwords); 14 Germanisms and 8 Anglicisms refer to European leagues and the World Cup, while others refer to the Croatian football league. 45 of the headlines were players' and trainers' statements. Our analysis shows that players are not keen on using specialized terms in their statements. They used 62 loanwords, trainers 95, whereas journalists used by far the most - 345 (this number includes 37 loanwords in interviews, 270 in commentaries or reports, 38 in headlines). 4. Football terminology in Croatian dictionaries The choice of words to be included in a dictionary depends to a large extent on the authors themselves. There are three important criteria when deciding which loanwords to record: frequency of usage, phonological adaptation, and morphological adaptation. (cf. Muhvi -Dimanovski 1994: 218) 16 British Council s.a. <?page no="54"?> 51 Croatian dictionaries 17 contain football terminology with etymological entries. They also include other generally used Anglicisms and Germanisms. There are some recent borrowings which are used in their original form in the corpus and have not been recorded in Croatian dictionaries yet. Neither of the dictionaries analysed contains the following (non-adapted) examples from the corpus: pole-position, roster, staff, team spirit. However, Ani / Goldstein (2004) recorded hat-trick, but as an adapted form hettrik, bookmaker as bukmejker, playmaker as plejmejker. The loanword skaut is recorded without the meaning used in the corpus - ‘sb. who searches for talents in sports’. Among German loanwords only transfermarkt, elf and špilmaher have not been recorded yet. The biggest confusion when investigating the etymology of loanwords is caused by verbs ending in -irati. This suffix is often misleading and signalizes German origin although German is in most cases only the mediator language 18 . Croatian dictionaries mark pseudo-Anglicisms in different ways. All three denote golman as a Germanism, while golgeter, on the other hand, is marked as an Anglicism. There is also no mention of the fact that the meaning of dres was borrowed from German. 5. Conclusion Croatian sports journalists use both English and German loanwords in their texts. English borrowings are often used in their original forms. German loanwords are adapted to the system of the Croatian language. The semantic level shows the most interesting results of the analysis, especially the change of meaning. English loanwords show more restriction of meaning, and German loanwords more expansion of meaning. The conclusion from analyzing the use of loanwords in texts is that journalists used the most loanwords, while trainers and selectors used football terminology slightly more than players. Croatian dictionaries have entries of both German and English loanwords; only recent English borrowings have not been recorded. The language of football in Croatia shows borrowings not only in terminology, but also in the use of colloquial language, which makes the texts understandable and interesting to the majority of readers. References Ani , Vladimir (2004): Veliki rje nik hrvatskoga jezika. Zagreb: Novi liber Ani , Vladimir / Goldstein, Ivo (2004): Rje nik stranih rije i. Zagreb: Novi liber Babi , Stjepan (1990a): Njema ke posu enice u hrvatskom književnom jeziku. In: Babi b, 214-224 Babi , Stjepan (1990b): Hrvatska jezikoslovna itanka. Zagreb: Globus 17 While analyzing the corpus, three Croatian dictionaries were consulted: Ani , V. (2004): Veliki rje nik hrvatskoga jezika, Šonje, J. (2000): Rje nik hrvatskoga jezika and Ani , V. / Goldstein, I. (2004): Rje nik stranih rije i. 18 One of the difficulties is determining the original language of a loanword because there is a mediator language, which may lead the author off the track (cf. Muhvi -Dimanovski 1994: 221). <?page no="55"?> 52 Babi , Stjepan (2002): Tvorba rije i u hrvatskome književnome jeziku. Zagreb: HAZU, Nakladni zavod Globus Babi , Stjepan (2004): Hrvanja hrvatskoga. Hrvatski u koštacu sa srpskim i u klin u s engleskim. Zagreb: Školska knjiga Beard, Adrian (1998): The language of sport. London / New York: Routledge British Council (ed.) s.a.: The language of sport - an essay, http: / / elt.britcoun.org.pl/ elt/ s_lang.htm: , 23.08.2007; 11: 20 Burger, Harald (1998): Phraseologie. Eine Einführung am Beispiel des Deutschen. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag Collins Thesaurus: The Ultimate Wordfinder ( 2 2003). Glasgow: Harper Collins Publishers Dragi evi , Dragica (2005): Hrvatski u dodiru s njema kim jezikom. In: So anac et al., 85-113 Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch ( 5 2003). Mannheim et al.: Dudenverlag Filipovi , Rudolf (1986): Teorija jezika u kontaktu. Zagreb: JAZU / Školska knjiga Filipovi , Rudolf (1990): Anglicizmi u hrvatskom ili srpskom jeziku: porijeklo - razvoj - zna enje. Zagreb: JAZU / ŠK Filipovi , Rudolf / Menac, Antica (2005): Engleski element u hrvatskome i ruskom jeziku. Zagreb: Školska knjiga Gifford, Clive (2006): udesni nogomet. Zagreb: Školska knjiga Haugen, Einar (1969): The Norwegian language in America: A study in bilingual behavior. Bloomington: Indiana University Press Kolka, Aleksandar (1988): Strani jezik i društvo. Zagreb: Školska knjiga Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture (2002). Harlow: Longman Muhr, Rudolf (ed.) (2006): Innovation und Kontinuität in Sprache und Kommunikation verschiedener Sprachkulturen. Innovation and Continuity in Language and Communication of different Language Cultures. Wien et al.: Peter Lang Verlag Muhvi -Dimanovski, Vesna (1994). Mjesto posu enica u jednojezi nim rje nicima. In: Filologija 22-23, 217-224 Muhvi -Dimanovski, Vesna (1995): Glagolski anglicizmi u njema kom. In: Filologija 24-25, 267-273 Nikoli Hoyt, Anja (2005): Hrvatski u dodiru s engleskim jezikom. In: So anac et al, 179-205 So anac, Lelija / Dabo-Denegri, Ljuba / Dragi evi , Dragica / Menac, Antica / Nikoli -Hoyt, Anja (eds.) (2005): Hrvatski jezik u dodiru s europskim jezicima: adaptacija posu enica. Zagreb: Nakladni zavod Globus So anac, Lelija / Nikoli -Hoyt, Anja (2006): English in Croatia: Past and present. In: Muhr, 305-322 Šonje, Jure (2000): Rje nik hrvatskoga jezika. Zagreb: Leksikografski zavod Miroslav Krleža i Školska knjiga Turk, Marija / Sesar, Dubravka (2003): Kalkovi njema koga podrijetla u hrvatskome i u nekim drugim slavenskim jezicima. In: Rasprave Instituta za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje 29, 325-338 Vel i , Ivana (1972-1973): The English Element in the Croatian Sports Vocabulary. In: Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia 33-36, 757-771 Žepi , Stanko (2002): Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache in Kroatien. In: Zagreber Germanistische Beiträge 11, 209-227 M.A. (mr.sc.) Anita Pavi Pintari Department of German Language and Literature University in Zadar M. Pavlinovi a bb 23 000 Zadar e-mail: apintari@unizd.hr http: / / personal.unizd.hr/ ~apintari/ <?page no="56"?> 53 SEBASTIAN S PEK IS ENGLISH INJURING POLISH? AN ANALISIS OF THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH TERMINOLOGY IN (AND THROUGH) POLISH FOOTBALL The modern game of football originated in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century and shortly after spread to the European continent (Guttmann, 1994: 42). Along with the spread of football to the European continent, English football terminology spread to several languages. According to Kachru (1986: 9), the spread of English offers alternative ways of expression, which could lead to the creation of new varieties of English. An opposing view discussed by Phillipson (1992: 47) states that any spread of English should be considered as linguistic imperialism, which leads to continuous reconstruction of socioeconomic and cultural inequalities between English and other languages. In this paper, I analyse the spread of English football terminology into Polish to see if it offers alternative ways of expression. Has this caused, is causing or could cause the creation of a new variety of English or can this be considered English linguistic imperialism? This paper explains the process(es) involved in the spread of English terminology in Polish football. Moreover, it also explains which type(s) of influence the spread of English football terminology has had on Polish in general. Thus, this paper provides insights into not only issues of the spread of English in the sport of football, but also issues concerning the influence of the spread of English through football on a specific language in, according to Kachru’s terminology, the ‘Expanding Circle of English’. 1. Introduction The modern game of football (also known as soccer in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) originated in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century and shortly after spread to the European continent (Guttmann 1994: 42). Along with the spread of football to the European continent, English football terminology spread to several languages. For example, words such as football, goal and shoot are commonly used in many languages in today’s football broadcasts. According to Kachru (1986: 9), the spread of English, which has become the lingua franca in today’s world, offers alternative ways of expression which could lead to the creation of new varieties of English. An opposing view discussed by Phillipson (1992: 47) states that any spread of English should be considered as linguistic imperialism, which leads to a continuous reconstruction of socio-economic and cultural inequalities between English and other languages. Having been interested in football and linguistics for several years, I decided to analyse the spread of English football terminology into Polish to see if it offers alternative ways of expression. Has this caused, is causing, or could cause the creation of a new variety of English or can this be considered English linguistic imperialism? I will examine Polish football match broadcasts and post-match articles to see which role English football terminology plays in them. <?page no="57"?> 54 2. Literature review Football, a “game complex enough not to have been invented independently by a number of premodern cultures and yet simple enough to have become unquestionably the world’s most popular team sport” (Guttmann 1994: 41), is considered to have originated in Great Britain. According to Guttmann, the modern form of football is a nineteenth century adaptation of the folk football that had been played in several different forms throughout England since medieval times. In 1848, a group of collegians who played different forms of football at their universities met in Cambridge and unified the rules of the game of football. This unification of rules enabled the universities to compete with one another, which popularized the sport so greatly that on October 26, 1863, the Football Association 1 , a body that organized and promoted football, was founded. Shortly after, several football clubs were established, for example Aston Villa FC and Bolton Wanderers in 1874, and Manchester United and Coventry City in 1880. At the time of the founding of the Football Association in England, the game of football was introduced to the European continent (Guttmann 1994: 44). There it was first introduced in Belgium in 1863. Shortly after, it was also introduced in other European countries on the continent such as Holland, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Sweden, and Poland. As football spread to many countries, English football terminology spread to various languages. One of the terms which were commonly adopted by other languages was the term football itself. This term was directly borrowed (though sometimes its pronunciation and spelling were slightly changed) by languages such as Rumanian: fotbal, French: le football (which is often shortened to le foot), Russian: futbol ( ), Turkish: futbol, and Serbian: fudbal ( ). Some languages adopted the term football through literal translation of the morphemes foot and ball e.g. German: Fußball 2 , Dutch: voetbal, Norwegian: fotball, Swedish: fotboll, Danish: fodbold, Finnish: jalkapallo, Greek: podosfero ( "#$ ). There are also some languages which use two forms of the term football, one borrowed directly from English (with slight pronunciation and spelling changes), and one adopted by translation of its constituent parts, e.g. Spanish: fútbol and balompié, Polish: futbol and pi ka no%na, and Hungarian: futball or labdarúgás (meaning ‘ball-kicking’). Apart from the term football, other English football terms commonly borrowed by other languages include words such as goal (often gol in Romance languages), shoot, schútte (Basel) or tschuutte (Zürich), meaning ‘to play football’ in German-speaking Switzerland, and penalty kick, in French, le penalty; however, the phrase tir au but is also used in the context of a penalty shootout (Wikipedia, 2007). 2.1. World Englishes framework Kachru (1986: 9) argues that the spread of English does not reconstruct inequalities but provides alternative ways of expression. He bases his argument on the results of his research which showed that, in certain parts of the world, e.g. South Asia and West 1 The term soccer derives from Association Football, a name coined to distinguish other versions of football played at the time of the founding of the Football Association. 2 In German the word Football refers to ‘American football’. <?page no="58"?> 55 Africa, English had become locally adapted and institutionalized, which as a result caused the development of different varieties of English. These locally institutionalized varieties of English, Kachru (1986: 53) adds, can successfully carry the “weight” of local “experience”. Thus, the fact that the locally institutionalized varieties of English can successfully express the local “experience” indicates that the spread of English cannot be considered linguistic imperialism. Moreover, Kachru (1992: 356) also introduces a model of the spread of English which is based on “…the types of spread, the patterns of acquisition, and the functional allocation of English in diverse cultural contexts.” In this model, he divides World Englishes into three concentric circles: the Inner Circle, where English is spoken as a native language, e.g. USA, Canada, Australia; the Outer Circle, where English is spoken as a second language, e.g. India, Nigeria, Philippines; and the Expanding Circle, where English is spoken as a foreign language, e.g. China, Israel, Poland. Furthermore, he also explains that the English spoken in the Inner Circle is “norm-providing”, that spoken in the Outer Circle “norm-developing”, and that spoken in the Expanding Circle “normdependent”. This model, introduced in the early 1990s, is currently considered to be one of the best-known and most influential models of the spread of English in World Englishes studies. 2.2. Linguistic imperialism Phillipson (1992: 42), however, presents an opposite view to that of Kachru’s. He argues that any spread of English, a language that in today’s world “…has become a lingua franca to that point that every literate educated person is in a real sense deprived if he does not know English”, is linguistic imperialism (Burchfield 1985: 160, quoted in Phillipson 1992: 5). The definition of English linguistic imperialism which he develops states “that the dominance of English is asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstruction of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages”; he defines “structural” as referring to material properties, e.g. institutions and financial allocations, and “cultural” as referring to immaterial or ideological properties, e.g. attitudes and pedagogic principles (Phillipson 1992: 47). Thus, Phillipson, as he explains in his review of David Crystal’s (1997) English as a Global Language (Phillipson 1999), believes that the spread of English is tied to “…an uncritical endorsement of capitalism, its science and technology, a modernization ideology, monolingualism as a norm, ideological globalization and internationalization, transnationalisation, the Americanization and homogenization of world culture, linguistic, culture and media imperialism” (Phillipson 1999: 274, quoted in Pennycook 2007: 19). In other words, Phillipson believes that, since ideology is inscribed in the language (see Hodge / Kress 1993), along with the spread of English spreads the ideology of the English-speaking countries, which in turn causes linguistic diversity to disappear and, in consequence, contributes to linguistic genocide, a concept developed by Skutnabb-Kangas 2000. 2.3. Purpose of study As discussed above, one of the ways in which the English language spread was through football. This spread of English either offers alternative ways of expression which have <?page no="59"?> 56 caused the development of a new variety of English, a view proposed by Kachru, or can be considered linguistic imperialism, a view proposed by Phillipson. Thus, to verify whether the spread of English through football provides alternative forms of expression which have indeed caused the creation of a new variety of English or can be considered linguistic imperialism, I have analysed Polish match broadcasts and post-match articles to see which role English football terminology plays in them. 3. Method 3.1. Materials For the purpose of this study, football match broadcasts and post-match articles were analyzed. All of these broadcasts and articles (16 in total) were taken from the websites of the Polish first division clubs (one from each website) shortly after the final day of the football season in Poland. They are all written in Polish. 3.2. Research design Having gathered the materials, first, with the use of a Polish dictionary of foreign words, I analyzed them by looking for English football concepts that have entered the Polish language. Second, I looked at those concepts and verified whether they are charged with imperialistic ideology, and consequently, are eroding the Polish language, or whether they are ideologically neutral alternative forms of expression that have gained, are gaining, or could gain meanings different form the ones that they have in English. Thus, to verify if the English football concepts belonged to either of the two above-mentioned categories, I referred to the Polish dictionary to see if Polish equivalents of the English football concepts existed. Moreover, in the case where the Polish equivalent did exist, first, I examined the data once more to see if the Polish equivalent was used in the same football match broadcast or post-match article in which the English form was found, and second, I analyzed the connotative meanings of both the English football concept and Polish equivalent to see if any differences existed. 4. Results The results of my analysis are presented in the following table 3 . 3 Although the word telewizja was borrowed from English, I did not include it in this table because the morphemes, teleand wizja, which are Greek and Latin in origin, were taken into the Polish language before the word telewizja was. <?page no="60"?> 57 English borrowing Polish equivalent English meaning Polish meaning Polish equivalent used in the same broadcast or article Difference in connotative meaning aut 4 (from out) miejsce poza boiskiem, wrzut z poza linii bocznej boiska. expressing position or situation beyond the bounds of a space. in sports, expressing position beyond the bounds of a field; in football, a throw-in. in 0 out of 1 none blokowa (from block) zatrzymywa none an act of obstructing or closing with obstacles. in 0 out of 1 none przyblokowa (from block) zatrzymywa na chwile none an act of obstructing or closing with obstacles for a short period of time. in 0 out of 2 none zablokowa (from block) zatrzyma none a finished act of obstructing or closing with obstacles. in 1 out of 3 none doping (from doping) kibicowanie none shouts of encouragement, or expressions of applause of a company or crowd during games. in 0 out of 3 none dopingowa (from doping) kibicowa none to encourage, inspire, animate, or incite, by shouts. in 0 out of 3 none drybling (from dribbling) zwodzenie to keep (the ball) moving along the ground in front of and close to one by a rapid succession of short pushes. same in 1 out of 1 none fan (from fan) kibic, sympatyk a keen and regular spectator of a (professional) sport. same in 4 out of 4 none 4 In this table, all English borrowings with the exception of the words blokowa , przyblokowa , zablokowa , dopingowa , faulowa , sfaulowa , lobowa , przelobowa , which are verbs in the infinitive forms and the word futbolówka, which is a noun with a Polish inflectional suffix -ówka, are used in the third person singular nominative case and without Polish inflectional affixes, despite sometimes being used otherwise in the transcription. <?page no="61"?> 58 faul (from foul) przewinienie, nieprzepisowe zatrzymanie, nieprzepisowe zagranie, kopni cie, podcinanie violation of the rules or to violate the rules. violation of the rules. in 1 out of 7 none faulowa (from foul) nieprzepisowo zatrzymywa , nieprzepisowo zagrywa , kopa , podcina none to violate the rules. in 0 out of 4 none sfaulowa (from foul) nieprzepisowo zatrzyma , nieprzepisowo zagra , kopn& , podci& none a finished act of violating the rules. in 0 out of 2 none finisz (sezonu) (from finish) koniec (sezonu) the end (of the season). same in 1 of 1 none futbol (from football) pi ka no%na an open-air game played with a ball by two sides, each of which endeavours to kick or convey the ball to the goal at the opposite end of the field or an inflated ball used in the game of football. an open-air game played with a ball by two sides, each of which endeavours to kick or convey the ball to the goal at the opposite end of the field. in 0 out of 1 none futbolówka (form football) pi ka do nogi none an inflated ball used in the game of football. in 6 out of 6 none gol (from goal) bramka the point in the game when the ball is driven between the posts. same in 9 out of 13 none golkiper (from goalkeeper) bramkarz a player whose special duty is to protect the goal. same in 7 out of 7 none klub (from club) dru%yna, zespó an association formed to combine the operations of persons interested in the promotion or prosecution of some aim. same in 3 out of 4 none <?page no="62"?> 59 korner (from corner) rzut ro%ny free kick from the corner of the field obtained by the opposite side when a player sends the ball over his own goal-line. same in 3 out of 3 none lider 5 (from leader) prowadz&cy the leading team. same in 0 out of 1 none live (from live) na %ywo taken from or made at a live performance. same in 0 out of 1 none lobowa (from lob) przerzuca pi k nad bramkarzem none to strike a ball well into the air so as to fall behind the opponent’s back. in 0 out of 2 none przelobowa (from lob) przerzuci pi k nad bramkarzem none a finished act of striking a ball well into the air so as to fall behind the opponent’s back. in 0 out of 1 none mecz (from match) spotkanie pi karskie, gra, pojedynek, zawody a contest of skills in a particular sport in which two or more players, teams, are pitted against each other. same in 11 out of 14 none media (from media) dziennikarze the main means of mass communication. same in 1 out of 1 none online (from online) w sieci of an operation or process: carried out while connected to a computer and under its direct control. same in 0 out of 1 none pressing (from pressing) nacisk the action of causing to move in a particular direction, or into a certain position. same in 0 out of 2 none show (from show) przedstawienie an appearance which makes a strong impression on the beholder. same in 0 out of 1 none snajper (from sniper) napastnik a sharp-shooter. same in 0 out of 1 none 5 I did not consider the words, vice-lider and lider as separate borrowings (although the meanings of the words are different) because the prefix vice-, which is Latin in origin, was attached to the word lider after the borrowing of the English form had already taken place. <?page no="63"?> 60 stoper (from stopper) obro'ca, defensor a player whose function is to block attacks on goal from the middle of the field. same in 2 out of 2 none trener (from trainer) szkoleniowiec one who puts a person through a course of training with a view to proficiency in something. same in 1 out of 8 none Table 1: English borrowings 5. Discussion The results show that, first, in Polish, equivalents of the English borrowings found in the data do exist; second, the equivalents are generally used in the same football match broadcasts and post-match articles (although the words faul 1/ 7 and trener 1/ 8 seem to be exceptions; their Polish equivalents are not used in the same football match broadcasts or post-match articles very often, which is possibly due to their greater length and broadcast time and limitations of article length); and third, both the English football terms and their Polish equivalents do not have any connotative meanings. Thus, the fact that Polish equivalents of the English football terms do exist and are generally used in the same contexts indicates that the spread of English into Polish does not cause linguistic diversity to disappear. Moreover, the fact that neither the English football terms nor the Polish equivalents found in the data have any connotative meanings indicates that the English football concepts which spread into Polish through football are not charged with the ideology of English-speaking countries. Consequently, since the spread of English into Polish through football neither causes linguistic diversity to disappear nor is it charged with the ideology of English-speaking countries, it cannot be considered linguistic imperialism. Consequently, this suggests that the spread of English through football into Polish offers alternative ways of expression. The results show that the English borrowings aut and doping have gained new meanings in Polish. Moreover, the results also reveal that Polish affixes are added to the English loan words, which causes the creation of words with meanings slightly different from the meanings of the English borrowings. For example, the suffix -owa in the words blokowa , przyblokowa , zablokowa , dopingowa , faulowa , sfaulowa , lobowa , and przelobowa indicates that the words are verbs in the infinitive form, the prefixes zain the word zablokowa , the prefix sin the word sfaulowa and the przein the word przelobowa indicate that the acts of blocking, fouling, and lobbing are finished, the prefix przyin the word przyblokowa changes the meaning of the word block from ‘to obstruct or close with obstacles’ to ‘to obstruct or close with obstacles for a short period of time’. The suffix ówka added to the word futbol creates a separate word which means ‘an inflated ball used to play football’, as well as indicating the feminine gender of the word (in Polish, the English borrowing futbol only refers to the game of football and its gender is masculine). Thus, based on the facts that two out of thirty English borrowings found in <?page no="64"?> 61 the data have gained new meanings in Polish and that Polish affixes can be attached to the English loanwords to change their meanings, we can conclude that the spread of English through football into Polish is possibly causing a development of a new variety of English. The reason why I claim that the spread of English through football into Polish is possibly causing rather than has caused the development of a new variety of English is due to the fact that the number of English loan words that have gained new meanings in Polish is rather insignificant. Consequently, the results of the study are in line with Kachru’s claim, which states that the spread of English offers alternative ways of expression that could cause the development of a new variety of English. However, although the findings of this study validate the above-mentioned claim, they challenge the structure of Kachru’s three circles model. According to this model, Poland belongs to the Expanding Circle, and therefore English there is norm-dependent. The results of this study, however, have shown that the spread of English through football into Polish is causing the development of a new variety of English which indicates that the English spoken in Poland is developing its own norms. Thus, the findings of this study reveal that Kuchru’s three circles model of the spread of English fails to account for the fact that English spoken in countries belonging to the Expanding Circle might also be normdeveloping. 5.1. Conclusion and call for further research The findings of this study have shown that the spread of English through football into Polish offers alternative ways of expression and is causing the development of a new variety of English. Consequently, this study illustrates that within the field of football the influence of the spread of English into Polish is relatively significant. Ch opicki (2005: 121) suggests that the influence of the spread of English into Polish is also “considerable and very strong in areas such as electronics or advertising”. Thus, it would be interesting to analyze whether the spread of English into Polish through digital media or advertising offers alternative ways of expression and is causing the development of a new variety of English. Further research will perhaps give more insights into this aspect of the spread of English. References Anderman, Gunilla / Rogers, Margaret (eds.) (2005): In and out of English: For better, for worse? Clevedon: Cromwell Press Ltd Burchfield, Robert (1985): The English language. Oxford: Oxford University Press Ch opicki, W adys aw (2005): Polish under siege. In: Anderman / Rogers, 108-122 Guttmann, Allen (1994): Games and empires. New York: Columbia University Press Hodge, Robert / Kress, Gunther (²1993): Language as ideology. New York: Routledge Kachru, Braj (²1986): The alchemy of English. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press Kachru, Braj (²1992): The other tongue. English across cultures. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press Pennycook, Alastair (2007) Global English and transcultural flaws. London: Routledge Phillipson, Robert (1992): Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press Phillipson, Robert (1999): Voice in global English: unheard chords in Crystal loud and clear. [Review article of English as a global language]. In: Applied Linguistics 20/ 2, 265-276 <?page no="65"?> 62 Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2000): Linguistic genocide in education - or worldwide diversity and human rights? Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Wikipedia (2007): Football (word). http: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Football_%28word%29, 15/ 06/ 2007 Sebastian S pek Linguistics Department Northeastern Illinois University 5500 N. St. Louis Ave Chicago IL, 60625 e-mail: s-sepek@neiu.edu <?page no="66"?> 63 VLADIMIR DOSEV FOOTBALL LEXIS AND PHRASEOLOGY IN CONTEMPORARY BULGARIAN The paper aims to introduce Bulgarian football lexis and the types of terms available in the language. It focuses on lexical specificity in communication in established football social groups, and studies the lexical and phraseological problems in the media. 1. Introduction The paper aims to introduce Bulgarian football lexis and the ways of extending the vocabulary of the language. The basic ways of providing the necessary lexis for socalled “football language” in Bulgarian are loan words from English, word-formation and loan translations. The vocabulary in the paper has been collected from: The Bulgarian Unilingual Dictionary (Science and Art 2002); Dictionary of Foreign Words in the Bulgarian Language (Science and Art 2000); Dictionary of New Words and Definitions in the Bulgarian Language (Science and Art 2001); the electronic edition of “World Football Encyclopedia” by Rumen Paitashev (2004); and from “Rules of the Game - Commentary” by Borislav Aleksandrov (2005). 2. Loan words from English Lexical loan words from English are the most characteristic way of providing footballspecific lexis. Most of the football vocabulary in Bulgarian is borrowed from English, which is also the case in most European languages. According to Boyadzhiev, “the borrowing of lexical elements is a completely natural and regular occurrence in language development and one of the important sources for the completion and enlargement of lexical composition. The thesis in linguistics that a language without loan words does not exist was confirmed a long time ago. In this respect all languages have a compound character” 1 (Boyadzhiev 2002: 162). Clear evidence of this statement is football vocabulary. Some lexical units are loan words in English itself, but in Bulgarian they come with the mediation of English as part of the football terminology. All rules of the game are expressed with loan words from English: / out, outside, <><@ / out-line, \ / goal, \ <><@ / goal-line, ^ `>{`, ^ `>|` / corner, ~  / match, €{> {`<@ / penalty-area, `{ {` / referee, | / touch, , / foul, {|`€ { / fair play, / football. Some of them have Bulgarian equivalents: ^ `>{`, ^ `>|` / corner - |\ ‚ `, €{> {`<@ / penalty-area - 1 All quotations from Bulgarian have been translated by myself, V.D. <?page no="67"?> 64 > ^ „ { > € {, `{ {` / referee - †| <@, | / touch - † ` ><> ‡‚|` @>{, , / foul - > ^ „ { {> `. Only the term for penalty is borrowed from French ( „€ from douze-pas) and means twelve steps. The exception is probably due to the fact that the first proponents of football in our country were French-speaking Swiss, working as teachers at the close of the 19 th century, after Bulgaria obtained its independence from the Ottoman empire. The football players, according to their positions on the pitch, can be {^ / back, † €{` / stopper, ‡ / half, \ ^<€|` / goalkeeper. All these words have Bulgarian equivalents, but English loan words are more popular. Football commentators use terms like: ‚ { / volley, € † / pass, ˆ / shoot, `< | / dribble, €`{† / press, which do not have Bulgarian equivalents. Football lexis in Bulgarian also includes some loan words from other languages. This is mostly the case for the language of media: ^ {>  catenaccio (from Italian); ^  calchio (Ital.); > {† <\ - Bundesliga (Ger.); ~ >ˆ - Mannschaft (Ger.). It is characteristic of football vocabulary in German to consist mostly of ‘home’ vocabulary and not of English loan words. (Out - aus, referee - Schiedsrichter, penalty - Elfmeter, goal - Tor, goal-keeper - Torwart, Tormann, touch - Einwurf, etc.) German and Italian loan words are used to refer to German and Italian football. In Bulgaria there is great interest in the German and Italian football languages. 3. Loan translations Lexical loan translations are a special kind of loan words, by which the morphological structure of a foreign word is filled with material from the native language or the semantic structure of a home word is added with a new meaning under the influence of a foreign language. Loan translations are defined as indirect loan words, literal translations or copies of the morphological and semantic structure of a word, which originate from another language and society. The literal pronunciation of the morphological structure and the semantic motivation of the foreign word with its own verbal means is ‘loan translating’. (Boyadzhiev 2002: 198) ‰‚ \ / Own goal - a goal scored by a player against his own team. Š ‚`{~{ is a result of the loan translation of half-time. Š „ ‹< ><^ is a loan translation of halfback. In addition to word-forming patterns, some phraseological ones are characteristic of football vocabulary: ‚>{„ €> †~|` (Engl. sudden death), >„<‚{> <\`  (offensive player), `{ ‚> ‚`{~{ (official game clock), ^ ‚ ‹ ` (offensive team), €| >< { > ‚`{~{ (overtime), †‚ {> ` (free kick), € „{>{ > €^ (carrying the ball), Œ{> ` {> ^`|\ (centre circle), €`@^ †‚ {> ` (direct free kick), >{€`@^ †‚ {> ` (indirect free kick). “With reference to phrasal loan translations, the words in the word group are translated separately from their components and are joined according to the pattern of the foreign word group”. (Boyadzhiev 2002: 199) As regards abbreviations, all abbreviations of proper names of international institutions related to football are also borrowed. • / FIFA - Fédération Internationale de Football Association • / CONCACAF - Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football <?page no="68"?> 65 • / CAF - Confédération Africaine de Football; Confederation of African Football • / UEFA - Union of European Football Associations 4. Word-formation The forming of new derivatives is one of the main ways of providing the necessary vocabulary in everyday life. They are made when the name of a new object or phenomenon through its relation to another object or phenomenon is needed, and this is how they are formed from units already existing in language - root, stem, affixes. “However, in many languages, there are productive (derivational) rules for what is traditionally called word-formation, which enables their users to construct new wordexpressions out of pre-existing lexically simpler expressions.” (Lyons 1995: 51) Through derivation (Latin - derivatio: ‘obtaining from a source’) new words constantly arise. We will look at some examples with the stem being borrowed from English. For example, the word <† “futbolist” (footballer) itself is formed from the derivative stem football and the suffix -<† / -ist. The word †€ ` <† / “sportist” has also been formed in the same way. They all have a main meaning and denomination for a person according to their profession or occupation. Words like \ ‘<@ „goladzhiya” (goal scoring player) are built on a similar structure-semantic plan. ’ ‘<@ is the name of the person who has an ability to score goals. It is built from the stem goal + the connective morpheme -a + the suffix of Turkish origin - ‘</ dzhi. This suffix is not very productive in Bulgarian. In Turkish it serves to mark persons according to their occupation or profession - ‘<@ / „abadzhiya” (tailor), ` ‘<@ / „arabadzhiya” (carter), ”>{` ‘<@ / „dyunerdzhiya” ( kind of cook). Turkish loan words and the words created with the use of Turkish suffixes do not have high prestige in Bulgarian and are characteristic of so-called ‘informal’ style. The word \ ~ † ` „golmaistor” ( player who can score many goals) has two stems - goal and master. From the borrowed words ˆ (shoot), <> (feint), `< | (dribble), (foul), †€`<> (sprint) and the productive Bulgarian suffix -<` / -ira new verbs in Bulgarian are formed: ˆ <` ~ / „shutiram”(to shoot), <> <` ~ / „fintiram”(to feint), `< <` ~ / „dribliram” (to dribble), <` ~ / „fauliram”(to foul), †€`<> <` ~ / „sprintiram”( to sprint). 5. Homonyms Sometimes the borrowed words from English have homonyms in Bulgarian - words which are pronounced in the same way, but have nothing in common in terms of definition. Such words are mostly a result of borrowing vocabulary from foreign languages and the fact that words with such a sound structure already exist in the language. For example, with the word goal we observe partial homonymy. In the concrete example we talk about homonymy between the basic word form of a noun and an adjective. The words belong to different word classes. In dictionaries for the different definitions of the homonym, single entries have been written. <?page no="69"?> 66 \ „gol”/ naked/ adj 1. With uncovered body, without clothes; undressed. \ „gol” (goal) m In football and other sport games - point gained, result achieved. Score a goal. (Engl.) (Bulgarian Unilingual Dictionary 2002) However, between two of the definitions of the word ˆ / shut there is a homonymy of the same syntactic category (Saeed 2003: 63) or ‘absolute homonymy’. According to John Lyons, “absolute homonyms will satisfy the following three conditions: (i) they will be unrelated in meaning; (ii) all their forms will be identical; (iii) the identical forms will be grammatically equivalent” (Lyons 1995: 55). In the Bulgarian Unilingual Dictionary there are different entries for the word ˆ / shut. ˆ m 1. A palace jester, a person who in the Middle Ages served on the royal court to entertain and make the king and his guests laugh. 2. A clown, a jester in a circus or in an entertaining show. 3. (figuratively, negative) A person who pretends to be funny or silly in order to entertain and make others laugh; joker, clown, fool, lala. (Russ.) ˆ (shoot) m. 1. In football - a hard strike, a hard kick of the ball. 2. (figuratively, colloquial) a kick. (Engl.) In view of the phonetic specifications in English, the appearance of doubled phonetic forms is also possible. For example, / faul and / fal (foul). Or ^ `>{`/ corner and ^ `>|`/ corner (corner), where the influence is in the pronunciation of the last vowel e in English. 6. Synonyms At the basis of lexical synonymy are the relations of identity and closeness between the sememes of the different words. The traditional definition of synonyms is the following: words close or identical in meaning, which designate in different ways one and the same concept but differ in semantic nuances. Exact synonyms are very rare. “The synonyms often have different distributions along a number of parameters” (Saeed 2003: 65). A playmaker / € {~{^|`, for example, means a footballer who ‘coordinates a team’s offensive strategies’ and operates in the centre, mostly with a free role, and a halfback / ‡ {^ ( @‚ < < {†{>) - a footballer who also plays in centre field, but on the left or on the right. The synonymous relations and connections unify the words in groups which are called synonym rows (Boyadzhiev 2002: 140) or groups of synonyms (clusters). Clusters are essentially groups of synonyms (…). A centred cluster has a more or less clear core of one or two items, and a penumbra of more peripheral items. Among the characteristics of the core items are: (i) They are expressively neutral. (ii) They are stylistically unmarked, that is, they occur in a wider range of registers than any of the other terms. (iii) They are propositionally superordinate. (Cruse 2004: 188) Every centred cluster has its own dominant synonym. It is neutral and covers semantically in full the semantic basis of the cluster. In the cluster € „ ‹< ><^ <?page no="70"?> 67 (calque half-defender) - € {~{^|` / playmaker - ‡ {^ / halfback the core is the € „ ‹< ><^ / half-defender. The problem in the use of foreign loan words for which there are Bulgarian equivalents (synonyms) raised linguistic interest some time ago. (Tsvetkova 1999) (Getsov 2000). At the same time, a serious ambition on one part of football journalists to use a growing number of newly borrowed lexical units can be observed; these terms have their Bulgarian equivalents: • {^ / halfback - € „ ‹< ><^; \ ^<€|` / goal-keeper - ‚` `, †  / offside - „ † , {^ / back - „ ‹< ><^. Linguistic research in this area recommends limiting the use of borrowed vocabulary in cases where Bulgarian vocabulary already exists (Tsvetkova 1999) (Getsov 2000): | (a touch) - † ` ><> ‡‚|` @>{, a ^ `>{` (a corner) - |\ ‚ `, a „€ (a penalty) - 11-~{ ` ‚ > ^ „ { {> `, (a foul) - > ` ˆ{><{, etc. Special attention should be given to the increased use of the word €{> „penalt” or €{> „penalta”. For example, the question, „Is €{> a word with an article or not, and what is its gender according to the Bulgarian grammatical system? ” (Tsvetkova 1999). According to Stefan Getsov, “there is not such a word and it cannot exist in the system of our literary language” (Getzov 2000: 66). The meaning of the word €{> {`<@ / „penalteriya” (the penalty area) can be largely covered by penalty area (English). This must be understood only in the sense of the so-called \ @~ > ^ „ { > € { / penalty area because in English the term for ~ ^ > ^ „ { > € { / small penalty area is goal area. In this sense the use of the word groups \ @~ < ~ ^ > ^ „ { > € { / big and small penalteriya (by the mass media) is the less usual one. As pointed out above, the meaning of the English word penalty is not penalty area, as being used in the language of the media in Bulgaria. According to Bulgarian linguists (Tsvetkova 1999, Getsov 2000), it is recommended to use the Bulgarian words and to limit the use of the loan words, especially of the newest ones in synonym rows. 11-~{ ` ‚ †‚ {> ` instead of „€ (penalty), |\ ‚ ` instead of ^ `>{` (corner), † ` ><> ‡‚|` @>{ - | (touch), > ^ „ { > € { - €{> {`<@ (penalty area), etc. 7. Football lexis and the language of the media After the social changes in Bulgaria in 1989, the mass media are now characterised by a free market and competition. The informal football language of young football fans has become the language of the sports media (replacing the “wooden language” of the Communist period). According to M. Videnov (Videnov 1999: 10), the most important changes in media language are: • Everyday language has left the strictly marked domestic area of primary groups - the family, circles of friends - and has established its place in newspapers and politics. • The “building material” of “barbarianisation” was not very diverse: a few dozen Turkish loan words, taken from low stylistic registers, plus a few dozen slang expressions with a meaning that is clear to every Bulgarian. For example, words of Turkish origin have entered permanently the language of the football commentator (balta, rezil, kyotek). <?page no="71"?> 68 • An increased influx of international words of English origin. This is especially visible in football. The language of the football fan, created in the big cities, has become the basis for the language of sports journalism. For example, in Bulgarian, and particularly in Bulgarian media, the newly loaned lexeme {> (fan) is more prevalent than „ € @>^ . We can also notice here some generational discrimination. The young only occasionally use the lexeme „ € @>^ . They accept it as dated and part of the football language of the communist period. We offer research with statistical methods on the frequency of use of each unit of the synonym cluster {> (fan), „ € @>^ . The present research complies with the classical scheme for the statistical study of quantitative phenomena: 1) statistical observation, 2) statistical grouping, and 3) statistical analysis. The aim of the research is to describe the quantitative side of synonymy in this group. The research is based on the three sports daily newspapers in Bulgaria and the sports pages of the 24  † / 24 hours newspaper of 6.11.2005. Newspaper {> (fan) „ € @>^ 24  † (24 Hours) 18 2 7 >< †€ ` (7days Sport) 22 6 – € †€ ` (Top Sport) 7 2 —{`< < > ~  (Meridian match) 20 2 Generally 67 12 Percentages 85% 15% Table 1: Frequency of use of newly loaned lexeme {> (fan) vs. „ € @>^ The research clearly shows the great difference in the frequency of use of the two lexemes (Dosev 2006: 108-114); the total absence of the lexeme „ € @>^ is striking. 7.1. Lexis suggesting aggressiveness, military lexis and vulgarisms A win in football is most often expressed in the pages of Bulgarian newspapers with expressions like: team A beat, battered, crushed, humiliated, submerged, sent down, shattered, sapped team B. The articles before matches of Bulgarian teams playing foreign ones are specifically characteristic of the language of newspapers: aggression is very typical before a match. It seems as if the Bulgarian press are wilfully generating tension before important matches. It suggests to readers that this is the most important <?page no="72"?> 69 match and everything depends on it, and we must almost hate the opponent who is trying to take something away from us. The analogies with war are very strong. We will present examples from the Bulgarian press before the match between Bulgaria and Sweden in the qualification for the World Championship in Germany. 1. Bulgaria is with you, boys! The black Swedish terror must end today! ; Crush them for the sake of your country! Let the Swedish misery, going on for 13,648 days, end today! (26.03.05 – € †€ ` ; Top Sport) The article itself is full of aggressive lexis appropriate more for a war correspondent or a National Revival author. It speaks of bloody attacks, generals, wounded heroes, and even makes an analogy with one of the biggest Bulgarian military victories on that date. We can add two headlines from the newspaper 7 >< †€ ` (7 Days Sport) before the same match and another one from before a match between CSKA and Bayer Leverkusen: 2. It is easy to hate Ljungberg; The Swedes: We’ll be punching Berbatov in the chest (23.03.05); Smash the Germans! (29.09.05) One more example of the use of improper language from one of the most popular Bulgarian newspapers, again 7 >< †€ ` (7 Days Sport): 3. Levski magnificent, the referee a homosexual (31.03.2006) As Krasimir Stoyanov asserts, Bulgarian journalism felt the socio-political change after 1989, but did not always find an appropriate tone. (Stoyanov 1999: 118) 8. Conclusion In Bulgarian, football lexis for the most part is borrowed from English. The ways of obtaining the necessary football lexis are generally loan words and calques (loan translations) from English. There are also loan words from other languages. Since the social changes of 1989, attempts to avoid clichés have been noticed in the media. Language has turned into a powerful marketing tool for newspapers in the new market conditions. More detailed research could study the use of military terminology in football language and of football lexis in the language of politicians. Football lexis in Bulgarian offers metaphors for topics involving competition and opposition. References Cruse, Alan (2004): Meaning in language. Oxford University Press Dosev, Vladimir (2006): Football lexis in the contemporary Bulgarian language. In: Papers in Linguistics from the University of Manchester; Department of Linguistics and English languages; School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures; University of Manchester, 108-114 Lyons, John (1995): Linguistic semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press <?page no="73"?> 70 Saeed, John (2003): Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd "$*>Q, \>*^ Q (2005): `* Q^ " ^|*  - >€ " *. >‚^„; \  (Aleksandrov, Borislav (2005): Rules of the game - commentary Sofia. BFS \>„$†^ Q, ‡>$>* (2002): \ˆ | * ^ > >|^„. >‚^„ "‰Š^ (Boyadzhiev, Todor (2002): Bulgarian lexicology. Sofia: Anubis) \ˆ | * ^ ˆ >Q " * ‹"^ (2002): >‚^„: ‰ ^ ^’ ‰ Q> (Bulgarian Unilingual Dictionary (2002), Sofia: Science and Art) “^$ ">Q, ”^• ^ (1999): ^ ^ ^‹"  * Q> –˜^„ QˆQ Q "^ * ^„ ’^ : ’^ ˆ " € $^^ . “ *" " ^ Q>Š>$ " ‰"^Q * ^  š *">*^’ ˜ ›* Šˆ* (Videnov, Mihail (1999): The stylistic revolution in the newspaper language: The language of the media. Varna: Free University Press) œ ˜>Q,  ‚ " (2000): ’^ >Q^ € "^Ÿ‰ ˜^^ Q Ÿ>*"  Ÿ* . “ ^ > ‡ˆ*">Q>: Š * (Getzov, Stefan (2000): Language manipulations in the sports press. Veliko Tarnovo: Faber) ` - ¡ Q, ¢‰€ " (2004): Q >Q" ‚‰Š> " "˜^ >Ÿ $^„. >‚^„: ‡*‰$ (Paitashev, Rumen (2004): World football encyclopedia. Sofia: Trud) ¢ ‹"^ " ‹‰†$^ $‰€^ Q Šˆ | * ^ ’^ (2000) >‚^„: ‰ ^ ^’ ‰ Q> (Dictionary of the foreign words in the Bulgarian language (2000), Sofia: Science and Art) ¢ ‹"^ " ">Q^ $‰€^ ^ $ ‚^"^˜^^ Q Šˆ | * ^ ’^ ; (2001) >‚^„: ‰ ^ ^’ ‰ Q> (Dictionary of the new words and definitions in Bulgarian language (2001), Sofia: Science and Art) >„">Q, * ^€^* (1999): Š£ Q "^ Ÿ*>€ "^ (1989-1996) ^ Q "^ * ^„ ’^ . >‚^„: ” †$‰" *>$"> >˜^> ^"|Q^ ^‹ > $*‰† Q> (Stojanov, Krasimir (1999): The social changes (1989-1996) and the newspaper language. Sofia International sociolinguistics press) ¤Q  >Q , ” *^  (1999): ¥ „^’€ * "^„ ” " Ÿ*>€ "^ Q Šˆ | * ^„ ’^ ( Q>, ^ ’ £> Ÿ*>€ "^); http: / / www.slav.uni-sofia.bg/ bgspeech/ sites/ en/ publ/ bgsp_mtz_za-izmpeneniata.pdf (Tsvetkova, Marieta (1999): About the „dimensions” of changes in Bulgarian language (what, why and how exactly changed); http: / / www.slav.uni-sofia.bg/ bgspeech/ sites/ en/ publ/ bgsp_mtz_za-izmpeneniata.pdf Lecturer Vladimir Dosev Department “Slavic languages” University of Economics - Varna “Knjaz Boris ¦” 77 9000 Varna, Bulgaria e-mail: vl_dosev@abv.bg http: / / www.ue-varna.bg/ en/ index.php? page=25&id=536& <?page no="74"?> 71 MÉLANIE BERNARD FOOTBALL IN FRANCE: ITS HISTORY, VOCABULARY AND PLACE WITHIN FRENCH SOCIETY Football is a well-established worldwide phenomenon, and its vocabulary is found in almost any culture. In France, the status of football as the ‘king’ of sports has continued since its very beginning, and vocabulary has been borrowed from the English language ever since. In this paper, I will study a set of lexical items borrowed from English to be found in the sports newspaper L’Équipe (a leader in terms of circulation nationwide) and analyse how these items have become integrated into the French language - grammatically, morphologically and semantically. I will also report on a sociolinguistic survey in which a questionnaire distributed to 250 people spread across the country assessed the knowledge and use of football items borrowed from English. 1. Introduction Football is a well-established worldwide phenomenon, whose vocabulary is now to be found in most cultures. In France, its status as ‘king’ of sports has continued since its beginning. Vocabulary from English has been borrowed by French ever since. Let me first briefly deal with the history of football from its origins to its codification in the middle of the 16 th century in England. I will also consider its French history from its early beginnings to its being officially established in 1872 with the founding of the first football club in Le Havre. Then I will study a set of lexical items borrowed from English found in the sports newspaper L’Équipe (a leader in terms of circulation nationwide) and will analyse how these items have become integrated into French. Integration, as described in this study, can take four forms: lexical integration, grammatical integration (I will examine specifically how grammatical gender is attributed to English items borrowed into French), morphological integration (compound and derived words will be examined more closely) and semantic integration (into French culture). In my corpus, the words borrowed from English do not necessarily belong to the domain of football, and not even to that of sports, but they belong to other domains, such as the cinema or economics. This reflects the fact that football, and sports in general, has come to occupy a central place in contemporary society and culture. When writing or talking about football and sports, speakers often use words from other domains of activity. This particular place of sports in contemporary society has been confirmed by my sociolinguistic survey. A questionnaire distributed to 250 people spread across the country assessed the knowledge and use of the lexical items borrowed from English. The results can be said to reveal the permeability of the borders between domains of social activity: sports is not only a physical activity, but it is also a way of life. <?page no="75"?> 72 2. History 2.1. Europe Men have been kicking a ball forever, but a sport only exists when codified with precise rules. The ancient Greeks already had games with four different sizes of balls. During the Middle Ages, our ancestors played ‘soule’, an early and more violent version of football. During the 16 th century in England, schools adopted a ball game called hurling at goales. In Renaissance Florence, they played the only ball game with rules, calcio, the ancestor of football, but “this calcio did not last and what is nowadays called calcio in Italy is nothing but an imported version of English football” (Le Floc’hmoan, 1962: 52, translation M. B.). Indeed, as Rethacker / Thibert (1977: 23) point out: “Great Britain may not have been where football was born, but it has certainly been its cradle and home” (translation M. B.). Despite its unclear origins, football has been prominent in England since the 17 th century, and in 1846 the first rules were established at Cambridge University. During the 19 th century competitions grew from regional to national levels. English sailors brought the game to all European ports and the sport spread to the whole of Europe. The first international game between Austria and Hungary took place in 1902 in Vienna. In 1904 seven countries founded FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association): Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Holland, Sweden and Switzerland. In the middle of the 20 th century Meyer (1966: 15 - 16) wrote: It is true that, in the middle of the century, with its simple and accessible rules, football remains the most popular sport. In view of its dramatic aspect, its unity of time and place (reminding us of classical tragedies), its uncertainty as to the result and how it is played, it reflects the deep character of people; finally, it releases passions which are deeply rooted in regional and national pride. (translation M. B.) This claim is still valid, and in many countries football is the most popular sport. What follows is intended to shed some light on the origins of football in France and its current status. 2.2. France According to Durry / Jeu (1992: 64, translation M. B.), “the true revolution brought by British sport is football, and there is no denying that the British master it”. Its integration in France happened through students and teachers who practised it at English universities and then brought it back to their home country. Football crossed the Channel in 1872 and settled first in Le Havre. In 1904, the French national team played its first game in Brussels. On July 12, 1998, it reached its climax in France: the French national team won the World Cup after beating Brazil. In 2000 they won the European Championship. According to French Football Federation (FFF) figures, in 2006-2007 there were more than 2 million registered players, about 50,000 of whom were women. Football and TV have always been closely linked: as early as in 1927, Ernest Chamond worked on developing the broadcasting of football on French TV and predicted that it would become the biggest show event. In fact, the 2006 World Cup final attracted more than 22 million viewers in France alone. A survey of the most <?page no="76"?> 73 popular TV shows in 2006 in France shows that 9 of the top 10 programmes were football games. According to AFP (French Press Agency), football was the most popular sports broadcast in 2006, with 46.3% of air time. As far as other media are concerned, there are, for example, about forty magazines dedicated to football. 3. The corpus My corpus is taken from the French press, which, since it reflects current language usage, is a useful way to gain insights into the grammatical integration and morphology of borrowed lexical items. In 1920, when writing about English terms used in the French language, Bonnaffé stressed: [These] words are collected on site, in England and the US, by tourists, writers, businessmen, traders, and more importantly journalists, professional news recorders, word inventors, who give them their concrete form. They then penetrate the public domain through the press, books, the theatre and so imprint people’s memories. (p. IX; translation M. B.) As Le Bidois (1970: 253) also stresses: “No one will deny that the French press offers to English words an extremely favourable cultural medium” (translation M. B.). The origin of these borrowings often comes from the written language, especially the print media. 3.1. Data collection The study took place during the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The corpus was collected by extracting English words from the sports newspaper L’Equipe between August 14 - 30, 2004. L’Equipe, a daily newspaper, is a national point of reference for sport and is representative of the vocabulary used in the media. A close reading of all pages of L’Equipe covering football resulted in the collection of 59 lexes. They are presented in Table 1. bookmaker fighting spirit out self-control boss finale outsider soccer casting finaliste pénaliser speaker challenge foot penalty sponsor club football performance sponsoring coach footballistique pressing sprint compétition goal-average pro staff corner groggy professionnel standing cerby handicap punch star cribbleur head coach qualification stopper entraînement hold-up qualifier supporter entraîner interview record suspense entraîneur leader remake tabloid fair-play manager reporter test fan match score Table 1: Borrowings from English in football <?page no="77"?> 74 3.2. Lexical integration The analysis of the corpus of lexemes extracted from articles covering football is as follows: 52 nouns (88.1%), 4 verbs (6.8%) and 3 adjectives (5%). These figures are very similar to those found in a corpus four times as large, in which I analyzed ten sports and 220 lexemes (Bernard 2006), which were, respectively, 82.9%, 9.4% and 6.7%. These numbers seem to make sense: in borrowing, the most widely borrowed lexical category is that of nouns, as these stand for a notion or an object, easily transferable from one language to another, whereas adjectives do not have this autonomy to the same degree. 3.3. Grammatical integration Grammatical integration presents the greatest difficulty for terms borrowed from a foreign language. Indeed, the grammar of the language which borrows does not necessarily follow the same rules as that of the original language: when French, with its grammatical genders, borrows lexemes from English which do not have the same grammatical gender (only animate nouns being masculine or feminine), the borrowed terms take on a gender in order to adapt to the French grammatical system. Among the 52 borrowings in my corpus which belong to the lexical class of nouns, 40 are masculine (77%), 6 feminine (11.5%), and 6 are epicene 2 (11.5%). These figures are quite similar to those of my previous research (Bernard 2006), where masculine was the most frequent gender (87.4%), then feminine (9%) and epicene (3.6%). 3.4. Morphological integration I will now examine morphological integration, which relates to the structure of the lexical item. Most lexemes are made up of several elements (roots, prefixes and suffixes) and every language has its own combination system. Guiraud (1965: 105 - 106) writes: Thus, the French, Spanish and Italian languages share suffixes and prefixes which all come from a unique Latin form […] similarly, the English language has prefixes and suffixes that derive from medieval French or Latin and which can be easily adapted […] but other languages send us words whose forms do not merge into the system of our language. They then live there in an isolated state, viewed as a mere root: roast beef, jockey, pergola, etc. (translation M. B.) English, unlike French, does not organise its verbs into types (named ‘groups’ in French), and, also unlike French, some English lexical items can belong to more than one lexical class. For example, putt can be both a verb and a noun (the context clears up any ambiguity). In French, simple verbal forms are made up of a root, which represents the meaning of the verb, and of a grammatical ending, which indicates mode, tense and person. The root is generally invariable. Traditionally, three groups can be distinguished: the first group includes verbs which have an infinitive ending in -er; the 2 Epicene designates a word which is used in either gender. <?page no="78"?> 75 second group of verbs ends in -ir; the third group includes all verbs that do not belong to any of the first two groups. This classification is important in that it dictates how a verb is going to be conjugated. Moreover, French, unlike English, does not allow any change in the grammatical class of the lexical item without appending a suffix to it. Verbs thus created generally belong to the first group (e.g. the verb sprinter is a derivative of the lexeme sprint and of the suffix -er). This statement is true for most of the neologisms created or borrowed in French. Dauzat (1950: 149, translation M. B.) explains: “Generally speaking, the language gradually eliminates abnormal constructions and generalizes the most common types. During the classical period, the first conjugation becomes prominent and has constantly gained ground since”. When they are borrowed, the English verbs have to follow the morphological rules of the verbal paradigm of French. Borrowings are therefore adapted, which generally happens through the suffix of the first conjugation. Indeed, every single verb of my corpus belongs to that conjugation: it represents the most regular type and includes 90% of French verbs (cf. Riegel / Pellat / Rioul 1994). 4. The sociolinguistic study The borrowed lexical items in the domain of football have been partly integrated, grammatically and morphologically, but we know that successful integration of foreign language borrowings involves not only conformity to the rules of the target language, but also their appropriation by its speakers. The description of the integration of a foreign word must therefore be associated with the study of its actual use. In the presentation of the corpus, I pointed out that even a paper that refers to itself as “the sports and automotive daily” uses anglicisms that do not necessarily belong to the field of sports. Most of the lexical items in the corpus covering football belong to this sport, but some of them, such as star, casting, tabloid or test, belong to other domains, such as the cinema or social sciences. This characteristic of the borrowings partly exemplifies the role and importance of football in our society. Indeed, even though the language of football is a technical language, this sport, thanks to its development and success, has opened up new areas of activity. Football players are considered stars, they feature in movies and some producers even make whole movies about their lives (for example Zidane, a portrait of the 21 st century). They support charities for sick children and make millions doing commercials. In this article, however, only lexical items have been considered whose first meaning belongs to the domain of football (or sports in general). 4.1. The subjects In order to determine what the real uses of these lexical items are among French speakers, I conducted a sociolinguistic survey using a written questionnaire, which was distributed to 250 people. Table 2 below shows the categories sex, age and education level. The first level of education corresponds to basic qualifications, the second to Alevels and the third to university. <?page no="79"?> 76 First level of education (1) Second level of education (2) Third level of education (3) Total Sex M F M F M F age 18-34 9 6 8 11 32 27 93 age 35-54 15 13 8 12 26 22 96 over 55 10 10 7 9 15 10 61 TOTAL 34 29 23 32 73 59 250 Table 2: Distribution of surveys 4.2. Knowledge of lexical items The subjects were asked whether they knew the lexical items presented to them in a list. The question asked was as follows: “What are the words you do not know? ” Let me clarify first what “knowing a word” means. Any individual has in his vocabulary a series of lexical items he has already heard or read without necessarily being able to give an accurate definition of them. According to Charles Muller (1977: 41), we define the lexicon of an individual, the idiom he usually uses (his mother tongue in general), as the set of lexemes he ‘knows’, in other words the series of phonical or graphical images he has already perceived in the speech of other members of his linguistic community and which he associates with a certain semantic content. (translation M. B.) For this question about the knowledge of lexical items, I had to use simple, nontechnical vocabulary that could be understood by everyone. The verb ‘to know’ has a meaning that is vague enough for everybody to find sense in it; in everyday language, it means ‘to understand’ and doesn’t necessarily refer to the use of a lexical item. According to Le Petit Larousse Illustré (Dictionary, 2007), it means: ‘to have a more or less exact idea, understand more or less accurately’. We have to bear in mind that the subjects in this study belonged to all social classes and therefore the questionnaire had to remain accessible to allow for those who did not have in-depth metalinguistic knowledge Table 3 displays the 38 lexical items belonging to the domain of football and the percentage of answers depicted as follows: total for all categories (sex, age and education level), total for all male subjects, then female subjects. I then analysed answers according to age: 18-34, 35-54 and above 55. Finally, I consider the answers for each level of education: basic qualification (1), A-levels (2), university (3). Remember that the question was “What are the words you do not know? ”, i.e. a percentage of 0 means that the lexical item was known by all participants. <?page no="80"?> 77 Sex Age Education level N° Lexical item Total Male Female 18-34 35-54 +55 1 2 3 1 compétition 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 3 4 entraînement/ entraîneur/ entraîner 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5/ 6 finale/ finaliste 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7/ 8 foot/ football 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 handicap 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 manager 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 match 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 12 pénaliser 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 penalty 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 14 performance 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 16 pro/ professionnel 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 punch 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 18 19 qualification/ qualifier 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 20 record 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 21 score 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22 23 sponsor / sponsoring 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 24 challenge 1,2 1,5 0,8 0 1 3,3 0 3,6 0,8 25 coach 1,2 0,8 1,7 0 1 3,3 0 3,6 0,8 26 outsider 1,2 0 2,5 2,2 1 0 1,6 3,6 0 27 dribbleur 1,6 2,3 0,8 1,1 2,1 1,6 0 3,6 1,5 28 supporter 1,6 1,5 1,7 0 3,1 1,6 1,6 1,8 1,5 29 bookmaker 3,2 1,5 5 2,2 3,1 4,9 7,9 5,5 0 30 fair-play 3,6 1,5 5,8 4,3 3,1 3,3 7,9 5,5 0,8 31 corner 5,6 4,6 6,7 5,4 7,3 3,3 4,8 5,5 6,1 32 derby 8 3,1 13,3 12,9 6,3 3,3 11,1 14,5 3,8 33 footballistique 9,2 5,4 13,3 5,4 15,6 4,9 11,1 9,1 8,3 34 groggy 19,6 16,2 23,3 36,6 13,5 3,3 19 30,9 15,2 35 goal-average 21,6 7,7 36,7 22,6 22,9 18 23,8 29,1 29,1 36 soccer 26,8 12,3 42,5 16,1 27,1 42,6 39,7 40 15,2 37 fighting-spirit 29,6 20 40 28 28,1 34,4 38,1 41,8 20,5 38 head-coach 34,4 37,5 31,5 31,2 36,5 36,1 33,3 34,5 34,8 TOTAL 4,4% 3,1% 5,9% 4,4% 4,7% 4,3% 5,3% 6,1% 3,6% Table 3: Anglicisms in football Among the 38 lexical items belonging to the domain of football, 23 were known by all subjects, 7 by more than 95% of them, and only 8 were known by between 65% and 95% of the subjects. The results show that, if a lexical item is not known by men, it is not known by women either, and women declare a knowledge of fewer lexical items than men do. Rethaker / Thibert (1977) remind us that football is a sport created by men for men, and <?page no="81"?> 78 even if more and more women are playing it today, most of the registered players are men. For the age group from 18 to 34, the results for less known lexical items are identical to the totals. Conversely, the subjects above 55 years of age showed that they know more that the other two groups. An explanation for this might be that the older an individual, the more likely he is to have played the sport and therefore the more knowledgeable he will be about its specific vocabulary. Finally, the results show that the level of education influences the knowledge of these anglicisms. Level 3 subjects had a lower percentage, which could be explained by their knowledge of English, since we know that the higher the educational level of individuals, the more likely they are to have an advanced knowledge of the language. Indeed, an individual is all the likelier to have had significant exposure to the English language if he has received higher education. However, I also noticed that people with the lowest level of education are more knowledgeable than people with A-levels education. I think this might be due to their greater knowledge of popular culture and football culture in general. 5. Conclusion With more than two million registered players, record TV ratings and extensive coverage in the print media, there is no denying that football is the ‘king’ of sports in France. Football was codified in England, but its development in France has influenced both its practice and the expansion of its vocabulary. This analysis shows that its vocabulary, mostly inherited from English, has experienced lexical (thanks to the borrowing of nouns), grammatical (all nouns have acquired a gender) and morphological integration (verbs have integrated through the first conjugation) into French. The sociolinguistic analysis shows the level of knowledge of borrowed lexical items used in football: of 38 items, 23 are known by 100% of the surveyed population, 7 are known by more than 95% and 8 are known by between 65% and 95% of the subjects. The study also allows for some attempts at defining the relationship between French speakers and their language and the vocabulary of football: football is the ‘king’ of sports; it plays a very important role in French society; and its vocabulary is largely known by the sample surveyed, irrespective of age, level of education or sex. Unlike most research on anglicisms based on corpora put together from dictionaries, this research yields only partial results, since the corpus that was used originated from newspapers, in other words authentic texts, which both reflect the thoughts of their authors and readers and exemplify actual usage. The language of journalists may not be extremely formal, but it is closer to speakers’ usage. Moreover, the aim of this study was not to present thorough results that could be considered significant on a large scale, but rather to suggest trends which further studies can build upon. More lexical items could be submitted to subjects of another survey, and the integration and knowledge of the items could also be compared across different French-speaking countries. <?page no="82"?> 79 References Bernard, Mélanie (2006): Les anglicismes dans le sport en langue française: modes d’intégration et aspects sociolinguistiques. Bordeaux: thèse de doctorat Bonnaffé, Édouard (1920): Dictionnaire des anglicismes. Paris: Librairie Delagrave Dauzat, Albert (1950): Phonétique et grammaire historiques de la langue française. Paris: Larousse Durry, Jean / Jeu, Bernard (1992): L’histoire en mouvement. Paris: Armand Colin Garnier, Yves / Vinciguerra Mady / Jeuge-Maynard, Isabelle (2007): Le Petit Larousse Illustré, Paris: Larousse Guiraud, Pierre (1965): Les mots étrangers. Paris: PUF Le Bidois, Robert (1970): Les mots trompeurs ou le délire verbal. Paris: Hachette Le Floc’moan, Jean (1962): La genèse des sports. Paris: Payot Meyer, Gaston (1966): L’athlétisme. Paris: Éditions La Table Ronde Muller, Charles (1977): Principes et méthodes de statistique lexicale. Paris: Hachette Rethacker, Jean-Philippe / Thibert, Jacques (1977): La fabuleuse histoire du foot. Paris: ODIL Riegel, Martin / Pellat, Jean-Christophe / Rioul, René (1994): Grammaire méthodique du français. Paris: PUF Mélanie Bernard Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux 3 Rés. La Mirandole, Apt 3A 141 route de Toulouse 33400 TALENCE, France e-mail: melanie7979@yahoo.com <?page no="84"?> 81 ADEL EL SAYED EGYPTIAN COLLOQUIAL ARABIC AND THE BRITISH OCCUPATION THE CASE OF FOOTBALL Great Britain’s occupation of Egypt (1881-1882), as a part of the Ottoman Empire, was not the first but the ultimate encounter between Europe and the Orient. The occupation helped in moving the whole region, especially Egypt, in evaluating itself and comparing its own capabilities with those of alien ‘others’. When the national issue dominated British-Arab-Egyptian encounters, issues like language, cultural customs and traditions, as well as forms of entertainment became important for Egyptians. The main topic of this paper deals with the question of Egyptian colloquial Arabic being ‘infected’ with a huge amount of British vocabulary around football, despite the will of the natives to nationalize all spheres of life. The conflict of Arabic equivalents existing for the vocabulary used, on the one hand, and the will to practise some form of flexibility, on the other, emerges. The separation of Classical from Colloquial Arabic was the main consequence of that encounter: there are in fact two languages used in the Arabic homelands. 1. A socio-political introduction The French expedition under Napoleon Bonaparte into Egypt (1798) was the first European invasion in modern times to shock the Arabic-speaking world, which was at the time an essential part of the Ottoman Empire in Southwest Asia and North Africa. This expedition revived memories in the Egyptian people concerning the violence that had occurred during the time of the European Crusades, but the new French invasion was completely different. At the beginning they tried to attract as broad a spectrum of Egyptian Arabs as possible for modernization, development and brotherhood among the peoples of the Orient and Europe, but without success 1 . The French expedition lasted only three years due to the resistance of the Egyptian people and British ambitions to gain its part of the area to secure its route to Asia. The impact on all levels of the ‘Arab-Oriental way of life’ was big enough to influence the whole region, including Egypt. After this the Egyptian people asked themselves: “What are the reasons that we are underdeveloped? ” and “Why are the Europeans so advanced? ” With these two questions the period of ‘The Modern Orient’ began, sending thousands of young men, with their religious ‘supervisors’, mainly to France to accumulate ‘all the missed sciences’, beginning with the translation of European literatures and ending with studying European philosophy. When the Arab-Ottomanli young men returned back home, they gave reports on their scientific studies and on the life of people in Europe. It is still interesting to read such reports about what they had found in Europe. Mohammed Abdo wrote at the time that he himself had found “Islam” in Europe, “An Islam without Muslims”, whereas at home (Egypt) there were “Muslims without Islam” - an expression still used in Arabic, 1 See Al Sa‘id 1978: 21-51. <?page no="85"?> 82 which means that the people of Europe were living in a spirit of high values, whereas at home this was not the case. Soon after the evacuation of the French troops from Egypt (1801), a small contingent of British troops tried to invade Egypt (1807), without success. One consequence followed with the rise of a new dynasty under the Albanian Governor of Egypt, Mohammed Ali, breaking with the Ottoman Empire. He then declared his ideas for modernizing the country, putting it on his agenda to break with the underdevelopment prevailing in the region. Most historians have called the time of Mohammed Ali “the establishment of modern Egypt”. As with other Arabs, the Egyptians strove for ‘self-rule’ within the Ottoman Empire. Among politicians and intellectuals a heated discussion ensued, which led to the idea of independence, only a short time before the outbreak of World War I and under the British occupation of Egypt. They knew of the high costs involved in connection with independence and modernization, but how to accomplish this without high risk? This was the key question. The Ottoman Empire was situated on a solid religious basis as its legitimacy for controlling the Arab-speaking areas from Tunisia to Iraq to Palestine and Egypt. The Arab leaders at the time thought one way or another that their independence from the Ottoman Empire could be based on a secular base, contrasting with the religious legitimacy of the Ottoman Empire. Cooperation with Europe was one of their first goals. At the time the cooperation with Europe meant they would become a modern nation, but should the Arabs erase their language to become modern? 2 The second generation of Mohammed Ali’s dynasty, Khedive Ismail, began to invest in huge projects such as the Suez Canal, which led to the revival of foreign ambitions, mainly on the part of the French and British. Mismanagement and corruption within the Egyptian leading class led to British occupation from 1881 to 1882. Egyptian resistance to the occupation could not stop the British from gaining control of the Suez Canal and then the whole country including Sudan, which belonged to the Egyptian government at the time. 2. Colloquial versus classic Arabic Shauqi Ðaif 3 proved that Egyptian colloquial language had begun to ignore classical Arabic grammar from the 12 th century onwards, which in turn led to adopting foreign vocabulary in daily use. From the same century onwards, different Turkish dynasties ruled the Arab-speaking region; by the 16 th century the Ottoman Empire was gradually consolidating its authority in the entire region. The Turkish language was the main administrative language, which led to a lot of Turkish and Farsi vocabulary entering different Arabic colloquial languages, especially Egyptian colloquial language. During that time another European influence, mainly Italian, Greek and French vocabulary, was making its way into colloquial Arabic through Turkish. We find a lot of vocabulary influence through the military, technical and artistic foreign words used in Egyptian 2 See ‘Abd al Hakim, 1979: 61-69. 3 See aif 1994: 11-14. <?page no="86"?> 83 colloquial Arabic. With the British occupation of Egypt, these words were used daily and dramatically expanded the colloquial language. 3. Great Britain in Egypt Great Britain concentrated its troops in Egypt. With the Suez Canal being their main area of interest, the cities in the coastal areas became their focus of interest. In the end, Britain had spread its main forces to gain control of the whole country. At the beginning of the occupation, the British troops lived in their own camps and military zones around or near the main cities, like Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, Ismailiyya, and others. Their military camps were quite a distance from the mainstream Egyptian population to avoid any problems. The British tended to spend their free time inside their own camps before getting into contact with the Egyptians. The camps were fenced off and the Egyptians were not allowed to get close. While the British were in the fenced-in areas, the Egyptians were able to watch the activities of the military. Football was one of their favourite games. In fact, they spent a great part of their free time playing football. Their dress, games, language and appearance were very different from that of the Egyptians. Concerning dress, before the British occupation, the French expedition had introduced a new European look that differed dramatically from that of the oriental tradition with its long dress (Djalabiyya), which had prevailed for centuries and was still intact. From the French the Egyptians got their Qami˜ (Qum˜an) for shorts and Banšalon (Banšalonat) for trousers in the colloquial language 4 . There were no suitable equivalents in Arabic for shorts and trousers. The acceptance of such terms was limited only to colloquial Arabic. This linguistic development became evident on the streets through contact with foreigners. Concerning games, the Egyptians were accustomed to games which were largely individual. While two or four persons, or more, played some sorts of traditional games, such as different domino-like board games, a Ta›œib was a war-skill game or a duel between two men playing with a wooden stick. A group of other people would stand around, forming a circle and watching them. Even riding in a festive manner was individual. Their own separate playground was close to or at home, at the corner of a street. Singing and dancing were particular activities for celebrating specific occasions, like marriage, birth and so on. Watching the British occupiers playing football was new. They were dressed in short trousers and had special shoes. It took a long time to break with social reserve and to make contact with them. The British in their camps invited the neighbours to watch them play and then to play a game with them. The Egyptians accepted the invitation of the occupiers and had a pleasant time playing. The students were the first to adapt to the game, but in which language? In Arabic there were no equivalents for the words which the British were chanting during the game. The Egyptians accepted those words only for the time they were playing. 4 For more details, see Woidich 1990. <?page no="87"?> 84 Football became a national sport when football clubs were established 5 , with names like Football Club Al Ahli (The National), established in 1907 in Cairo, Football Club Al Ita›ad (The Union) established in 1914 in Alexandria, and Football Club Al MiŸri (The Egyptian) established in 1917/ 1920 in Port Said. Following that, The Egyptian Football Association, EFA, was founded (1920). Radio and TV showed great interest in spreading football and helped popularize it not only inside Egypt but through the whole Arab region. Radio and TV led people to accept the foreign football language, and to make it everybody’s language. 4. From head to toe Most of the English football vocabulary is still used in daily Egyptian colloquial Arabic; the following table shows some of the words used and their Arabic equivalents 6 : English expression Equivalent in Arabic Transcribed into English Equivalent in Arabic Expression used Football Qurat al ¨adam ©ª«-- ®¯± Foodball Olympic Olymbi ³´µ¶-·¸ Olymbi Olymbiat (Pl.) Olympian Olymbi ³´µ¶-·¸ Olymbi Olymbiyya (Fem.) Olympic games Al ‘ab olymbiyya ¹¶´µ¶-·¸ º»¼-¸ Olymbiyyada Stadium Mal‘ab ½¼¾¿ (I) stad Match Mubarah ®-À»´¿ Much Team Fari ¨ Á¯à Team Centre Markaz ı¯¿ Centre Game Mubarah ®-À»´¿ Game Half-time NuÅ -l- Waqt ÆÇÈ-- ÊËÌ Half-time Half-time aÍÎaut al Awal Ï·Ñ- ÒÈÔ-- AÍÎaut al Awwal Half-time Extra time Al Wa ¨t al I afi ³Ã»ÕÖ- ÆÇÈ-- Extra time Referee ×akam Ø ÙÚ ×akam Ref Goalkeeper ×aris Marma Û¿¯¿ ÝÀ»Ø Goan Goal Goalkeeper 5 See http: / / www.efa.com.eg, 28/ 10/ 2007. 6 See Elias / Elias 1974: 72-101. <?page no="88"?> 85 Goal Hadaf Þªá Goan Goal Left back Mudafi‘ Aisar ¯â¸ -Ã-ª¿ Left back Back Îimal Right back Mudafi‘ Aiman åµÂ¸ -Ã-ª¿ Right back Back Yamin Backs Mudafi‘ iin 嶼Ã-ª¿ Backat (Pl.) Libero - - Libero Left wing Gina× Aisar ¯â¸ æ»ëì Left wing Right wing Gina× Aiman åµÂ¸ æ»ëì Right wing Wings Agni×a ¹íëì¸ Agni×a Wingat (Pl.) Centre Forward Ras ×arbah ¹ï¯Ø Ý-À Centre Forward Corner Ðarbah Rukniyya ¹¶ë±À ¹ï¯Õ Corner Foul ðaltah ¹ñ¾ò Foul ðaltah Penalty Ðarbat Gaza ó-Äì ¹ï¯Õ Benalty Benaltiyyat (Pl.) Out ôarig õÀ»÷ Out Outat (Pl.) Offside Tasallul ø¾âù Offside Offside-at (Pl.) Head Ras Ý-À Head Over Kurah ‘aliyyah ¹¶-»ú ®¯± Over Overat (Pl.) Shoot (Noun) Raklah Ðarbah ¹¾±À ¹ï¯Õ Îuûa Îuûaat (Pl.) Shoot (Verb) Îaû Bi Îuû - - Îaû ByÎaû Slippers Gazmah ôafifah ʶý÷ ó-þØ Slibs Boot Gazmat Kurah ®¯± ó-þØ Boot Bootat (Pl.) Shorts ¨amiÅ ÿ¶µÇ Fanillah Fainallat (Pl.) Shorts Bantaloon (-at) Ⱦñëï »ÌȾñëï Shorts Shortat (Pl.) Hard Luck ×az wi××iÍ Ø· Ø Hard Luck <?page no="89"?> 86 Good Luck ×az Kiwaiyis Âȱ Ø Good Luck Good Play - - Good Play Fair Play Li‘ b Nazif ʶ Ì ½¼- Fair Play Table 1: Some English expressions and their Arabic equivalents 5. English football vocabulary and its use in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic There is a linguistic dilemma prevailing in the biggest of the Arab world countries concerning the use of English football vocabulary. Egypt, with its 75 million inhabitants, sets linguistic standards in this field 7 . Several million Egyptians work abroad in the wealthy oil countries of the Gulf area. There are also Egyptians working in all educational fields of most Arab states. In addition to this, another strong factor concerns the spreading of the ‘word’ through Egypt’s music, cinema and radio, which facilitates adopting foreign vocabulary in every field. To understand how important football has really become to the life of the average Egyptian (and also the average Arab), it is sufficient to see how Abd arRahman Fahmy summarizes “Egypt’s period of encountering the greatest civilization” in the “establishment of Al Ahli Football Club, Cairo University and the production of the first cinema film in Arabic in 1907” (Fahmy s.a.). Despite all this, the linguistic dilemma continues to be heard and seen by Egyptians who use English football vocabulary. It is claimed that a limited group of Egyptians, namely ‘high society’ or the ‘elite’, use numerous French words like merci, pardon and au revoir in their daily colloquial language. In this case, the use of words originating from a different language is directly related to the educational level and the financial situation of that ‘elite’. On the other hand, people get to hear (and only to hear) English football vocabulary on the radio or the TV channels. People in the street use it, and we realize that there is no boundary separating the ‘elite’ from the ‘lower classes’ - they all use the same words. In order to resolve this linguistic dilemma, print media act like a dam, stopping all the foreign vocabulary from infiltrating the language. Even writers who use English football vocabulary in all the above-mentioned media tend to use the Arabic equivalents in writing and publishing. There is no other way to get access to the print media. 6. Mixing colloquial with classic Arabic, the Egyptian way Some of the football terminology originating from English and used by the Egyptians, and with them by most Arabs, represents a kind of fusion with classical Arabic. The word shoot, for example, has no direct Arabic equivalent. But there is a word with a similar spelling. It means ‘a period’, or -aut (singular) and A-aut (plural). Speakers often swap the two words and their meanings in English and Arabic, which inspired the Egyptians to adopt the English verb shoot, constructing their own equivalent to it in 7 For more details, see Badawy 1973. <?page no="90"?> 87 Arabic: -aœ (to shoot or to kick in past tense) and Bi-uœ (to shoot or kick in present tense). At the same time, the Arabic word (-aut for ‘a period’) is used to create an equivalent for half-time and also for the noun (shot). Another example of such a confusing blend of words and meanings is the term head, with its similar Arabic verb hadd (‘to destroy’). This inspired the Egyptians to use head with an ambivalent meaning to comment on ‘a head’ shot by the opponent’s team: (Allah yi-‘head’ak) or “May God destroy you”. 7. Mixed sentences It is interesting to hear how foreign words are mixed with the native colloquial vocabulary in a linguistic synthesis. Here are some examples to illustrate how present they are already in Egypt’s daily language: 1. Al Much fir Radio. = The Match (is to be heard) on the radio. 2. Raye› bil Baas lil Istad. = I am taking the bus to the stadium. 3. Di mush Goan di Out! = It is not a goal, it is out! 4. Er Ref edda Benaltiaat wi Faulaat ketira. = The referee gave a lot of penalties and fouls. 8. Conclusion The use of English football vocabulary in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic is common among all classes of Egyptian society. This shows a high degree of linguistic flexibility in describing what is only an issue of relatively minor significance, a game. Its use is limited to the spoken media, TV and radio. Print media exclude foreign terminology. Ultimately, the reason for not using vocabulary originating from a foreign language is a nationalist one. References ‘Abd al Hakim, Shauqi (1979): ‘Almanat adDawlah wa ‘Aqlanat AtTurath (To secularize the state and to rationalize the traditions). Beirut: Dar al Awdah Al Sa‘id, Rif‘aat (1978): Al Mualafat al Kamilah (Complete Works). Part I. Cairo: Dar ath-Thaqafa al Gadiah Badawy, AsSaiyyd (1973): Mustawaiyyat Al ‘Arabiyyah Al Mu‘a irah fi Misr (Standards of modern Arabic in Egypt). Cairo: Dar al Ma ‘arif aif, Shauqi (1994): Ta×rifat al ‘Amiyyah lil Fu ×ah (The colloquial distortion of classic Arabic). Cairo: Dar al Ma ‘arif Elias, A. E./ Elias, Edward (1974): Elias’ practical grammar and vocabulary of colloquial Arabic. A simple course for non-grammarians, containing the most useful words only, with the necessary tenses of the verbs, and plurals of the nouns and adjectives. Cairo: Al Muassasah al ‘Asriah li ûibaah Fahmy, Abd arRa×man, s.a.: a× anNom (Get awaken! ). http: / / gom.com.eg/ algomhuria, 14/ 11/ 2007 Woidich, Manfred (1990): Ahlan Wa Sahlan. Eine Einführung in die Kairoer Umgangssprache. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag <?page no="91"?> 88 Mag. Dr. Adel El Sayed Internationales Spracheninstitut (ISI) Institut für Politikwissenschaft Universität Innsbruck Innrain 52 6020 Innsbruck e-mail: Adel.El-Sayed@uibk.ac.at <?page no="92"?> 89 MUHAMMAD Y GAMAL THE FINAL WHISTLE: HOW FOOTBALL TERMINOLOGY TOOK ROOT IN ARABIC Egyptian football effectively kicked off with the establishment of football clubs as early as 1905. The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 brought football to the Nile Valley. When the Egyptian Cup began in the twenties of the last century, the language of the sport was predominantly English. The course of football terminology is essentially an audiovisual trip dramatically affected by the media. When Egypt won the African Cup in 2006 and again in 2008, a century had passed since the early matches were played and the language of football had taken root. This paper examines the long journey of football terminology in Arabic. It will examine the effects the mass media have had on the coining of Egyptian football terms. 1. Historical note Ancient Egyptian paintings depict a game where players “kicked” a round object on the ground with their feet. Whether this is accepted as the earliest evidence of what is today known as football or not remains to be seen. However, historians agree that one of the more positive side-effects of the British occupation of Egypt was the introduction of football. Egyptians watched British soldiers play the game in Cairo as early as the 1890s. 1 In the early years of the new century, Egyptians began kicking the ball themselves. They played against British soldiers and, when sporting clubs were founded in the major cities of Cairo, Alexandria and the Suez Canal, football was the main sport played. Two major teams were founded: Ahly in 1907 and Zamalek 2 in 1911, both clubs based in Cairo. However, the game was essentially played by the bigger and richer high schools and also among various university colleges. Initially, the British played one team at a time. With the Sultan’s Cup Competition formed in 1922, football had officially kicked off. Back then, the print media were the only source of information while the game was slowly becoming known outside of Cairo and Alexandria. With the advent of radio in 1934, sports commentary began and the language of football was born. However, it was not until the League Competition was introduced in 1948 that the sport became really popular and the famous derby of Ahly - Zamalek was a prominent event. The two teams have been the backbone of Egyptian football, although other derbies in Alexandria and the Suez Canal were also established. With the advent of 1 There is a scene in the film Gallipoli (1981) where Australian soldiers, stationed in Egypt during WWI, play rugby near the pyramids. It is interesting to observe that the scene in the film is not dissimilar to what the British were doing: playing football in Egypt. 2 Zamalek, the second largest club in Egypt, was initially founded as the Mukhtalat (‘Mixed’), which referred to its members being a mixture of Egyptians and foreigners. Later, under the patronage of King Farouk, it changed its name to Farouk Club. When the King was deposed in the wake of the 1952 Revolution, the club changed its name for the third time by taking the name of the suburb it had moved to, Zamalek. <?page no="93"?> 90 television football entered every home and the game became the national sport of the country. 2. From foreign concepts to native expression El kora (‘the ball’) is the popular term used for football in Arabic. Although several sports use different shapes of balls, the term has been exclusively reserved for football. Egyptian boys started with kora sharab (‘socks ball’), which was usually made of sponge stuffed into a sock or pantyhose and played almost everywhere indoors and outdoors, in school and house yards and outside in streets big and small, and is commonly known as ‘street football’. It is amazing how small children understood and absorbed the rules of the game. While they may have disagreed on how to interpret the action on the pitch, they still understood the rules, appreciated the game and coined their own terms. Street football in Egyptian cities has its own type of language. The print media popularised the sport and disseminated knowledge of the game. Egypt’s early participation in the World Cup in 1934 served as a great boost to the emerging national pastime. However, it must be taken into account that the terminology did not take root at that stage and it has since then been full of foreign terms, mostly ambiguous Arabic terms and even contradictory ones. That was mainly due to two factors: 1) The game was still ‘foreign’ and the masses did not understand the language of football. 2) Arabic is a diglossic language with two forms (see Ferguson 1959). The first is the High variety reserved for literary discourse and formal occasions, the language of writing and speeches. The other is the Low variety, which is the spoken language of everyday use, jokes, small talk and conversation. Thus, football terminology was borrowed into Arabic, such as for instance centre, corner, out, offside, over, double-kick, third back, libero, goal, foul, hattrick, placing and linesman. However, other terms underwent certain phonological changes,: 1. goan (goal keeper) 2. ref (referee) 3. farawda (forward players) 4. backat (defenders) 5. blenty (penalty) It is also interesting to observe that some foreign terms were borrowed as verbs, such as 6. Ye-centre (to kick off) 7. Ye-basi (to pass the ball), 8. Ye-shoot (to kick). <?page no="94"?> 91 In early attempts to assimilate the terms, some principles were followed, with varying degrees of success. Thus, 9. The stretcher became ‘the transporter’, 10. The substitutes became ‘reserves’, 11. Stoppage time became ‘lost time’, 12. The linesman became ‘the flag carrier’. Further, with the popularity of sports commentary more than one equivalent for the same foreign term has been introduced, for instance: 13. The quarter final is also ‘the Round of Eight’, as well as the Quarter final. 14. The semi final is the round of four or simply the semi final. Today, most football terminology has been integrated and the terminology has taken root in Arabic. It is interesting to watch old soccer matches on video and DVD and to listen to the commentary of early matches when commentators used terminology that is not only outdated, but also outmoded: outdated in the sense that Arabic terms have been coined and popularised through print, audiovisual and electronic media, and outmoded in the sense that the sport itself has in its development introduced new rules (extra-time, penalty shootout, yellow/ red cards, the number of substitutes allowed, golden/ silver goals etc.). Some of these developments have since been dropped. El Wahsh, one of Egypt’s football stars in the fifties and early sixties, argues that “football received a boost with the advent of television and sports commentary which occupied a permanent section in the print media.” (1997: 17) 3. The audiovisual journey Football began as a foreign game brought to the Nile by the occupying British soldiers and through contact with the British in Cairo and other foreigners working for the Suez Canal Company in the Suez Canal cities of Port Said and Ismailia, as well as in Alexandria. Through the numerous multilingual communities in that city the game, but not the terminology, was popularised. The language of football remained foreign through the use of many foreign terms. The long journey of assimilation went through four major stages, which can be traced through the development and proliferation of audio-visual media: print media, radio, television and, with digital technology, satellite channels. (Gamal 2007) The process of assimilation through the media also involved a multi-faceted process of translation, interpretation and integration in the broadest sense of the word. For instance, translation meant searching for equivalents in Arabic. At times translators were searching for direct equivalents, but in some cases they opted for literal translations as well. It is symptomatic of new concepts that foreign terms take precedence over local equivalents despite their availability (Crystal 1993). Thus foul, corner, out, over, ref, off-side and goal proved to be ‘superior’ to their Arabic equivalents and remained for a long period in the Arabic lexicon. It is also interesting to observe that some foreign terms did not become popular in Arabic at all, such as striker, <?page no="95"?> 92 where Muhajim as the Arabic equivalent was more popular. Likewise, some terms were incorrectly translated, such as: 15. ‘stoppage time’ was translated as ‘lost time’, 16. ‘substitutes’ was translated as ‘reserves’. It is interesting to observe that some terms were translated descriptively rather than functionally, such as: 17. The linesman became the ‘flag bearer’. As the rules of the game were constantly being interpreted to the audience and viewers, the terminology underwent a massive change where terms became more local with a rise in the lexicon and with the idiomatic expressions of the game. There is no denying that television gave football a boost: commentators vied for the viewers’ ears as the eyes were able to see what was happening. This put pressure on commentators to inform and to entertain. This early form of ‘infotainment’ was brought about by the new technology. This period witnessed the interchangeable use of foreign terminology with their Arabic equivalents. TV commentary, rather than describing what was taking place on the pitch (as in radio commentary), attempted to interpret the events by providing analysis and commenting on the formations used, strategies and techniques. This required a level of football knowledge which soon became available through video libraries. Live, pre-recorded and delayed transmission meant that a lot of commentators (and indeed fans) began to seek information from different (albeit limited) sources. Yet, international games and competitions opened viewers’ eyes to different levels of football culture and with it came the process of linguistic assimilation (see Mikhael 2007). With digital technology came satellite channels. Football commentary became an art in its own right and commentators now had to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of football: names, dates, histories, formations, foreign coaches and records, as well as a vast repertoire of terms and unlimited linguistic abilities. In a nutshell, the language of football has taken root where it now seeks to inform and to entertain in the true sense of the multi-media word. 4. Print media Journalism gave football a launching pad that continued for the first fifty years of the game as we know it today. News, commentaries and clever plays on words in the headlines and photo captions all led to the popularisation of the game. Newspaper journalism in Egypt played a vital role in making football the sport of the masses. 3 Football competition fever in Egypt began in the early years of the twentieth century with the Universities League. This took place during the British occupation of Egypt, when the English language domination of the sport became evident. Later, the 3 The same thing could be said about football in Saudi Arabia and indeed most Arab countries. Sa’atie (1986) gives a detailed review of the role of the print media in popularising football in Saudi Arabia. <?page no="96"?> 93 sports audio commentary would pick up on what the newspapers had said and gave it a further boost. What newspapers said is worth examining for two reasons. First, there is the development of the sports headline, and second the introduction of team nicknames. The presence of the British in Egypt during the First and Second World Wars, the establishment of the world governing body of football (FIFA), the establishment of the Egyptian Football Federation (1921), the organisation of the World Cup, have all necessitated a permanent link with the outside world, with translation providing such an invaluable link. Two Egyptian sports journalists are credited with giving Egyptian (and, to a large degree, Arab) sports journalism its solid foundation. Hamdi An-Nahass, writing for Al Goumhoria newspaper in Cairo, is credited with being the one who introduced the sports headline to Egyptian print media. His headline on the back-page of Al Gouhmoria would attract millions for packing so much into a headline of a few words. Such power in coining, phrasing, turning or even twisting a phrase was coupled with a refined sense of alliteration and rhyming slang. Examples of his flair are: 18. When Ahly of Cairo meets Red Sea FC , he writes: “Al Ahly will try to cross the Red Sea” 19. When Ismaily loses to the Suez Canal FC, he says: “Ismaily drowns in the Suez Canal” 20. When Sekka Hadeed FC beats Ahly 6-0, he wittily writes: “It’s Setta Hadeed” “Setta” is six in Arabic and rhymes with Sekka. The other influential journalist is Naguib Mestekawy, writing in the national newspaper Al Ahram; he is credited with many of the nicknames football clubs have today. Mestekawy, an avid reader and translator, helped to popularise the terminology of the sport through his post-match analyses. 4 In his commentaries he would use a wide variety of techniques describing the events of the match. Though his headlines were not as powerful as those of An-Nahass, his nicknames are the reason why fans still remember him today. He was the one who gave the big teams of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez Canal and others their nicknames. Thus the major Egyptian teams are known as: 21. Ahly are El Shayateen El Homr (The Red Devils), 22. Zamalek, El Khawagat (The Foreigners), 23. Tersana, El Shawakeesh (The Hammers), 24. Mahalla, El Fellaheen (The Farmers), 25. Ismaily, El Daraweesh ( The Dervishes). When Egypt won the African Cup in February 2008, Egyptian and Arab media continued the fine tradition of sport commentary inititiated by both Nahas and Mestekawy. Thus in their solid march to retain the trophy they won in 2006, the Pharaorahs overpowered the Nile Crocodiles (Zambia), snared the Desert Hawks (Sudan), tamed the Indomitable Lions (Cameroon) in the group stage before outfoxing the Black Antelopes (Angloa) and stampeded on the Elephants (Ivory Coast); and when the Pharaorahs met Cameroon in the final again they had to fight the wounded lions for the trophy. 4 To many sport reporters in the Arab world, Mestekawy is the doyen of Arabic sport journalism. <?page no="97"?> 94 5. Radio commentary The advent of radio is perhaps the first interface between football and communication technology in Egypt. Audio-commentary of football matches undoubtedly increased the popularity of the sport. Such commentary, being a spoken language, employed the colloquial variety of Arabic and helped in ‘localizing’ football discourse. In the absence of a formal strategy to ‘localize’ the sport’s terminology, most of the Arabic terms were actually lexically-borrowed English terms, but, interestingly, some Arabic verbs were derived from English nouns, such as / yesanter/ (to kick off) and / yebasi/ (to pass the ball) examined above. Penalty kick is another example of popular translation and ‘localization’ at work: it was modified to suit the local phonetic constraints where the non-existent / p/ is converted into / b/ and / n/ changed its position, creating Blenty. The skills of the commentators created a new discourse that was soon to become a genre of its own, with expressions specific to football, such as: 26. “Football is goals” 27. “More opportunities will be created” 28. “A flag and a whistle” Egypt’s illustrious commentator Muhammad Lateef (1909-1990), a veteran of Egypt’s first appearance at the World Cup in 1934, played an instrumental role in popularising the game. He followed in the footsteps of Mahmoud Badruldin, Egypt’s first football commentator, and began providing radio commentary from 1955. With the advent of television he established himself as the Arab World’s doyen of football commentators. His voice sounded in the background in several Egyptian films and he even starred in one Egyptian film, A Stranger in my House (1982). Radio commentary gave birth to Kora Sharab (‘socks ball’), or what is commonly known as street football. 5 What listeners heard on the radio also applied to the schools and the streets of almost all Egyptian cities. Street football, apart from giving football the roots of the game, also gave the game its popular language and terminology. It invented verbs, nouns, adjectives and indeed whole expressions. This was a major step towards the integration of football terminology in Arabic. Later radio commentators would base their own success and popularity on their ability not only to interpret the rules and the terminology of the game, but also to coin phrases, verbs and idiomatic expressions. The long tradition of football commentary would give birth to a breed of commentators who would later popularise the game in several Arab capitals, particularly as the national sport became more established and teams began to participate at the African and Asian competitions, such as the Moroccan, Tunisian, Saudi and Iraqi teams (see Sa’aatie 1986, Hateet 1995, Mansha 2005). 5 Football has featured in several films in Egyptian cinema and it is linguistically interesting to observe the terminology employed. In the film’s spoken variety of Arabic, the terminology is essentially derived from street football. <?page no="98"?> 95 6. Television The advent of television has had an obvious impact on the sport. For instance, the tight programming constraints have led to the phasing out of the ‘replay’ rule and the introduction of ‘extra-time’. However, it also led to the birth of a different form of audio-visual football commentary, which required more skills than telling viewers what they could already see. This undoubtedly put more pressure on commentators to entertain viewers in a way that complemented the picture. Commentators resorted to particular syntactic and idiomatic structures and naturally the Arabic terms become more accepted and eventually integrated. However, this did not happen overnight. What began as visual description of the action taking place on the small screen was to develop into a form of infotainment in the modern sense of the word. Entertaining statistics, historical information, comparisons and reviews of previous matches complemented the commentary. The camera moves also helped commentators to catch their breath and to energize their linguistic imagery. One striking development in Arabic commentary was the appearance of the Arabic equivalents side-by-side with their English terms. Bilingual usage was a lesson in terminology translation and acquisition for young viewers. As the game developed, new terms were invented and confusion was later to develop when the modern terms stood, more or less, for the same position, albeit in different formations, such as libero, sweeper and third back. They were interchangeably used till the advent of a new genre of well-versed football commentators who were actually capable of describing to the viewers the formation of each team and how to spot changes on the pitch. Television and televised commentary gave football a big boost in the Arabic language. Teams in the south or outside the main cities in Egypt, and most Arab countries, appeared on television, which added to the popularity of the terminology in different linguistic communities within the same country (regional variations) and in different countries (local dialects). In the early sixties, delayed broadcasts, imported games and the coverage of major football events, particularly the World Cup, first gave fans a taste of international football, as well as a different type of football commentary. The new form of audio-visual commentary popularised the terminology, especially among young viewers who went out to play street football. Though no study of street football is known, it remains to be seen how the younger generations have modified and indeed codified the Arabic terminology of football. Hedadah speaks of the “significant role played by televised matches and the influence Egyptian football commentary has had on the sport in general in the Arab world” (2002: 7). 7. Satellite technology Live broadcasts of foreign matches have made it not only possible to watch good teams but also to experience many aspects of the game: from the pitch to the stands, the stadium screen, the lights, the technical facilities for filming the match (number of cameras, camera angles and the re-play facility), foreign-language commentary and, most importantly, the behaviour of crowds (from the Mexican wave to hooliganism). Commentators were soon to introduce English idiomatic structures such as saint or <?page no="99"?> 96 sinner, an own goal, to play a role, and man to man, rather than employing local expressions. Satellite technology made watching international competitions possible and more enjoyable as many commentators would work on the same competition. This introduced Egyptian viewers to football commentary in different dialects of Arabic, from Tunisia to the Gulf. Like other technical fields in Arabic, football terminology is subject to two major factors: 1) Regional variation resulting from the source language. The eastern part of the Arab World has traditionally sourced its terminology from English, whereas the western part (North Africa) from France. This is why milliard is used in Arabic rather than billion, Olympiade rather than the Olympic Games, the Mundiale rather than the World Cup, and throughout the Middle East (including Iran) Merci is much more favoured than Thank you! 2) Regional variation (local dialects) resulting from the socio-cultural gap between formal and colloquial Arabic. This is essentially a cultural/ historical factor and affects some countries (Egypt and Lebanon) more than others (Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States). Regional variation adds a fresh touch to terminology and makes sports commentary a linguistic challenge in its own right. For instance, a corner is Korner (lexical borrowing) in Egypt, but Rukenya (direct equivalence) in North Africa and Zawya (lexical variation) in Lebanon. Satellite technology gave commentators the opportunity to compete in the linguistic art of football commentary, which varies from mere audio description to infotainment with lots of elucidation on the match (formation, tactics, errors, solutions, interpretation, etc.), as well as interesting historical information and factual statistics. It even encourages stage performance mimicking of the Latin American commentators’ famous and incredible cry “Goooooooooooooooooooooooool, Goal, Goal, Goal! ” In the digital age and since the proliferation of satellite channels in the midnineties, and in the age of sports sponsorship and advertising, live football commentary has been changing fast. With more championships being televised live, such as the Arab, African and Asian League and cup competitions, more dialects are being heard. As more and more commentators from various Arab countries are being employed by various sports-dedicated channels to provide match commentary, the following trend has been observed over the last ten years: a greater tendency towards streamlining the terminology (see Hedadah 2002). Since France 1998 and with subsequent World Cup coverage, which has been watched by millions in the Arab World, football terminology in Arabic has been streamlined with virtually all terms been adequately translated into Arabic. The odd occasion appears when the commentator wishes to stress a point or to explain a rule and the English term is mentioned, though followed by its Arabic equivalent. In his entry on semantic change in the Encyclopedia of Language, David Crystal rightly comments on the nature of “lexical borrowing” by saying that “this term is not a very appropriate one as new words are not given back at a later stage” (1993: 330). As this paper has shown, some terms, given the right context, could be returned! However, a common observation is that, when a team wins, the Arabic congratulatory term Mabrouk is used, yet when it loses, the English phrase hard luck is <?page no="100"?> 97 employed, perhaps in a bid to soften the point of defeat. And the only English term that appears to have defied domestication is hattrick! 8. Conclusion This examination of how football terminology took root in Arabic provides applied translation studies with a rich source for research at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It has direct relevance for terminology studies in other fields, such as information technology and aviation, as well as the teaching of hard-core disciplines such as medicine, engineering and digital technology. One particularly significant area is the audio-visual influence on the process of linguistic integration and how technology has influenced terminology. However, this cannot be examined in isolation from linguistic, historical and demographic changes. For instance, when Egypt hosted and won the African Cup in March 2006, young female viewers were markedly present in the stadium. Football terminology has come full circle and is now totally localized with even different Arabic variations, from Tunisian to Saudi, Lebanese and Iraqi Arabic. In Ghana 2008, it was interesting to hear a myriad of Egyptianisms in the live commentary of the final won by Egypt. The commentary was superbly and passionately given in Arabic by a Tunisian. References Crystal, David (1993): The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Langauge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press El Wahsh, Abdou Saleh (1997): Assasiyat Kurat Alqadam [Basics of football]. Cairo: Mukhtar publications Ferguson, Charles (1959): Diglossia. Word 15, 325-337 Gamal, Muhammad Y (2007): Audio Visual Translation in the Arab world: a changing scene. TWQ Vol 3, No 2. Translation Standards Institute. Pattterson Lakes, Australia. Hateet, Basheer (1995): Mawsou’at kurat alqadam lubnaniyah [Encyclopedia of football in Lebanon]. Beirut: Ezzedin Publishing Hedadah, Mohamed (2002): El mundiale [The World cup]. Beirut: Shoot Publishing Mansha, Diya’(2005): Mawsou’at kurat alqadam aliraqiyah [Encyclopedia of football in Iraq]. Baghdad: Iraq Football Association Mikhael, Yaccoub (2007): Alta’leek ’ala Al mubarayat [Football commentary] http: / / www.kululiraq.com/ modules.php? name=News&file=article&sid=29642, 08/ 02/ 2008 Sa’atie, Ameen (1986) Tareekh al -haraka alriyadiyah fil mamlakah assou’diyah [History of Sport in Saudi Arabia] . Jeddah: Darul’ilm Films cited A stranger in my house, 1982. Egypt Gallipoli, 1981. Australia Useful and relevant web sites Most Egyptian and Arab football clubs have their own websites and some have the contents translated into English. <?page no="101"?> 98 The website of Egypt’s most loved “Brazilian team” www.ismailyonline.com The websites of the two teams forming Egypt’s famous football derby: www.el-ahly.com www.zamalek.com The website of the Egyptian Football Federation: www.efa.com.eg The website of the Arab Federation of football: www.ua-fa.com Muhammad Y Gamal University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia e-mail: muh_gamal@yahoo.com <?page no="102"?> 2. FOOTBALL LANGUAGE <?page no="104"?> 101 ŽELJKA MATULINA AND ZRINKA ORALI IDIOMS IN FOOTBALL REPORTING In this paper the authors present the results of research into idioms in the context of football. The research is based on a corpus of Croatian, Bosnian, German and Austrian daily and sports newspapers published between 2005 and 2007. Croatian newspapers (CRO): Slobodna Dalmacija (SD), Zadarski list (ZL), Sportske novosti (SN), Nogomet (NO); Bosnian newspapers (BOS): Dnevni avaz (DA), Oslobo enje (OS), Sport avaz (AS); German newspapers (GER): Kicker (KI), Bild (BI), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FA); Austrian newspapers (AUS): Salzburger Nachrichten (SA), Kurier (KU), Wiener Zeitung (WZ), Die Presse (PR). The aim of the paper is to find out if there are any common and specific tendencies in the use of idioms in texts on football in the newspapers of these four geographically and linguistically neighbouring areas. The focus of the research is on the following issues: in which kind of newspaper articles and in which ways idioms are used, who the producers of idioms are and what the communicative intention is, and finally which extralinguistic domains the idiomatic ‘figures’ (“images”) belong to. The research shows that there are similar tendencies in using idioms. The study also shows that most idioms in football texts do not derive from the domain of sport itself, but rather from many other domains, which in a much more expressive way demonstrate the emotional involvement of the producers of such texts. 1. Introduction In this paper we deal with a description of common language idioms which are used in newspaper texts on football. 1 Phraseological terms used in football are not considered in this paper. The two groups of expressions, phraseological terms on the one hand and idioms on the other, differ primarily in their basic function: football terms serve exclusively for internal communication among professionals 2 . Idioms 3 have not only an important text-structuring and rhetorical function, but also an entertaining purpose 4 . It depends on the creativity of the text producer as to which idioms he will choose and how he will incorporate them into the text. The rule of formal invariability and 1 The dictionaries used for this research are Ani 2000, Back 2006, Duden 1992 and 1996, as well as Röhrich 1994 and Simrock 1988. 2 „Das Besondere dieser Gruppe von Ausdrücken besteht darin, daß sie in ihrer Bedeutung strikt festgelegt (normiert)“ sind, wobei „diese Festlegung primär nur innerhalb des fachlichen Subsystems der Sprache“ gilt. „Nicht nur wissenschaftliche Fächer haben eine Terminologie, sondern beispielsweise auch Spiele (jmdn. matt setzen, ein Tor schießen)“ (Burger 1998: 47). 3 An ‘idiom’ is a multilexical expression having a meaning different from the literal. In this paper we rely on Burger: idioms are part of “phraseology in a restricted sense” because of their “idiomaticity”. “Idiomaticity” means „dass die Komponenten eine durch die syntaktischen und semantischen Regularitäten der Verknüpfung nicht voll erklärbare Einheit bilden“ (Burger 1998: 15). 4 Brandt (1982: 109-110) emphasizes the entertaining function of sport reporting: „Die unterhaltende Funktion der Sportberichterstattung erfordert neben der sachlichen die narrative und emotive Differenzierung des Vokabulars. Sportberichte und -reportagen würden ihren funktionalen Zweck verfehlen, wenn sie lediglich ‘objektive’ Protokolle wären. Sie sollen und wollen aber möglichst spannende ‘Erzählungen’ zum Mit- oder Nacherleben eines realen Geschehens sein“. <?page no="105"?> 102 neutrality is typical of the first group of phraseological units while exactly the opposite holds for idioms in the second group, i.e. they are mostly modified intentionally, turned round and used as a play on words (Matulina 1994: 119-120, Mieder 1999: 10); the text producer uses them in order to impress the receiver of the text. In the group of football terms the journalist also uses, wherever possible, witty lexical extensions or attributions (e.g. auf der Ersatzbank schmoren / SA/ ; George Best oder: Der nicht nur mit dem Ball tanzte / PR/ etc.). The original football term (auf der Ersatzbank, mit dem Ball) tends to remain intact since any kind of modification might render difficult the professional communication between experts or disturb the understanding of sport reports by receivers. 2. Corpus analysis 2.1. Frequency of idioms We had at our disposal a corpus of newspaper texts on football comprising a total of 562 pages, where we found 722 idioms. The Croatian subcorpus contains 202 pages with football topics and 258 idioms in them, which means that the idiom frequency is 1.27 per page. The Bosnian corpus contains 87 pages of football topics with 122 idioms, with the frequency being 1.40 per page. The German subcorpus is made up of 257 pages and 271 idioms, which means approximately 1 idiom per page. The Austrian subcorpus has 16 1/ 2 pages with 71 idioms, the frequency being 4.30 per page. The order is therefore as follows: the most frequent use of idioms in football texts is found in Austrian newspapers, which are followed by Bosnian and then Croatian. German newspapers have the lowest frequency of idioms in football texts. 2.2. Distribution of idioms in text types In the corpus idioms are distributed in the following types of texts 5 . In the Croatian subcorpus most idioms occur in ‘reports’ (118 idioms or 46% of the entire Croatian subcorpus), followed by ‘interviews’ (39 idioms or 15.11%). Within the Bosnian subcorpus most idioms are found in ‘reports’ (25 idioms or 20.49 %) and the same quantity in ‘short news’ (25 idioms). It has to be mentioned here that ‘reports’ in both subcorpora are, in all 25 examples, combined with fragments of ‘interviews’ or ‘talks’ with football players or leading persons of football clubs (trainers, managers, et al.). In the German subcorpus most idioms are also used in ‘reports’ (128 or 47.23%), while ‘commentary’ follows with 35 idioms (13%). It is only in the German subcorpus that the text type ‘readers’ letters’ appears with 11 idioms (4.05%). In the Austrian subcorpus most idioms are found in ‘commentaries’ (34 idioms or 48%), while ‘reports’ follow with 29 idioms (41%). The conclusion is that most idioms in all the four subcorpora are distributed in journalists’ ‘reports’ (300 idioms). They are followed by ‘commentaries’ (121 idioms) and finally by ‘interviews’ (92 idioms). 5 We have taken up Burger’s (Burger et al. 1982: 145) term ‘type of text’ (‘Texttyp’) instead of ‘sort of text’ (‘Textsorte’). <?page no="106"?> 103 2.3. Distribution of idioms in relation to text content What we were also interested in was the content of the newspaper articles on football in which the idioms occur. For this reason we classified the content of newspaper texts on football into five groups: (a) football matches, (b) players of football, (c) trainer, manager or other people in football clubs, (d) internal activities of a football team, and (e) external football events. In the Croatian and Bosnian subcorpora most idioms are distributed in the texts on football matches: in the Croatian subcorpus there are 125 idioms 6 or 47%, while in the Bosnian subcorpus there are 45 idioms or 35%. In the German subcorpus most idioms are found in the texts on football players (111 idioms or 38.54%), while in the Austrian subcorpus most idioms are used in the texts on internal team activities (15 idioms or 21.12%). 2.4. Location of idioms in newspaper articles on football In addition, we wanted to find out in which part of the article idioms appear most frequently. The analysis of the material has revealed that in all the four subcorpora idioms are mainly integrated in the central part of the article (425 idioms or 59%), then in the last sentence (61 idioms or 8.44%) and finally in the introductory part of the article (57 idioms or 7.89%). These results confirm previous research on idioms in the mass media. It has been shown that idioms and proverbs very often appear already in the headlines as an introductory formulation or at the end of the article as a concluding, summarizing expression (Matulina: 1990, 1991a, 1991b). 2.5. Producers of idioms Another important issue in the analysis is who the producer of idioms is, i.e. who uses idioms most. We have come up with the following results. In the Croatian subcorpus, in most cases (166 examples) the producer of idioms is the journalist, who has signed his text with his full name. In the Bosnian subcorpus most idioms (54 examples) are also used by the journalist, signed only with initials, which might suggest that the editorial board participated in the selection of idioms. Only in the Bosnian subcorpus does a member of the player’s family appear as a producer of idioms (3 examples). In the German subcorpus most idioms are not only used by the journalist signed with his full name (161 examples), but also by readers of the newspapers in their letters to the editor (10 examples). In the Austrian subcorpus, the journalist is the most frequent producer of idioms. However, in the majority of cases (34 examples), there is either the journalist’s full name or the initials. (Most texts are without a byline, which might mean that the choice and use of idioms were made by the editing board.) 2.6. Classes of idioms in texts on football A further relevant point for discussion is which classes of idioms occur in texts on football. The following results were obtained. Among six main idiomatic classes (A. 6 These statistics should not be compared with the final number of idioms because some idioms belong to two or more different groups. <?page no="107"?> 104 verbal idioms, B. nominal idioms, C. idioms with the verb ‘to be’ / mostly similes/ , D. proverbs, E. slogans and F. communicative idioms), verbal idioms are the most widely represented in all four subcorpora (412 examples or 57%), followed by nominal idioms (108 examples or 15%). In the German and Austrian subcorpora all the idiomatic classes are represented, whereas in the Croatian and Bosnian corpora there are no slogans. On the other hand, the Croatian and the German subcorpora contain most proverbs (19 + 14 examples). 2.7. Typology of idiom modifications In the whole corpus there are about 100 modified idioms. The modifications are of different types; there are 14 types of modifications in the corpus, but most idioms retain their original form. I. Partial lexical substitution, which is the most frequently used modification type in the whole corpus. One lexeme of the idiomatic construction is replaced by another lexeme from the same or another lexical field (synonyms, antonyms, words from other languages or even personal names of players or football teams are among the most common substitutes). 1. Cacau zeigt sich von seiner Schokoladenseite. (KI) (original idiom: sich von seiner besten Seite zeigen) II. Total lexical substitution. The original syntactic structure is retained. 2. Die Geister bleiben, der Star geht. (KI) (original idiom: die Hunde bellen und die Karawane zieht weiter) III. Partial lexical substitution and partial syntactic modification. 3. Österreichs Vereinsfußball hat sich die Misere selbst eingebrockt, jetzt müssen die Klubs die dünne Suppe selbst auslöffeln. (PR) (original idioms: eine dünne Suppe; die Suppe auslöffeln müssen, die man sich selbst eingebrockt hat) IV. Partial lexical substitution and total syntactic modification. 4. Trainer Tschertschessow beendet Schmusekurs und packt die Peitsche aus. (SA) (original idiom: mit Zuckerbrot und Peitsche vorgehen) V. Piling up of the same idiom in the same sentence or in several successive sentences: (a) without lexical substitution or (b) with (either) partial substitution of lexis or/ and modification of the syntactic structure. <?page no="108"?> 105 5a. Kad im daš mali prst uzmu cijelu ruku. Nama daš ruku, ne možemo uzeti niti prst. 7 (SN) (original idiom: daš mu mali prst, a on uzme cijelu ruku) 5b. […]die Unzufriedenheit über die ablaufende Runde erlaube keine Zuckerl. (KI) (original idiom (? ): mit Zuckerbrot und Peitsche vorgehen) VI. Piling up of different idioms without lexical substitution. 6. Lagan poput pera i s teškim teretom godina ima skok do neba. 8 (SN) (original idioms: lagan poput pera; skok do neba) VII. Contamination of two or more different idioms with partial lexical substitution or syntactic modification. 7. Za što joj treba skinuti kapu do poda za predstavu koju su ju er priredili svojoj publici. 9 (ZL) (original idioms: skinuti komu kapu; nakloniti se komu do poda) VIII. Morphological substitution: (a) from a negative to an affirmative form or (b) from an affirmative to a negative form. 8a. Waren fast im Himmel und sind abgestürzt. (KI) (original idiom: nicht vom Himmel fallen) 8b. Der Kloß ist nicht im Hals, sondern eher im Herzen. (KI) (original idiom: einen Kloß im Hals haben) IX. Total change of the syntactic structure. 9. Zellhofer beherrscht die kleine Trommel, aber offenbar die Pauke nicht. (PR) (original idioms: etwas auf die Trommel bringen; auf die Pauke hauen) X. Extension of the idiom: (a) with a new sentence/ clause which has at least one lexical element from the original idiom (or its substitute) and (b) the idiom is extended by adding at least one attribute. 10a. Ku a se ne gradi od krova ve od temelja, a temelj je u Tallinu. 10 (SN) (original idiom: ku a se gradi od temelja) 10b. Klub se mora staviti na vrste noge kad je organizacija u pitanju . 11 (OS) (original idiom: stajati na vrstim nogama) XI. Lexical metathesis i.e. lexemes of the same idiom exchange their places. 7 Literal translation from Croatian: “When you give them your little finger, they take your whole hand. They give you their hand and you are not able to take even a finger”. 8 “Light as a feather and with the heavy burden of his age, he is able to jump high up to the sky”. 9 “And for that we should take our hats off to the floor for the show she gave to her audience yesterday”. 10 “One doesn’t build a house from the roof but from the ground, and the ground is in Tallin”. 11 “So far as the organization is concerned, the club has to put itself on a firm footing”. <?page no="109"?> 106 11. Nama daš ruku, ne možemo uzeti niti prst. 12 (SN) (original idiom: daš mu mali prst, a on uzme cijelu ruku) XII. Reduction. A part of the idiom is omitted. 12. Fernando Meira: Wie Wein. (KI) (original idiom (? ): immer besser / reifer/ sein wie ein guter Wein) XIII. Semantic word plays. 13. Von Kuh und saurer Milch. (PR) (original idiom: bei ihm ist die Milch sauer) XIV. Semantic play between a concrete (literal) and a figurative (idiomatic) meaning of the same idiom. 14. Der große Talentschuppen für Fußballjunioren öffnet seine Tore. (PR) (original idiom: einer Sache Tür und Tor öffnen) 15. Wer ist die Nummer 1 mit der Nr. 1? (KI) (original idiom: Nummer eins sein) In the corpus there are also sentences with combinations of different modification types. 2.8. Source domains of idiomatic figures We wanted to find out which extralinguistic domains (‘source domains’) the idiomatic figures in our football corpus belong to. As a starting point we took the definition by Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 5): “Metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another”. In the corpus we found 19 extralinguistic domains with various idioms and several quantitatively less important domains, which for practical reasons we incorporated into one group. The target domains relate to the contents discussed in 2.3.: (a) a football match, (b) a player of football, (c) leaders of football clubs (trainers, referees, managers, et al.), (d) internal activities of the football clubs, and (e) external activities. Here are all the domains with corresponding examples. HUMAN BODY (CRO 53 + BOS 17 + GER 69 + AUS 9 = 148) 13 16. [Und so] nahmen die Protagonisten ihre Beine in die Hand und machen sich auf in die Richtung Südeuropa. (KI) 17. [Franz Grad: ] Da müssen sich alle an der Nase nehmen: Bundesliga, ÖFB und alle anderen. (PR) 12 “You give us your hand, and we are not able to take even a finger”. 13 The numerals denote the number of examples in each subcorpus. <?page no="110"?> 107 ARTEFACTS (38 + 9 + 46 + 10 = 103) 18. Bei den Innsbruckern ist nach dem Debakel Feuer am Dach. (SA) 19. Auch in Portugal mussten die Deutschen schon nach der Vorrunde die Koffer packen. (KI) NATURE (18 + 7 + 20 + 3 = 48) 20. Sturm 14 ist im Aufwind. (SA) EMOTIONS (10 + 3 + 32 + 1 = 46) 21. FC Schalke: Der Meister der Schmerzen. (KI) 22. Bayern in Angst. (KI) ABSTRACT PHENOMENA (12 + 2 + 15 + 9 = 38) 23. Jogi hat die Qual der Wahl! (FA) 24. [...] während draußen die Beteiligten in Gut und Böse aufgeteilt werden [...]. (KI) ANIMALS (11 + 6 + 9 + 3 = 29) 25. Ein noch dickerer Fisch wäre freilich Kaka. (PR) 26. Sonst wird der BVB zur grauen Maus. (KI) LOCAL (7 + 5 + 11 + 6 = 29) 27. Nabelschau im Niemandsland. (KU) 28. ‘Zagora’ igra dobro, no u svom dvorištu mi smo favoriti. 15 (ZL) STAGE AND PERFORMANCE (4 + 7 + 13 + 3 = 27) 29. Rotweißrot hat keine Rolle spielen können. (PR) 30. U Sloveniji je kona no spuštena zavjesa na prvenstvo. 16 (DA) BATTLE/ WAR AND WEAPONS (14 + 7 + 6 + 0 = 27) 14 “Sturm” is the name of a football club from Graz, Austria. 15 “[The football club] ‘Zagora’ plays well, but in our own yard we are the favorites”. 16 “In Slovenia the curtain of the championship finally dropped”. <?page no="111"?> 108 31. Ich fühle mich wie ein Gladiator, der vor fanatischen Fans in einen Kampf Mann gegen Mann gehen muss. (KI) 32. ‘Milan’ je objavio rat ‘Realu’ i u init e sve da mu zagor a život. 17 (DA) SPORTS AND GAMES (8 + 7 + 6 + 2 = 23) 33. Der Trainer spielt mit offenen Karten. (KI) 34. Bili smo bolji rival, držali smo ih “u šahu” ve im dijelom utakmice. 18 (SD) FOOD (8 + 4 + 6 + 3 = 21) 35. Nun ist aber der Kapitän der Schwaben wie ein guter Wein gereift. (KI) 36. [Hernan Crespo: ] Recimo da sam kao vino, poboljšavam se iz godine u godinu. 19 (ZL) 37. [Ivan Klasni : ] Meni je super u Sevilli, koja je u kremi španjolskog nogometa. 20 (SD) MUSIC AND DANCE (3 + 6 + 3 + 9 = 21) 38. Deshalb muss ihnen immer bewußt gemacht werden, dass sie international nur die dritte Geige spielen. 21 (KU) 39. Bis zur WM könnte die Teenie-Band mit ihrem Dirigenten Ivanschitz schon manch gutem Gegner den Marsch blasen. (KU) PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES (9 + 5 + 1 + 5 = 20) 40. [Markovi : ] U svakom slu aju mirno spavam. 22 (ZL) 41. Gosti su trenutno u boljoj formi, stoga e Viso ani dresove dobro natopiti znojem da bi došli do pobjede. 23 (OS) 17 “‘Milan’ declared war on ‘Inter’ and is going to do its best to give them a hard time”. 18 “We were a better rival and most of the time during the game we held them in check”. In a recent analysis of Croatian and Russian sports idioms, Željka Fink comes to the conclusion that the most widely used metaphor in the source domain of sports and games is CHESS (Fink 2000: 126-127). Most examples in our corpus contain the figure of CARDS. Also in Italian the metaphor of CARDS is among the most frequently used in this field, see Casadei (1996: 328): “[...] ad esempio i giochi di carte sono un caso tipico di compresenza di abilità e sorte [...] oltre che per la loro rilevanza nella tradizione culturale italiana, compaiono in molte espressioni idiomatiche e sono tanto usati per la metaforizzazione della vita”. 19 “Let us say I am like wine because I am getting better and better from year to year”. 20 “I feel very well in Sevilla, which is among the cream of Spanish football”. 21 A journalist’s comment on Austrian football. 22 “Markovi : Anyway, I sleep peacefully”. Vlatko Markovi is the president of the Croatian Football Association. 23 “The guests are in a better physical condition, so the players of Viso ani must drench their shirts with sweat in order to win”. <?page no="112"?> 109 SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA (9 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 16) 42. Wenn Borussia gespielt hat, ist hier die Hölle los. (BI) PLANTS (4 + 5 + 2 + 3 = 14) 43. Rotweißrot war zu spät dran, um schon in drei Jahren Früchte von Akademien ernten zu können. (PR) SEAFARING (5 + 6 + 1 + 0 = 12) 44. Bila je to stota Mancinijeva pobjeda za kormilom Intera. 24 (NO) 45. Alle sitzen mit im Boot. (KI) VEHICLE MOVEMENT (2 + 3 + 6 + 1 = 12) 46. Die Spieler haben begriffen, dass sie Gas geben mussten. (KI) 47. Otto Baric, die Fußballlegende, ist voll in Fahrt. (PR) FINANCE AND TRADE (2 + 6 + 3 + 0 = 11) 48. Am Samstag machten ihm die Fans einen Strich durch die Rechnung [...]. (KI) 49. Juve me želi pod svaku cijenu. Trebaju me za glavnog režisera igre. 25 (NO) CLOTHES (2 + 3 + 5 + 0 = 10) 50. Ich kann mir vorstellen, dass die Verabschiedung total in die Hose geht. (KI) THE REMAINING DOMAINS (COLOURS, LIGHT AND SHADOW, SOUNDS, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, etc.) 51. Zudem traf er selbst ins Schwarze. (KI) 52. Grant und der lange Schatten seines Vorgängers. (FA) In the corpus many sentences contain idioms from different source domains, e.g.: 24 “It was Mancini’s hundredth win at the steering wheel of Inter”. 25 “Juve wants me at any price. They want me to be the chief (theatre) producer of the game”. <?page no="113"?> 110 MUSIC + STAGE AND PERFORMANCE 53. Doch das Wetter hat auch seine Schattenseiten. Nicht nur für die Landwirtschaft: Der deutsche Fußball wurde von einer Frühjahrsmüdigkeit erfasst und verabschiedete sich sang- und klanglos von der europäischen Bühne. (KI) WAR + STAGE AND PERFORMANCE 54. Iza kulisa se vodi borba i za francuskog reprezentativnog vezistu Patricka Vieiru. 26 (DA) SPORTS AND GAMES + PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES 55. Die Würfel waren an jenem Abend [...] gefallen, ins Leben wurde eine Austria-Kommission gerufen. (PR) 3. Conclusion It can be confirmed that idioms are used in a similar way in all four subcorpora. Such tendencies could be called international and global. Idioms in football texts belong mainly to the same extralinguistic source-domains. The most commonly used in all four subcorpora are idiomatic figures of the HUMAN BODY and ARTEFACTS. However, there are some specifics in the subcorpora. So, for example, in the German subcorpus the most striking figures come from the domains of EMOTIONS, ABSTRACT NOTIONS and VEHICLE MOVEMENT. The Austrian subcorpus is characterized by figures of MUSIC AND DANCE and, like the German subcorpus, by ABSTRACT NOTIONS. In the Bosnian subcorpus the most widely used idiomatic figures are those from the field of SPORTS AND GAMES, then SEAFARING and FINANCE AND TRADE. The Croatian subcorpus is characterized by figures of NATURE, SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA and figures of SPORTS AND GAMES, where card-playing is most often used. The analysis of the corpus has shown that the greatest number of producers of football texts - the journalists - cover the topic ‘football match’ in the text-type ‘report’. However, it should be emphasized that in the German and Austrian subcorpora journalists use idioms exclusively to describe the ‘football player’. 27 Word plays and modifications are not - contrary to our expectations - a primary means of expressiveness and emotional involvement of the recipient, as is the case in the advertising and fiction. The producers in our corpus rather achieve these effects by selecting idiomatic figures from very different extralinguistic, non-football domains. 26 “Behind the scenes fierce fighting is going on for that member of French national football team, Patrick Vieira”. 27 It could be remarked here that in only one edition of the German newspaper “Bild Zeitung” do all the nine examples of idioms refer to the topic “football player” and no idioms are found in reports on “football matches” or other topics. <?page no="114"?> 111 References Ani , Vladimir (2000): Rje nik hrvatskoga jezika. Zagreb: Liber Badurina, Lada / Pritchard, Boris / Stolac, Dijana (eds.) (2000): Primijenjena lingvistika u Hrvatskoj, Zagreb / Rijeka: HDPL (Hrvatsko društvo za primijenjenu lingvistiku) Back, Otto et al. (2006): Österreichisches Wörterbuch, Bde 1-2. Wien: News Edition Brandt, Wolfgang (1982): ‘Schwere Wörter’ im Sprachbereich ‘Sport’. In: Jahrbuch 1982 des Instituts für deutsche Sprache (= Sprache der Gegenwart, Ids: Wortschatz und Verständigungsprobleme), 92- 118 Burger, Harald / Buhofer, Annelies / Sialm, Ambros (1982): Handbuch der Phraseologie. Berlin et al.: Walter de Gruyter Burger, Harald (1998): Phraseologie. Eine Einführung am Beispiel des Deutschen. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag Casadei, Federica (1996): Metafore ed espressioni idiomatiche. Uno studio semantico sull’italiano. Roma: Bulzoni editore Duden (1992): Redewendungen und sprichwörtliche Redensarten. Wörterbuch der deutschen Idiomatik. Mannheim et al.: Dudenverlag Duden (1996): Deutsches Universal Wörterbuch A-Z. Mannheim et al.: Dudenverlag Fink, Željka (2000): Sport u frazeologiji. In: Badurina e.a., 123-128 Lakoff, George / Johnson, Mark (1980): Metaphors we live by. Chicago et al.: The University of Chicago Press Matulina, Željka (1990): Upotreba poslovica u sportskim novinama s hrvatskog ili srpskog i njema kog govornog podru ja. In: Tir, 216-224 Matulina, Željka (1991a): Sprichwörter in Artikelüberschriften der ‘Slobodna Dalmacija’ und einiger vergleichbarer österreichischer Tageszeitungen. In: Znanstvena revija 3, 97-108 Matulina, Željka (1991b): Upotreba poslovica u dnevnim novinama. In: Tošovi , 48-66 Matulina, Željka (1994): Sprichwort und Wortspiel. In: Linguistica 34/ 1, 119-136 Mieder, Wolfgang (1999): Phrasen verdreschen. Antiredensarten aus Literatur und Medien. Wiesbaden: Quelle & Meyer Röhrich, Lutz (1994): Lexikon der sprichwörtlichen Redensarten. Freiburg et al.: Herder Simrock, Karl (1988): Die deutschen Sprichwörter. Stuttgart: Reclam Tir, Mihal (ed.) (1990): Kontrastivna jezi ka istraživanja. Novi Sad: Domentijan Tošovi , Branko (ed.) (1991): Jezik i stil sredstava informisanja. Sarajevo: Svjetlost Univ.Prof. Dr. Željka Matulina Institut für Germanistik Universität Zadar Obala kralja P. Krešimira IV, 2 HR-23000 Zadar (Kroatien) e-mail: matulina@unizd.hr http: / / www.unizd.hr Univ.-Doz. Dr. Zrinka orali Institut für Germanistik Pedagoški fakultet Biha Universität Biha Džani a Mahala 36 BIH-77000 Biha (Bosnia-Herzegowina) e-mail: zrinka_coralic@yahoo.com e-mail: pedagoski.fakultet@bih.net.ba http: / / www.pfbihac.com.ba <?page no="116"?> 113 HENRIK NORDIN THE USE OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS BY SWEDISH AND GERMAN FOOTBALL COMMENTATORS - A COMPARISON 1 Football is one of the biggest sports both in Sweden and in Germany. The language used for reporting and commenting on it, the so-called ‘football language’, will be the focus of this paper. The football language used by Swedish and German football television commentators will be analyzed according to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) (Lakoff / Johnson 1980). The CMT is a theory belonging to holistic cognitive semantics, where the cognitive process in our minds is connected with the language used. In this connection the metaphor plays a very important role. Mostly it is not used on purpose, but still systematically (Baldauf 1997: 11). This character shows that the use of metaphors reflects the cognitive processes in our minds (Baldauf 1997: 16). The aim of the paper is to analyze which metaphors are used by football commentators and if there is a difference in use between the Swedish and the German football commentators. The data analyzed is the first half of the match between Bayern Munich and Juventus Turin in the Champions League game of 18 th October 2005, which was transmitted live on German (Sat.1) and Swedish (ZTV/ Viasat) television. 1. Introduction On 18 th October 2005, Bayern Munich played against Juventus Turin in the Champions League. The game could be seen on television in Germany and in Sweden. In this game, as in any other football game, you could say that the language used by the commentators is part of so-called “football language” (Dankert 1969: 5). The commentators of this particular game were Henrik Strömblad and Glenn Hysén on Swedish television, and Erich Laaser and Oliver Bierhoff on German television. I recorded both the Swedish and German version and analyzed the first half of the game according to the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) (Lakoff / Johnson 1980). The CMT is a theory belonging to holistic cognitive semantics, where cognitive processes in our minds are connected with the language being used. In this connection the metaphor plays a very important role. Mostly it is not being used on purpose, but still systematically (Baldauf 1997: 11). This systematic use reflects that it’s all about the work of the cognitive processes in our minds (Baldauf 1997: 16). In applying this theory, I have used the same categorising methods as Christa Baldauf (1997). The theory will be described in more detail in the next section. The Swedish and German languages have some similarities, but also a lot of differences. Applying CMT theory, which metaphors are being used by the Swedish and German commentators? Which metaphors are used often, and which seldom? Do the Swedish and the German commentators use the same metaphors or is there a difference in use? These were the questions I asked and have tried to answer. 1 This paper is based on a part of my master thesis at the University of Umeå, Sweden. <?page no="117"?> 114 2. Conceptual Metaphors 2.1. Metaphors we live by Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) is part of holistic cognitive semantics. In other words, its aim is to find a link between structures of thought and language. To analyze language would then mean to gain knowledge of the way we think. Language could be seen as a mirror of our thoughts (Baldauf 1997: 11-12). In trying to find this link between the structures of thought and language, metaphor plays an important role and an analysis of metaphorical structures and processes would therefore be of interest (Schwarz-Friesel 2004: 83). Traditionally we understand metaphors as an aesthetic phenomenon, but in CMT the metaphor is a very important part of our everyday language, something we don’t really notice, but something that is more or less ubiquitous. According to Lakoff / Johnson (1980), these metaphors form systems, which in turn indicate that we are dealing with the structure of our thoughts (Baldauf 1997: 15-16). This systematic aspect suggests that we use metaphorical processes to conceptualize a complex world. With the help of more elementary, concrete experiences (source domain), we conceptualize vague, complex experiences (target domain). The source domain then means the direct, physical and cultural experiences that we use to structure abstract experiences (Baldauf 1997: 16-17). One example from my data is the concept FOOTBALL IS WAR, where we use the experience from war to structure football. Some would say that most of us do not have any experience of war, but indirectly we have - through television, newspapers and other media (Eckard 2005: 241). Examples of metaphors belonging to the concept FOOTBALL IS WAR from my data: 1. Cannavaro im Duell mit Roque Santa Cruz. (Cannavaro in a duel with Roque Santa Cruz.) 2. […] das war schneller Angriffsfußball. ([…] that was fast attacking football.) There also exist non-metaphorical concepts, as in these examples: 3. Mark is in the kitchen. 4. Mark is in pain. In the first sentence the kitchen is really a room/ container as we see it, and hence not a metaphor. In the second sentence an emotional condition (abstract) is conceptualized as a container (physical, concrete), and hence is more like a metaphor (Baldauf 1997: 17). Clearly, we need to classify in some way the metaphors used. There are several possible ways of doing this (Kövecses 2002: 29), and I’ve chosen to classify the metaphors in the same way as Baldauf (1997). One important part of her classification is the Theory of Idealized Cognitive Models, ICMs, developed by Lakoff 1987. The ICMs are idealized models of reality, that is, structures that represent experiences. These idealized models can be used to structure more abstract experiences (Baldauf 1997: 79-80). <?page no="118"?> 115 Another important aspect of Baldauf´s classification (1997) is the theory of Image Schemas that Mark Johnson developed (Johnson 1987). The image schemas are schematic pictures of structures that we meet in our interaction with the world around us. For example, the DIRECTION-schema organizes many of our experiences. It could be the experience that for a journey we need not only a starting point A and an end point Z, but also the time dimension of the journey. Another example is the CONTAINERschema, of which we saw an example above in (4) (Baldauf 1997: 66-69). 2.2. The classification Based on the theories of Lakoff and Johnson, Baldauf (1997) uses four categories into which she classifies metaphors. The different categories contain different metaphors, the difference being that the metaphors do not structure the target domain in equal measure. Attribute metaphors constitute the smallest category. They give persons, objects or situations, that is the target domain, attributes of direct physical perception. The target domain only becomes a simple, additional, judgemental, metaphorical attribute (Baldauf 1997: 83-84). Examples from my data on the concept POSITIVE IS BRIGHT: 5. Bayern har börjat matchen strålande. (Bayern has started the game brilliantly.) 6. Sagnol fortsätter att spela lysande fotboll. (Sagnol continues to play blazing football.) Ontological metaphors give vague, abstract target domains a very simple structure as they assign them an object or substance character. Abstract target domains can be conceptualized as objects or substances that we might see or touch. With the help of these metaphors we can quantify or locate something abstract (Baldauf 1997: 119-122). It can be rather difficult to recognize an ontological metaphor. The difference between the concrete and abstract characteristics of a statement is not always easy to see (Baldauf 1997: 122). Some examples from my data on the concept IDEAS ARE OBJECTS/ SUBSTANCES: 7. […] som letar efter alternativ inne i mitten […] ([…] who looks for alternatives in the middle […]) 8. Bruchteile von Sekunden. (Fractions of seconds) The orientational metaphors structure an abstract or unstructured target domain with our spatial experience. According to Baldauf (1997: 124-125), this is one of the largest categories. Some examples from my data on the concept PERIODS OF TIME ARE CONTAINERS: 9. […] die sind stärker als im letzten Jahr. ([…] they are stronger than [in] the last year.) 10. Deislers allra första Champions League mål i karriären. (Deisler’s very first Champions League goal in his career.) <?page no="119"?> 116 With structural metaphors a large structured source domain is used to structure an abstract target domain. The source domain can be very complex and have more information than the other categories; it can consist of several elements and active sequences that represent prototypical, complex everyday situations (Baldauf 1997: 178). Some examples from my data on the concept FOOTBALL IS WAR: 11. […] das ist die Innenverteidigung des FC Bayern […] ([…] that is the inner defence of FC Bayern […]) 12. Jag minns ett par räder i EM […] (I remember a couple of raids in the Euro 2004) The four categories bring structure to a target domain, but to a varying extent. In the next section I will use this classification to classify and to be able to compare the metaphors used by the Swedish and German television commentators. 3. Sweden vs. Germany Sweden versus Germany in football could be a tough game. Two well organized teams with a strong defence. The Swedes did not do well the last time the teams met at the 2006 World Cup. This paper also focuses on Sweden versus Germany, but this was more like a friendly game. The German commentators spoke a little less than the Swedish ones. The reason could be that the Swedish commentators offered more of a dialogue. On German television one commentator spoke almost all the time (Erich Laaser) and the other one only now and then from his position as an expert (Oliver Bierhoff). To be able to compare the number of different metaphors being used, I first looked at the total number of words spoken by the commentators during the first half of the game. The Swedish commentators spoke 5061 words, the German commentators 3596. I then multiplied the number of German metaphors with a factor of 1.4 (5061/ 3596 1.4). In this section I will use this factor frequently. In the comments of the German commentators I found 292 metaphors (x1.4 409), and in those of the Swedish commentators 481. There is a difference in number, but not so big that we can really draw any conclusions from it. What we can see is that the Swedish commentators used a lot more orientational metaphors than the German commentators. Table 1 shows the result: Category Number of German metaphors Number of German metaphors x 1.4 Number of Swedish metaphors Attribute 22 31 22 Ontological 15 21 33 Orientational 135 189 267 Structural 120 168 159 Total 292 409 481 Table 1: The distribution of metaphors <?page no="120"?> 117 3.1. Attribute metaphors This category is very small. As mentioned above, the attribute metaphors give the target domain a simple additional metaphorical attribute of direct physical perception. In total I found 22 (x1.4 31) attribute metaphors used by the German commentators. 12 of these conceptualize the experience of physical strength as something positive. Some examples from my data for the concept POSITIVE IS PHYSICAL STRENGTH: 13. Der Gegner ist stark genug, der stärkste, der sich bisher in der Allianz Arena vorstellt. (The opponent is strong enough, the strongest […]) 14. Ein junger Mann, stark in der Defensive. (A young man, strong defensively.) In the comments of the Swedish commentators I also found 22 metaphors. This same concept is the biggest one, but here only with 5 metaphors. The German commentators use more of the metaphors from this category. In view of the small number of metaphors in this category we can’t draw any certain conclusions. 3.2. Ontological metaphors Ontological metaphors conceptualize abstract target domains as object or substances. We find more metaphors from this category by the Swedish commentators (33) than by the German commentators (15, x1.4 21). In view of the difficulty, firstly, to define these metaphors as metaphors and, secondly, to allocate them, the difference is not always clear. Some examples from my data on the concept IDEAS ARE OBJECTS / SUBSTANCES: 15. Thuram mit seiner ganzen Routine. (Thuram with all of his routine.) 16. Tappar Bayern lite bredd. (Bayern loses some width.) 3.3. Orientational metaphors These metaphors are used to structure our spatial experience within a target domain. The three concepts used in this category are the CONTAINER-concept, the DIRECTION-concept and the GRADATION-concept. Table 2 displays the results: Concept Number of German metaphors Number of German metaphors x 1.4 Number of Swedish metaphors CONTAINER 70 98 187 DIRECTION 44 62 40 GRADATION 20 28 37 Total 135 189 267 Table 2: The distribution of the orientational metaphors. <?page no="121"?> 118 Before we try to analyze the results, let us look at some examples that can give a better understanding of the different concepts. Some examples from the data on the concept SITUATIONS ARE CONTAINERS: 17. Offside på Deisler i den där situationen. (Deisler offside in that situation.) 18. Lucio är snabbare än Zlatan in i den duellen. (Lucio is faster than Zlatan into that duel.) Some examples from my data on the concept THE FOOTBALL PITCH IS A ROAD (and, by implication, a direction): 19. Er zieht den Weg in die Mitte vor. (He prefers the way in the middle.) 20. Ballack, viel unterwegs. (Ballack, often on the move - (literally) ‘way’.) Some examples from my data on the concept THE FOOTBALL PITCH IS UP/ DOWN (a gradation): 21. Han har klarat sig hur bra som helst däruppe, Santa Cruz […] (He has made it terrific up there, Santa Cruz […]) 22. […] att han går med upp i anfallen […] ([…] that he comes up into the attacks […]) 23. Es war eher gleiche Höhe. (It was rather at the same level.) From table 2 we can clearly see that the Swedish commentators use a lot more container-metaphors than the German commentators. By contrast, the German commentators use a few more direction metaphors and especially the concept of THE FOOTBALL PITCH AS A ROAD. This concept is also used by the Swedish commentators, but not to the same extent. The Swedish commentators use more graduation terms and especially the idea of THE FOOTBALL PITCH AS UP/ DOWN. Here we find 9 Swedish metaphors and only one German one (example 23). One conclusion could be that the Swedish commentators use more containermetaphors than the German ones, the reason being that they use the prepositions i, in and ut (in, into and out) more often. While the German football players go to the front when they attack, the Swedes also go up front (graduation) when they attack. 3.4. Structural metaphors The source domain of the structural metaphors represent more complex, prototypical everyday situations. In other words they carry more information than the others. From table 1 we can see that the numbers of structural metaphors used by the commentators do not differ that much. Let us turn to some of the concepts being used and see if we can find any difference there. Some examples from my data on the concept TO DEFEND IS TO CLEAN UP: <?page no="122"?> 119 24. Men då får Kahn hjälp att städa av Demichelis […] (But then Kahn gets help in cleaning up from Demichelis […]) 25. Thuram städar undan. (Thuram cleans up.) Some other frequently used concepts are KNOWING IS SEEING, SPORT IS BUSINESS and IDEAS ARE PERSONS but by far the most extensively used concept is FOOTBALL IS WAR. Some examples of this concept from my data: 26. Deisler am Schuss von Ballack. (Deisler on to the shot from Ballack.) 27. […] nur Stürmer Nummer drei ist […] ([…] only forward number three is […]) 28. […] und hatte eine Bombensaison gemacht, […] ([…] and had a ‘bombing season’ (i.e. a highly successful one), […]) 29. Det blir Makaay som är exekutor. (Makaay becomes the executor.) Many of the words we connect with war, like shooting or defending, belong to the terminology of football (Dankert 1969: 123). That war is an important source domain for structuring football may not be so astonishing. The war-metaphor is the most central metaphor used in ball games (Burkhard 2006: 61). But when we compare the number of metaphors from this source domain used by the commentators, the result is a little unexpected. The German commentators used 69 (x1.4 97) war-metaphors, the Swedish commentators 48. What could be the reason why the German commentators use almost twice as many warmetaphors as the Swedes? One reason could be that war as an experience is closer to the Germans than the Swedes, who have not been involved in a war since 1809. That language is a delayed mirror of what happens in society (Baldauf 1997: 238) might support this conclusion. But the reason could also be found in the media, where a lot of martial reporting appears. 4. Summary According to this analysis, the concepts used by the Swedish and German commentators are largely the same, but there are some key differences. The Swedish commentators use many more ‘container’ metaphors than the German ones. The German commentators conceptualize the football pitch as a road with a direction to a greater extent than the Swedes. When Swedes attack, they go up. With the concept of FOOTBALL IS WAR, the German commentators use almost twice as many metaphors as the Swedish commentators. Clearly, in a small-scale study like this one, one can only partly show how conceptual metaphors tend to be used. <?page no="123"?> 120 References Baldauf, Christa (1997): Metapher und Kognition: Grundlagen einer neuen Theorie der Alltagsmetapher. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Burkhardt, Armin (2006): Sprache und Fußball. Linguistische Annäherung an ein Massenphänomen. In: Muttersprache 116, 53-73 Dankert, Harald (1969): Sportsprache und Kommunikation (Volksleben 25). Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde E.V. Tübingen Schloss Eckard, Rolf (2005): Metaphertheorien. Typologie, Darstellung, Bibliographie. Berlin: de Gruyter Kövecses, Zoltán (2002): Metaphor: A practical introduction. Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press Johnson, Mark (1987): The Body in the Mind. The bodily basis of meaning, imagination and reason. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press Lakoff, George (1987): Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press Lakoff, George / Johnson, Mark (1980): Metaphors we live by. Chicago et al.: The University of Chicago Press Schwarz-Friesel, Monika (2004): Kognitive Linguistik heute - Metaphernverstehen als Fallbeispiel. In: Deutsch als Fremdsprache 41/ 2, 83-89 Mag. Henrik Nordin NTI-skolan V. Norrlandsgatan 11 D SE-906 27 Umeå e-mail: henrik.nordin@nti.se nphnordin@yahoo.se <?page no="124"?> 121 STEPHAN VIERKANT METAPHOR AND LIVE RADIO FOOTBALL COMMENTARY This article presents a case study that is about testing a specific method for metaphor identification. This procedure is tested on a German live radio football commentary corpus taken from the 2006 football World Cup in Germany. Neither to the German language in use nor to live radio football commentary has this method been applied so far. From the problems occurring during the study, modifications to the procedure are made. Since the case study is part of a master’s thesis that is still in progress, the presentation will merely provide first results, discussing in detail two identified metaphorical expressions. In the end the results are compared to another study on football live commentary. The practicability of the metaphor identification procedure, and the identified metaphors in German live radio commentary on football, are the two fields touched on in this article. The interesting outcomes provide the basis for further discussions in both fields. 1. Introduction If we believe the Italian supporters’ Poo Po Po Po Po Bastardo, then studying football language means studying vulgar Italian. If we believe the English supporters’ Football’s coming home, then studying the language of football means studying English homes. If we believe the German supporters’ You can only win with your heart in your hand and your passion in your leg, then studying the language of football means studying anatomy. I perfectly agree with these opinions, but I am convinced that studying the language of football is about the feelings such words generate in us. These feelings are strongly linked to the images the fans use in their chants. Here, as in many other cases, linguistics can reveal the way people think. For almost thirty years (Lakoff / Johnson 1980; Ortony 1979) the study of figurative language has represented a promising tool for finding out about the mind’s structure. In this case study I will first apply a specific metaphor identification procedure to German football language and then look at its advantages and shortcomings. Live radio commentaries on three football matches of the 2006 World Cup make up the corpus. 2. Why Metaphor? The story of metaphor research is a long one, beginning with Aristotle, who is believed to have regarded metaphors as merely ornamental. However, even Aristotle judged metaphors to be the product of an innate ability. Mahon writes that “Aristotle was thus the first thinker to argue for an entirely natural origin for true literary genius, and hence, the first to argue that the ability to coin marvellous new metaphors was indeed a wholly natural ability” (Mahon 1999). Nevertheless, metaphor was considered to be an ornamental part of language until the beginning of the 20th century. Despite the impressive impact of generative grammar on linguistics, figurative language seemed to <?page no="125"?> 122 be unexplainable with this approach. As a result of this inadequacy, new approaches were developed. With their conceptual metaphor theory, Lakoff / Johnson (1980) stimulated the study of figurative language. According to them, metaphors are a product of the structure of our conceptual system. They believe that “most concepts are partially understood in terms of other concepts.” (2003: 56) We are able to conceptualize abstract entities only because we use a metaphorical way of describing them. Many other linguists have followed, developed and modified the initial idea of Lakoff / Johnson. Kövecses describes “metaphor as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain.” (2002: 4) Such domains are based on experience. The conceptual domains people try to understand are called target domains. The conceptual domains people use for understanding are called source domains. The process of understanding a target domain by the application of a source domain is called mapping. Conceptual metaphors can be classified according to the cognitive functions they perform. Three kinds of conceptual metaphor exist: 1. the structural metaphor, of which the source domain provides a vast amount of knowledge about the target concept. 2. the ontological metaphor, which serves to assign an ontological status to general categories of abstract target concepts. 3. the orientational metaphor, which is based on basic human spatial orientations. This kind of metaphor serves to render a set of target concepts more coherent in our conceptual system. These three kinds of metaphors are claimed to be omnipresent in our everyday language. The spectrum of concepts is mainly influenced by one factor: our spatial experiences structure our spatial concepts. By interacting with our physical environment we build up an elementary knowledge about our world. From the first day human beings are confronted with physical laws and somehow they have to deal with them. For survival a child has to learn the consequences of physical actions. These experiences form the pattern of the spatial concept of human beings. Thus basic cognitive concepts are crucial for the creation of metaphors. To find out more about the origins of metaphor, one has to study the objects of research in detail. Almost all discussions of metaphors have been based on introspection on the part of the linguists. On the border of subjectivity and objectivity, metaphor research has to find a reliable method to provide data and arguments for claims that until today have been proved only by ideal examples chosen by the linguists themselves. A hopeful new approach has been developed within the Pragglejaz project (Pragglejaz Group 2007), realized by several linguists in order to develop a method to identify metaphors in discourse. Their “aim is to provide metaphor scholars with a tool that may be flexibly applied to many research contexts” (Pragglejaz Group 2007: 1) The aim of this study is to find metaphors in football live radio commentary by using the metaphor identification procedure (MIP). On the one hand, the procedure can be tested as to its practicability for the German language; on the other hand, the results could offer interesting aspects about the nature of football. <?page no="126"?> 123 3. Why football language? When analysing metaphors in football language, the selection of the corpus is quite important. A written media corpus is easily produced, but the language is never fully spontaneous enough to be considered not ornamental. The speed of the spoken language is almost proverbial; sometimes people say things without reflecting on their meaning or the consequences they could have. Spontaneity seems almost guaranteed in spoken discourse, and many different types can be analysed. The language of football players and other persons involved in the game itself does not guarantee spontaneity because they are much too concerned about how to express their actions. The after-match analysis either on radio or TV could be a possibility, but again the spontaneity is doubtful because commentators have probably reflected several times on how to comment on the scenes under discussion. Thus there remains only live commentary, where promptness is more important than searching for the ideal expression. The crucial difference between radio and TV live commentary is that the TV commentator only needs to comment on the images on the screen, whereas the radio commentator has to transmit an instant image of what is happening on the field. So promptness as well as the constraint of transmitting information through language only make live radio commentary the ideal object of study for metaphor research. 4. Method Some studies on metaphor in football language (Dankert 1969; Schweickard 1987; Gabriel 1998; Döring / Osthus 2002; Michels 2002) discuss the nature of metaphor in football language in detail, but they lack clear criteria as to how metaphors are identified. As a statistically reliable procedure, the MIP can provide data for further interesting issues like frequency, diversity or variation of football metaphors. In contrast to other metaphor detection approaches, the MIP does not start from considering a “preconceived set of conceptual metaphors from which to base further identification of metaphorically used words” (Pragglejaz Group 2007: 33). Below follows a checklist which is applied to each lexical unit of the corpus. The procedure used in this study is the MIP (Pragglejaz Group 2007: 3): Read the entire text-discourse to establish a general understanding of the meaning. Determine the lexical units in the text-discourse. (a) For each lexical unit in the text, establish its meaning in context, that is, how it applies to an entity, relation, or attribute in the situation evoked by the text (contextual meaning). Take into account what comes before and alter the lexical unit. (b) For each lexical unit, determine if it has a more basic contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given context. For our purposes, basic meanings tend to be —more concrete (what they evoke is easier to imagine, see, hear, feel, smell, and taste); —related to bodily action; —more precise (as opposed to vague); —historically older. Basic meanings are not necessarily the most frequent meanings of the lexical unit. (c) If the lexical unit has a more basic current or contemporary meaning in other contexts than the given context, decide whether the contextual meaning contrasts with the basic meaning, but can be understood in comparison with it. If so, mark the lexical unit as metaphorical. <?page no="127"?> 124 This procedure is carried out for each word; hence it is extremely time-consuming. Furthermore, in order to have reliable results, it is necessary to engage several analysts, whose results should be tested against the results of this study. 5. Test sample This study being a part of my master’s thesis, I have limited the analysis to a manageable task. To minimize the time for analysis, I have applied the procedure to a ten-minute sample in order to determine the possible procedure modifications. The sample contains the first ten minutes of the opening match of the 2006 football World Cup between Germany and Costa Rica. I assumed that the first ten minutes of this match would offer high tension and maybe even a goal, and so I expected to find several metaphorical expressions. In order to have a relatively representative and manageable study, I needed to either minimize the corpus or minimize the number of word classes to be analysed. A smaller corpus is less representative, whereas concentrating on two or three word classes would mean only a necessary and acceptable modification of the MIP. As metaphorical language is liable to be more present in open word classes than in closed word classes, in this sample I concentrated only on nouns, verbs, and adjectives. The analysis of nouns was fast and uncomplicated; therefore nouns will be analyzed in this study. The analysis of verbs was far more complicated because participles sometimes function as adjectives. Here it is necessary to decide whether to concentrate on a syntactic or semantic analysis of metaphors. To simplify matters, I chose a semantic analysis, leaving the syntactic one aside, which does not, however, mean that syntactic issues are of no importance in metaphor research. This decision also includes leaving out adverbs. Complications occurred with verbalized nouns, for example, tunneln (to nutmeg so.), which are only used in football language and have no other meaning but are still metaphorical with respect to their etymology. So here etymology is an additional help for analysing such expressions. In spite of these complications, verbs constitute a large group of metaphorical expressions and so will be included in the study. The problems with adverbs and participles indicate that there are great difficulties also with adjectives. Not only are there few adjectives and even fewer metaphorical expressions in this category, but the detected adjective metaphors are not clearly categorizable in terms of metaphor. Stark (strong), for example, could refer to physical strength, high functionality, and many other characteristics, so here the analysis becomes too vague. As a consequence, adjectives are eliminated from the list of categories to be dealt with. In the following, the categories of nouns and verbs are analysed with respect to their current basic meaning (see Duden deutsches Universalwörterbuch 2006). If they were marked as problematic according to the MIP, etymology (Kluge / Seebold 2002) helped to clarify the problems. Calculations based on this sample led to the conclusion that three entire matches would be a feasible challenge. <?page no="128"?> 125 6. Important aspects regarding corpus choice When Totti nutmegs somebody (English) or ‘makes the teaspoon’ (Italian), non-native speakers have great difficulties figuring out the meaning of these actions. To avoid such problems in the analysis, I chose German, for it is my mother tongue. The selection of matches was problematic with respect to the homogeneity of events during the matches, participating teams and possible biased commentaries. Since even objective commentators support their national teams unconsciously, the decision was either to take no match with the participation of the German team or only matches with German participation. The 2006 World Cup created an astonishing new atmosphere of patriotism in Germany (see Becker et al. 2007), so an analysis of exclusively German matches seemed to be promising. From the data gained in this study further aspects could be discussed in the light of patriotism and language. Finally, the opening match Germany vs. Costa Rica, the last-sixteen match Germany vs. Sweden and the semi-final Germany vs. Italy were chosen for analysis. The first match was the opening match of the World Cup and one of the matches with the most goals in the tournament. The Sweden match was a clear victory for Germany, containing also a penalty kick. The defeat against Italy was analysed until the end of regular time; it is therefore regarded as a draw. Four different commentators commented on the three matches, never working together twice. The diversity of these matches was the main reason why they were selected. 7. How can metaphor in football language be analyzed? The corpus was put together by recording the live radio commentaries and transcribing them. Although the documented material does not reflect pitch, intonation or other aspects of transcription, I will use the term ‘transcript’ in order to avoid misunderstandings. These transcripts were split up into sentence or phrase segments, because an exact transcription would have taken much more time than a simple transcription. Such a simple transcription is sufficient, given that the lexical unit is analyzed according to its context, and not according to any fuzzy sentence or phrase borders. From these segments verbs and nouns in their context segments were extracted and then analyzed according to the MIP. The categorization into different topics is not indicated by the MIP, so I tried to provide an adequate one. Here, the final categories were not chosen according to the similarity factor; otherwise each lexical unit could have received a proper category. Therefore, the lexical units were grouped according to the previous knowledge the speaker or hearer has to have in order to understand the metaphor. This process of categorization might be subjective, but it is practical because it can include also indirect uses of metaphor. Klären (to clear), for example, is as sensory-dependent as sehen (to see) is. Both verbs demand a previous knowledge of the human sense of sight. Each step received its own column, as shown in table 1. <?page no="129"?> 126 Token Linguistic Expression (GER) Word Main Meaning (GER) Context Meaning (GER) Similarity Catego ry Literal translation of the phrase Translation of the word Previous knowledge 15 der das natürlich ganz anders gesehen hat, sehen mit dem Gesichtssinn, mit den Augen optische Eindrücke wahrnehmen beurteilen, einschätzen seeing corresponds to judging Verb who has seen it completely differently see Human senses 1 Und der Beifall sagt uns und Ihnen: sagen (Wörter, Sätze o. Ä.) artikulieren, aussprechen als Schluss zulassen; besagen; heißen telling corresponds to signifying Verb And the applause tells us and you tell Human senses Table 1: Examples of categorization steps 8. Results The results for verb metaphors show that about a third of the metaphor tokens have to do with conflict. The conflict type percentage is still the highest one, but not as dominant as in the token ranking, as shown in the verb ranking tables: Verb Token Ranking Verb Type Ranking Previous Knowledge Token Type Token Percentage Previous Knowledge Token Type Type Percentage conflict 279 54 31,14 conflict 279 54 17,03 go-comestand 172 30 19,20 physical contact 93 52 16,40 physical contact 93 52 10,38 physical work 78 35 11,04 physical work 78 35 8,71 go-comestand 172 30 9,46 human senses 55 20 6,14 administration 44 30 9,46 administration 44 30 4,91 nature 36 24 7,57 nature 36 24 4,02 complex motion 35 23 7,26 complex motion 35 23 3,91 human senses 55 20 6,31 transport 35 17 3,91 transport 35 17 5,36 construction 33 10 3,68 construction 33 10 5,36 technology 18 9 2,01 technology 18 9 2,84 container 10 7 1,12 container 10 7 2,21 game 5 3 0,56 game 5 3 0,95 unique 3 3 0,33 unique 3 3 0,95 total 896 317 100 total 896 317 100 Table 2: Verb token ranking Table 3: Verb type ranking <?page no="130"?> 127 The noun metaphors statistic is different because there are more categories, but again there is a predominance of conflict-knowledge dependent metaphors. Noun Token Ranking Noun Type Ranking Previous Knowledge Token Type Token Percentage Previous Knowledge Token Type Type Percentage conflict 1032 126 59,48 conflict 1032 126 30,96 construction 198 23 11,41 nature 70 42 10,32 2D space 93 29 5,36 administration 51 34 8,35 nature 70 42 4,03 2D space 93 29 7,13 administration 51 34 2,94 creative performance 45 25 6,14 creative performance 45 25 295 technology 39 25 6,14 technology 39 25 2,25 construction 198 23 5,65 complex motion 31 10 1,79 unique 28 13 3,19 unique 28 13 1,61 physical work 17 12 2,95 human senses 23 11 1,33 game 14 12 2,95 family 20 7 1,15 human senses 23 11 2,70 container 20 6 1,15 imagination 11 11 2,70 go-comestand 18 6 1,04 complex motion 31 10 2,46 physical work 17 12 0,98 family 20 7 1,72 game 14 12 0,81 physical action 14 7 1,72 physical action 14 7 0,81 container 20 6 1,47 imagination 11 11 0,63 go-comestand 18 6 1,47 3D space 9 6 0,52 3D space 9 6 1,47 transport 2 2 0,12 transport 2 2 0,49 total 1735 406 100,00 total 1735 406 100,00 Table 4: Noun token ranking Table 5: Noun type ranking The categories were taken over from the verb metaphors, whose 14 categories were applied to the noun metaphors, with the addition of five extra categories, namely geometric, creative performance, social, imagination and spatial. 9. Problems Several problems occurred during the analysis of the lexical units. The fact that in German both verbs and nouns often tend to be compound words leads to complications in defining the meaning of the compound. Phrasal verbs including prepositions like aufbauen (to build up) were easy to decode since they are already lexicalized. <?page no="131"?> 128 Nonetheless, the border between lexicalized and non-lexicalized is fuzzy. In cases of compound verbs like hereinspritzen (to squirt in), the meaning of the stem itself is metaphoric although the word as such is not listed in current dictionaries. Compound nouns like Nationalmannschaft (national team) are problematic because -mannschaft represents a metaphorical expression whereas Nationalmodifies the meaning of mannschaft. In fact, in the Duden dictionary Nationalmannschaft only has the meaning of ‘national football team’ and nothing else; hence, strictly following the MIP, it would not be a metaphor. My solution is to denote each compound noun as metaphoric if it includes a metaphorical expression because, seen etymologically and socio-historically, this expression, as a constitutive part of football language, would not exist without its precursor in a military context. As an additional step to the MIP, I propose first checking the head of a compound, and if it cannot be classified as metaphorical, applying the procedure to the modifier of the compound. This compound analysis step is important for the further classification, which will be explained below. Differences between novel metaphors and normal metaphorical language were not problematic because each lexical unit was analysed with respect to its context. A necessary modification of the MIP was to exclude idiomatic expressions. The Pragglejaz Group admits that not all idioms are decomposable and, furthermore, the central idea of the MIP is to refer to the basic current meaning, which is problematic with expressions of several words having only one meaning in a specific context. Which word in an idiom needs to be analysed and which not? Analysing metaphors means working on the edge of metaphors close to other figurative expressions like idioms, metonymies and so forth. The MIP can provide the identification of words that have not been lexicalized yet. So my criterion for separating idioms from metaphors was to rely on the classification in the Duden. Metonymy is not included in this study, either; examples were detected by applying the common ‘like’ test. Even the Pragglejaz Group admits that metonymy can at times lead to some confusion about coding for metaphoricity, but the use of procedures such as check the context or apply the ‘like’ test serve in most cases to resolve the problem (e.g., if ‘like’ fits meaningfully in an ‘A is B’ statement, such as in ‘Lawyers are like sharks’, then the expression is metaphorical). Once more, even if a word is ultimately determined to be non-metaphorical, MIP does not presently provide a mechanism for then suggesting whether the word may have metonymic meaning. (Pragglejaz Group 2007: 31) 10. Discussion 10.1. Verb metaphors To give an idea of which kinds of verb metaphors dominate, I will discuss two different category examples: <?page no="132"?> 129 Token Linguistic Expression (GER) Word Main Meaning (GER) Context Meaning (GER) Similarity Catego ry Literal translation of the phrase Translati on of the word Previous knowledge 64 Deutschland schießt ein Tor. schießen einen Schuss, Schüsse abgeben; von der Schusswaffe Gebrauch machen Den Ball mit dem Fuß anstoßen od. werfen, sodass er in eine bestimmte Richtung rollt od. fliegt gun shooting corresponds to kicking the ball Verb Germany shoots a goal shoot conflict 11 Podolski löst sich, lösen bewirken, dass etw. lose wird, nicht mehr fest verbunden ist, nicht mehr [an]haftet Sich von etw. frei machen, trennen rigid fixation corresponds slight body contact Verb Podolski breaks free break free physical contact Table 6: Examples of identified verb metaphors Both verbs occur in the context of football with meanings different from their current basic ones. These examples are now briefly discussed in detail: Football is a game, but in this case study the category with the most verb metaphor types is the conflict-knowledge category. This may be due to the conflictual nature of the game. One might ask: Which came first, conflict or play? The unidirectionality of metaphors shows that the answer can only be that features of the football game can more easily be understood by using conflict metaphors, not the other way around. PLAYING FOOTBALL IS BATTLING , but not BATTLING IS PLAYING FOOTBALL . The overwhelming number of conflict tokens shows that conflict is central to the game. The highest number of metaphor types confirms this because playing football is not like battling in only one way, but in many ways. Attack, conquer, fight and fire off are only a few examples of a great variety of verb conflict metaphors. Where battles take place, physical contact is inevitable, but fighting for the ball does not necessarily include touching the opponent. So, a football player can also sich lösen (‘to break loose’) from an opponent without actually having physical contact. Besides, sich lösen basically means unfixing a strong connection between two objects. A further example is when one player keeps ahead of the other in a running duel, as in vorne liegen (‘to be ahead’), meaning ‘staying ahead of somebody’. Another case is rausnehmen (‘to take out’) in connection with the tempo of a football match, which is clearly seen as a container, with tempo as an object. The situation regarding nouns is very similar, as will be shown in the following. 10.2. Noun metaphors The noun metaphors are also dominated by conflict expressions. As in the verb knowledge categories, the number of conflict tokens is extremely high, amounting to two thirds of all the metaphor tokens. This is due to the fact that Mannschaft (‘team’) is categorized as a metaphor because of its older use in the military context. The words containing Mannschaft constitute almost 40 percent of the conflict category tokens. If one removed the Mannschaft metaphors from the conflict tokens, this category would still represent half of the token number. If one does the same with the noun metaphor <?page no="133"?> 130 types, the conflict category still remains the biggest group of types, losing only three percent of the overall type percentage. However, the current meaning of Mannschaft refers to a sports team and to a military group. This military concept is older than the sport of football, and so counts as metaphorical. In contrast to the verb statistics, the noun type number of conflict metaphors is as large as the four following knowledge categories taken together. This result could be explained by the high number of 84 compound noun types in the conflict category. 11. What do the results indicate? The fact that both verb and noun conflict metaphors represent the highest number of metaphorical expression in football commentary matches the findings of other studies: Michels (2002), in a study of French football commentary, found that about 22 percent of TV live commentary metaphors are of a war/ military nature. Similar results exist for football-related language in Romance language press reports (Gil / Schmitt 1998; Gabriel 1998). The comparability between these studies and the present study is relative because each analyst followed his/ her own categorization of metaphors. In the present study, metaphors were first identified according to a concrete procedure and then, in addition, a categorization of previous knowledge to the metaphors was applied. Michels (2002), for example, started with identifying metaphors by the common Bildspenderbereich (semantic fields). Therefore a comparison is difficult but, on the other hand, interesting if one takes a closer look at the categories she claims to be present (2002: 52) in the comparison of several languages: war, economy, religion, mythology, death, theatre, music, nature and fauna (translation St. V.). In fact, these Bildspender correspond to my previous knowledge categories. My category of administration includes both economy and religion. Mythology is included in the category of imagination. In this study death occurred only once, namely in the verb totmachen (‘to make dead’, or rather ‘kill’), which forms part of the conflict group; so it will probably fall into either conflict or nature. Theatre and music are merged in the category of creative performance. Creative performance is different from the category of imagination because it represents a purposeful act of imagination. Imagination is more vague and involuntary, like fear, for example. Nature and fauna in this study are included in the nature category, which is huge but useful because splitting it up into biology, physics, human or animal would lead to countless other categories. The general question of categories is difficult as there are different ways to start the categorization. One could first make up categories and apply them to the metaphors identified, or create categories depending on the kind of metaphors one finds. The first one could end up in many empty categories; the latter one could lead to in a onemetaphor-one-category system. Both methods could turn out to be impracticable, but only trying out a specific approach can help to develop a practical technique for the categorization of metaphors identified. My previous knowledge scheme is the proposal to build up a concrete procedure similar to the MIP, with the previous knowledge as one factor of probably many in the system. <?page no="134"?> 131 12. Discussion In this study the MIP has turned out to be useful although problems specific to the German language occurred. Compound words can be analyzed by splitting them up into their basic meanings. As a consequence, the creation of categories for metaphors is problematic because it is not clear according to which part of the compound the word should be categorized. Respecting the modifier-head structure of compounds, one could argue for categorizing according to the head of a compound. Defensivarbeit (‘defensive work’) would be a good categorizable example, but there aren’t many others; instead, a lot of compounds have heads with abstract meanings like Nachschussmöglichkeit (‘follow-up shot’), where a concrete meaning comes only from the metaphor Schuss (‘shot’). Analysing also completely abstract words would mean turning away from the concrete approach of the MIP, and this would probably lead to philosophical problems of abstract categories. As in the procedure of identifying metaphors, the compound analysis step could function also as a way to categorize metaphors. In this way compounds could be first checked if the head is metaphorical, and if so, classified according to the head; otherwise they would be classified according to the next metaphorical modifier. The categorization of metaphors remains as the next step to be taken. With a complete procedure, results become comparable and useful for other disciplines, like sociology, ethnology or any other fields of cultural studies. 13. Outlook This study has shown the practicability of the MIP for the German language and demonstrated that football language in live radio commentary, and probably football language in general, is based on the previous knowledge of conflict. Metaphor research offers the possibility of collecting data which can be useful for cultural and linguistic studies.. The more “metaphors in the wild” (Pragglejaz Group 2007: 1) are analysed with this method, the clearer its practicability becomes. Another outcome of this case study is that the previous knowledge of conflict is deeply linked with football language, football reasoning and probably football itself. To conclude, further studies on football language and football culture will show how right the legendary Liverpool coach Bill Shankly was when he said: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” References Becker, Julia / Wagner, Ulich / Christ, Oliver (2007): Nationalismus und Patriotismus als Ursache von Fremdenfeindlichkeit. In: Heitmeyer, 131-149 Cameron, Lynne / Low, Graham (eds.) (1999): Researching and applying metaphor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dankert, Harald (1969): Sportsprache und Kommunikation. Untersuchungen zur Struktur der Fußballsprache und zum Stil der Sportberichterstattung. Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung f. Volkskunde <?page no="135"?> 132 Döring, Martin / Osthus, Dietmar (2002): Black, Blanc, Beur. Metaphorische Identität - identische Metaphern? Zur Presseberichterstattung in französischen und deutschen Zeitungen zum Mondial 1998. In: http: / / www.metaphorik.de/ 03/ , 2/ 11/ 2007, 17-43 Duden deutsches Universalwörterbuch ( 6 2006). Mannheim: Dudenverlag Gabriel, Klaus (1998): Zur Metaphorik in der italienischen Fußballberichterstattung. In: Gil / Schmitt, 57-85 Gil, Alberto / Schmitt, Christian (eds.) (1998): Kognitive und kommunikative Dimensionen der Metaphorik in den romanischen Sprachen. Bonn: Romanistischer Verlag Heitmeyer, Wilhelm (ed.) (2007): Deutsche Zustände. Folge 5. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Kluge, Friedrich / Seebold, Elmar ( 24 2002): Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: de Gruyter Kövecses, Zoltàn (2002): Metaphor. A practical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press Lakoff, George / Mark Johnson ( 2 2003): Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Mahon, James Edwin (1999): Getting your sources right. In: Cameron / Low, 69-80 Michels, Anke (2002): Metaphern in französischen Fußballreportagen. In: http: / / www.metaphorik.de/ 02, 2/ 11/ 2007, 42-68 Ortony, Andrew (ed.) (1979): Metaphor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Pragglejaz Group (2007): MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. In: Metaphor and Symbol 22/ 1, 1-39 Schweickard, Wolfgang (1987): Die cronaca calcista. Zur Sprache der Fußballberichterstattung in italienischen Sporttageszeitungen. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Stephan Vierkant Freie Universität Berlin Linguistics (General and German Linguistics) Habelschwerdter Allee 45 14195 Berlin, Germany e-mail: mail@sportinlanguage.com <?page no="136"?> 133 ERIC A. ANCHIMBE “BEND IT LIKE A BANANA”: REPRESENTING THE ECOLOGY IN LIVE FOOTBALL COMMENTARIES This paper uses data from two locations to show that events or objects in the physical environment serve as figurative tools for the representation of events or actions on the football field. Based on unscripted live commentaries from Cameroon and the West Bank, the paper shows that football commentators use names of events specific to their physical and socio-political environment to describe action on the football pitch. While the Cameroonian commentators borrow largely from the physical and cultural environment, the West Bank commentators borrow from the socio-political environment dominated by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This pattern of language usage enriches vocabulary, but also gives speakers the chance to evoke sensitive issues in a light-hearted manner. This strategy fits closely with recent goals in football, i.e. to strengthen unity among people, fight racism and ensure equality for all humans. 1. Introduction Football is perhaps the most popular sport in the present century. It has established itself not only as the most prestigious club and national sport, but also as one of the most lucrative sports (consider player contracts, transfers, club take-overs, television transmission rights, sale of T-shirts, etc.). Football more than many other team sports is unique in its ambiguous ability to unite and divide at the same time - consider national/ regional unity during football competitions and (in)famous hooligan violence during and after games or tournaments. Besides this, football is now a battlefield for several issues: the fight against racism (e.g. banners and flyers during games or information slots on television during transmission of football games); the resolution of conflicts (e.g. the match Israel-Palestine vs. World Stars 2006); the alleviation of poverty (e.g. Michael Schumacher + friends vs. World Stars, or Team Ronaldo vs. Team Zidane (2005 and 2006) both under the UN). What all this points to is that the sport has become so dynamic and diverse that it is used - both consciously and unconsciously - to represent reality, political and social issues, tastes in fashion, as well as racial and minority awareness. This paper aims to show that language and society are so closely knit that extricating the study of one from the other is difficult. The paper stresses the place of the external ecology (cf. Mufwene 2001) in the ways speakers interpret reality and how these influence the evolution of their languages. By using existing elements and events from the outside world to qualify actions and events on the football field, commentators are in fact involved in re-attributing new functions to certain expressions or creating new expressions that metaphorise action on the field on the basis of reality in their immediate environment. So commentators are involved in two linguistic processes: 1) borrowing expressions from other situations to use them in football commentaries - see military vocabulary in the West Bank data, and 2) creating expressions based on the <?page no="137"?> 134 physical and socio-cultural environment - see Cameroon data. In both cases, the way the discourse is framed creates a solid link between the world of entertainment (i.e. football) and that of reality (i.e. politics). The paper is structured as follows: the next section presents a general analysis of framing in various football commentaries from other parts of the world, especially England. It is followed by the main part, which deals with live commentaries from the West Bank (broadcast via loudspeaker) and Cameroon (broadcast on radio). The conclusion evaluates the impact of these commentaries or expressions on the evolution of language, on society and the resolution of societal differences or conflicts. Overall, this contribution emphasises the need to benefit from the multifaceted status of football today to achieve such goals as battling racism, discouraging armed conflicts, reconciling warring factions, and achieving international peace. 2. Framing in football commentaries Framing in discourse is important for understanding speakers’ intentions and the messages they transmit. In all contexts of communication, interlocutors choose frames that represent their intentions either directly - mediation - or indirectly - avoidance, evasion - but still keep their message intact. This has been succinctly established in political discourse (Harris 1991, Fairclough 2000), courtroom discourse (Janney 1999), interviews (Jucker 1986, Bull 1994), and religious discourse (Pennycook / Makoni 2005, Omoniyi / Fishman 2006, Varghese / Johnston 2007). Some work has been done on football as well (Bryant et al. 1977, Beard 1998, May 2000, Chovanec 2005, Delleman 2005, Thaler 2005, Müller / Mayr 2007, Schmidt forthcoming). The football commentary box differs from all of the above domains in that football is, in the first place, entertainment, and it involves an event that is going on under the eyes of the commentators. Framing the discourse therefore becomes delicate in that, especially with audio-visual media, the commentator may risk misrepresenting events on the field in his/ her commentaries while televiewers and spectators see them as they happen. Again, metaphors chosen by the commentator may not suit the situations well, or from another perspective, the use of certain stereotypical expressions may not serve the purpose of entertainment, but rather incite discontent and even violence. Some expressions may be misunderstood if taken out of context, while others may simply make viewers smile. Examples (1-2) from Delleman 2005 and (3) from Ezzedine 2006 below could sound interesting if taken out of the football context. The verbs traded, threatening and fires seem to recreate military tension that could threaten peace and hence result in the trading of missile fire. Especially (3) would clearly suggest military action if the bracketed part were to be left out. 2. […] England and Slovakia traded miss for miss […] 3. […] Slovakia were threatening an upset […] 4. […] who fires a ground-to-ground missile (scoring the first goal) Framing in live football commentaries is also delicate because as a fast action sport, with close to two dozen participants besides team and match officials, there is much happening at the same time that has to be described or commented on. As a result, the <?page no="138"?> 135 “commentator must necessarily be selective of the degree of detail and also strike a balance between rapidity of delivery and grammatical structure” (AQA 2005: 21). What this means is that there is bound to be excessive use of shortening strategies like ellipsis and substitution, which gives the commentator time to say more on the unfolding action. The elliptical devices used in live football commentaries are framed into the discourse in a way that listeners are not confused. The following examples from Delleman’s 2005 analysis of live football commentaries in England illustrate how and which elements are often elided. These elements are generally references to the ball - since every verb semantically related to ‘kick’ would be understood to refer to ‘kicking the ball’ - and also to goals. As (4) shows, the verb sliced makes it clear that it is the ball that is sliced into the crowd and nothing else. Similarly, the verb scored in (5) leaves no doubt that the reference is to ‘goals’, although it is not mentioned. In (6), the use of the noun touches might be initially misleading, but this is taken care of by the verb deflect that comes after it, which makes the reference less problematic. 5. […] but he sliced [the ball] into the crowd. 6. […] have scored five [goals] on the night. 7. […] to get the merest of touches [to the ball] to deflect it […] Substituted chunks, very often long ones, generally do not leave viewers wondering what they actually correlate to. In the same way as ellipsis, this is used to gain time and also to avoid verbosity. In (7), also taken from Delleman 2005, the expression the same replaces look suspect defensively, which appears in the subordinate clause “Although ... defensively”. 8. Although Slovakia continued to look suspect defensively…the same could be said of England […] Although most of the examples above do not say anything specific about the sociopolitical environment of the country or town in which the commentaries were given, they still emphasise the importance of framing in this domain of language production. The examples in the main section (3.1, 3.2) of the paper pay more attention to the ecology of their respective regions - Cameroon and the West Bank. Commentators, as mentioned earlier, constantly borrow from the landscape and the socio-political environment - what I refer to here as the ‘ecology’ (cf. Mufwene 2001, Anchimbe 2006) - to draw listeners and viewers closer to on-the-field and off-the-field realities of the community. In fact, the commentaries or the specific socio-politically-laden expressions serve several purposes besides simply transmitting news-like snapshots of what is happening on the pitch. They also, as emphasised in the conclusion, indicate at which point events in society (the external ecology) influence linguistic systems and patterns of communication (the internal ecology). Before going any deeper into this, it may well be necessary at this point to discuss the impact and nature of radio, television, and loudspeaker football commentaries. <?page no="139"?> 136 2.1. Radio or television or loudspeaker: Does it really matter? As far as representing the ecology in commentaries and getting a clear picture across to the audience are concerned, it really does matter whether the commentator reports on radio, on television, or over the loudspeaker. Framing in live radio, television, and loudspeaker (see West Bank) commentaries differs in several important ways. This is because these media differ, and connecting to their respective audiences is dependent on the choices available to each of them. While radio uses voices and other sounds (e.g. background noises - chants, shouts, etc. - from the stadium, imposed music from the studio) to create a communicative impact on the audience, television relies on visual images enlivened by noises from the spectators, adding these to the voice of the (often unseen) commentator(s). The loudspeaker commentator merges both, since the commentator is in the stadium with the audience, interacts with them and relates to them more closely. The absence of images on radio is compensated for by the voice of the commentator: when it rises and his speech becomes fast, this indicates there is the possibility of a goal. So the commentator’s voice is significant, not only in the way ecologically-based expressions are rendered, but also in terms of the stress placed on certain other elements. This includes prosodic features such as volume, rhythm, intonation, tempo, and stress that are relevant for catching the audience’s attention and engaging with them. The commentator gets the audience to live the experience in the stadium through the descriptive and engaging expressions s/ he uses. To do this, s/ he needs to be creative and cautious in the choice of words and especially metaphors, provide adequate information, and of course, avoid silence or leaving gaps, which may cause the audience to wonder what might be going on. On television, the commentator lives the game together with the audience through the images. The audience share in the atmosphere in the stadium not only through audio, but also through visual image. The impact of the commentator’s voice is not as decisive as in radio commentaries because the audience see what is happening. Silences or gaps may, therefore, go unnoticed, since the audience have visual contact with the pitch, in addition to the audio contact represented by the chants and the shouting of the spectators in the stadium. This reduces the job of the television football commentators, for instance, to dropping in one or two decisive comments on the state of the game or specific incidents, providing background information on players, teams and trainers, reporting on the state of the competition and the stakes for the teams and doing interviews. As far as commentaries on a loudspeaker are concerned, a different set of factors emerges. Certainly, this is not a standard method of reporting football, but it is conditioned by the resources and technology available. Loudspeaker commentaries resemble, in some degree, audio-visual or television commentaries. The commentator and the audience both experience the action. But in this case there is more contact between the commentator and the audience or listeners. They function in a form of communicative communion because the audience’s feedback is immediate and accessible to the commentator. Again, other events outside the stadium are followed by both commentator and audience. For instance, in the West Bank commentaries, as an Israeli helicopter flies over the pitch during the game, the commentator says: “The match is such a hotbed that even the occupation forces want to intervene”. Other forms <?page no="140"?> 137 of commentary often do not pay attention to such events for fear of distracting, or in some cases inciting, the audience or viewers. 3. Representing the ecology in football commentaries The ‘ecology’ has been of interest to geographers, environmentalists, biologists, and lately, linguists. In all these fields, it has been viewed as the decisive environment that sets the rules for competition, both among individuals within a species and among species that share the same habitat (cf. Gould 1993, Anchimbe 2006). Linguists have therefore sought to establish that human languages exist in an ecology analogous to a biological ecology in which individuals (represented here by languages or linguistic elements within languages) compete for selection (as standard language or as standard elements within the norm). If we accept that languages live in such decisive environments or ecologies, then it becomes clear, as Mufwene (2001: 16) explains, that languages are in a way parasitic species of the Lamarckian or symbiotic type [...] whose genetic makeup can change several times in its lifetime [... and] whose life and vitality depend on (the acts and dispositions of) its hosts, i.e., its speakers, on the society they form, and on the culture in which they live. The ecology of a language has two faces: the internal and the external. The internal ecology has to do with the “nature of the coexistence of the units and principles of a linguistic system before and/ or during the change” (Mufwene 2001: xii). The external ecology covers all aspects of contact between the language and other languages, its use or appropriation by its and other speakers. In short, it consists of the ethnographic and socio-economic atmosphere in which the language evolves (cf. Anchimbe 2006). So, language use and the changes the language undergoes - through the differing creative impulses of its hosts - all form part of its ecology. For purposes of the analysis carried out here, attention is paid predominantly to the external ecology and how this influences the evolution of the internal ecology of the language - in this case, English. The regions selected for study use English in ways peculiar to them and hence the commentaries make reference to external ecological features available in their environment. As the next sections show, a banana kick would most likely be heard in Cameroon, where bananas are grown, than elsewhere, and a ground-to-ground missile is most familiar to the West Bank, which is due to its long acquaintance with war. 3.1. The Cameroonian ecology Situated between Central and West Africa, Cameroon has a rich geography and a great variety of cultures that serve as input for innovation of the (foreign) languages used there. Football commentators, therefore, borrow extensively from these sources to colour their commentaries in a bid to provide listeners or viewers with accurate images of the action on the field. Several of the examples described below are taken from Bashi 1996 and from my recordings of live radio football commentaries in August and September 2007. <?page no="141"?> 138 The expressions can be classified into two categories: 1) those that represent the physical ecology of the country, and 2) those derived from metaphorical recreation of the social and physical reality of the country. The first set of examples (8-11) makes use of geographical elements specific to Cameroon, while the second set (12-17) captures certain aspects (e.g. ‘the mouth’) that could be metaphorically said to be found on the football pitch or in the game of football. 9. A banana shot or a banana kick: a shot that curves like a banana. It forms a curve or a semi-circle, generally overhead, from the flanks of the field towards the goal area. 1 10. The lava boys: the common name for the team, Mount Cameroon FC, from the South West Province of Cameroon, where Mount Cameroon (also called Mount Fako) is found. It is an active volcano and often spits out lava. 11. The sand-sand boys of Batie: this is a reference to the team Sable de Batie (Batie sand). The region is noted for its sand. Most inhabitants make their living by digging and selling sand, which is used for the construction of houses, bridges, etc. 12. The Shaba end of the stadium: this is used only in the Yaounde Omnisports stadium. The Shaba end of the field refers to that part of the stadium occupied by spectators or supporters with the cheapest tickets. This part of the stadium also happens to be on the same side as a poor neighbourhood of the city. These two components (i.e. cheap tickets and poor neighbourhood) come together to make it a perpetual corner for poor, noisy, and rowdy spectators. According to Bashi (1996: 56), the word Shaba comes from the poor mining Shaba zone of the Democratic Republic of Congo and is characterised by poor inhabitants, dirty streets, and general disorder. Examples 12-17 are based on social and cultural interpretations of certain actions or positions on the field. The scores of socio-cultural beliefs and the understanding of the functions of certain body parts, territory, etc. are borrowed and metaphorised for action on the football field. 13. The mouth of the goal area: this is the entrance to the 5.5-metre area of the football field, close to the goal posts. Perhaps it recaptures the notion of the ball being fed into the goal, just as food is fed into the body. 14. The mouth of the penalty area: this describes the semi-circle at the entrance to the 16.5-metre zone. It is the entrance or access point to this zone, hence conceived of as the ‘mouth’. 15. The crater of the lava boys: this highly creative expression makes a link between the reference ‘lava boys’ and the crater of a volcano. So it does not refer to the half of the pitch occupied by the lava boys (Mount Cameroon FC), but rather to their 16.5-metre zone. 16. A thundering shot: this refers to a hard shot at goal. It is said to have the force of thunder - the roaring sound that comes after lightning. 17. Clear the living room: the living room in this expression refers to the 16.5-metre zone. It is, as Bashi 1996 emphasises, treated as a vital area for each team. Whenever the ball is inside this area, it means the ‘living room’ is in danger, and has to be cleared by getting the ball out of it as soon as possible. 18. The Lions’ territory: the national team of Cameroon is called ‘The Indomitable Lions’. It is common for Cameroonian football commentators and reporters to refer to the part of the field occupied by the Cameroonian team as the ‘Lions territory’. 3.2. The West Bank ecology 1 Cf. the expression Bananenflanke, which had been used in German commentaries as far back as the 1970s to describe shots by Manfred Burgsmüller, and the 1980s and 1990s to describe shots by Andreas Brehme. <?page no="142"?> 139 I asked the children to pick the names of big clubs such as Real Madrid or Barcelona but they selected other names [like Beit Lahiya-Palestine, Jenin, Beit Hanun, Aita al-Shaab-Lebanon, and Fallujah]. Yussef Zaghlul (Organiser of West Bank U-14 football tournament, 2006) Having been exposed to violence for a long time, West Bank commentators, just like the under-14-year-olds who took part in the football summer camp tournament organised by Yussef Zaghlul, use mostly words or expressions they often hear on the news and around the streets. They tend to visualise action on the football field through the lens of resistance to Israeli occupation forces. As the above quote shows, the children do not choose names of famous football teams, but rather go for names of towns that are known for their resistance to Israel (see examples 22-23) and for the 2006 Israeli- Hezbollah clash (24). The commentators also adopt the vocabulary of the conflict and equate action on the pitch with action on the conflict front (see examples 18-21) - i.e. language “laden with military metaphor” (cf. Ezzedine 2006). The commentaries (i.e. examples 18-24 as well) used for this part of the paper were collected during this tournament by Hossam Ezzedine (see appendix). 19. A ground-to-ground missile: a powerful shot along the ground of the pitch that turns out to be, or comes close to being, a goal. 20. Go on the offensive: an onslaught by a team in the opponent’s part of the field, especially in the 16.5-metre zone. The expression echoes Palestinian militants and Israeli occupation forces that often go on the offensive against each other. 21. A hotbed: a reference that is most heard on the news to describe certain areas where conflict often occurs between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants. It is used here to refer to the match and to capture the tense action on the pitch. 22. The occupation forces want to intervene: The use of occupation forces and intervene here does not refer to action on the field, but to something off the field. The commentator makes this statement as he sees an Israeli helicopter flying past (“The match is such a hotbed that even the occupation forces want to intervene”). It shows the flexibility of giving commentaries using a loudspeaker. 23. Beit Lahiya-Palestine: The U-14 children choose this name in order to show their support for one of the major resistance zones to Israeli occupation and settlement. 24. Jenin and Beit Hanun: This is another Palestinian resistance zone. 25. Aita al-Shaab-Lebanon: Reference to one of the areas in which Israel clashed with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006. Another name from Lebanon used by the U-14 teams is Bint Jbeil. 4. Conclusion: On language, ecology and social construct We are far from claiming that the above examples cover all expressions used in football commentaries to capture events on the field (metaphorically). What these examples show, however, is that the domain of football commentary is strongly influenced by local colour - the physical, socio-cultural, and socio-political ecology. This local ecology exerts a strong effect on the communicative event. For instance, outwitting an opponent by passing the ball between his legs is called differently in various contexts: e.g. nzoulo in Cameroon, eshebobo in South Africa, and kobri in Saudi Arabia (Bashi 1996: 54). The corresponding word in the English language for this is ‘to nutmeg so’. <?page no="143"?> 140 Other communities of speakers derive words for it according to local tastes and communicative appropriateness. What impact does this pattern of language use have on the system of the language? And on the community or communities at large? First, if we accept that language change begins at the idiolectal level, change in language might happen even faster than imagined, given that these expressions are used by sports reporters (journalists) who belong to the group of the most often heard speakers of a language. As a result, these expressions may well spread beyond the football domain. Their spread may be fast owing to the vast numbers who follow football. Second, if the ecological trend remains consistent (which it generally does), then regional ecologies will tend to be reflected in varieties of the language, hence making them more distinct from one another (cf. variation in varieties of English). As far as the impact of these linguistic elements on social and societal constructs is concerned, some of the expressions could intensify negative feelings - especially in conflict areas. For instance, Yussef Zaghlul makes this statement in relation to the choice of team names by the Palestinian children: “Our greatest achievement is to be able to contain children’s aggressive tendencies towards one another during these camps”. In all, language and society cross-fertilise each other; and it is not always a ‘negative’ experience. Football commentaries will, therefore, continue to enrich several domains of societal life, but this interaction will always be treated as a great source of entertainment. After all, football is in fact entertainment - and can only be considered as war in metaphorical terms. Appendix “Bending it like WEST Bank resistance fighters” by Hossam Ezzedine DURA AL-QAREI, West Bank (AFP) They look and play like young footballers everywhere, but peers from outside the Middle East would be hard pressed to follow teams competing in the playoffs at a West Bank summer camp. The junior Palestinian sides are not named after world-class football clubs like AC Milan, Barcelona, or Manchester United. Instead they are called Beit Lahiya-Palestine, Jenin and Beit Hanun - towns that are hotbeds of resistance to Israeli troops. There is also Aita al-Shaab-Lebanon and Bint Jbeil, where Hezbollah clashed with Israel during the month-long Lebanon war. And Fallujah or Ramadi, insurgent lairs familiar to USled forces in Iraq. “I asked the children to pick the names of big clubs such as Real Madrid or Barcelona but they selected other names,” said Yussef Zaghlul, 45, the organizer of a tournament for under 14-year-olds in the West Bank village of Dura al-Qarei. Sociologists say the “militarisation” of a juniors’ sporting event reflects the impact of regional conflicts on children and Palestinians in general. “Palestinian children watch what is going on around them. This affects their behaviour, be it on the street, at home or at school,” said sociologist Abdelrahman al-Turk. The commentary as teams competed on a piece of open land in the heart of the village was also laden with military metaphor. “The Aita al-Shaab defender has the ball. He wants to go on the offensive. He passes the ball to a player on the right flank, who fires a ground-to-ground missile scoring the first goal,” shouted Naim Fawzi into a megaphone. When an Israeli helicopter gunship flies over the village, which is very close to a Jewish settlement built on Palestinian land, he shouts: “The match is such a hotbed that even the occupation forces want to intervene! ” Turk, the sociologist, says that the psychological impact of war continues to influence children’s behaviour after they grow up. “No one <?page no="144"?> 141 knows how they will behave in the future after being exposed to this kind of environment. There is a risk they’ll adopt extremist tendencies,” he warned. Various Palestinian organisations arrange summer camps during school breaks to entertain children and help them forget the violence to which they are too frequently exposed in daily life. “We cannot totally isolate a child from his surroundings, or stop him from thinking or reacting,” noted Mussa Abu Zeid, the general coordinator of summer camps organised by bodies affiliated to the Palestinian Authority. “Our greatest achievement is to be able to contain children’s aggressive tendencies towards one another during these camps,” he said. Friday August 25, 2006 06 : 39 PM http: / / uk.news.yahoo.com/ 25082006/ 323/ bending-west-bank-resistance-fighters.html References Anchimbe, Eric A. (2006): Cameroon English: Authenticity, ecology and evolution. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang AQA [Assessment and Qualifications Alliance] (2005): GCE English Language: Support materials for language and technology, Unit 2. 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London: Continuum Dr. Eric A. Anchimbe English Linguistics University of Bayreuth Universitätstraße 30 D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany e-mail: eric.anchimbe@uni-bayreuth.de http: / / www.bayceer.uni-bayreuth.de/ engling/ <?page no="146"?> 143 MAGNUS LEVIN “HITTING THE BACK OF THE NET JUST BEFORE THE FINAL WHISTLE”: HIGH-FREQUENCY PHRASES IN FOOTBALL REPORTING 1 In this study football language is shown to consist largely of semi-fixed phrases with conventionalized functions. Superficially similar phrases have developed separate functions. The phrases under study are largely restricted to football and sports reporting, and therefore it is argued that they are register markers. As such, they both support social cohesion and social exclusion. The investigation comprises match reports, and, to a lesser extent, play-by-play commentary. The phrases typically have fixed cores and variable slots. The focus is on phrases containing the words net, minute(s) and whistle. Goal-scoring phrases are based on metonymy (hit the back of the net) while time is usually expressed with metaphors (in the nth minute). This study uses an interface developed by Fletcher 2003/ 2004 to extract frequent phrases. The material comes from the British National Corpus, on which Fletcher’s database is based, with additional material from The Independent on CD-ROM. 1. Introduction In recent years there has been a growing realization that language to a large extent consists of fixed or semi-fixed strings of words that are pasted together, rather than individual words that are combined one by one according to abstract syntactic rules (Moon 1998; Erman / Warren 2000; Wray 2002). Linguists working on phraseology have increasingly come to rely on corpora rather than introspection for their data, since, as Stubbs (2007a: 90) argues, many features of phraseology, such as frequency, variability and pragmatic connotations, are “habitual, unnoticed and often deeply unconscious”. Many frequent phrases have been found to be based on metaphorical and metonymic links. For example, Lindquist / Levin (forthcoming), using a method similar to the one used in this paper, have found that some of the most frequent phrases containing the words foot and mouth are either based on metaphorical links (e.g. the foot of the mountain, where the human foot is mapped onto the lower part of another entity) or metonymic links (e.g. get cold feet, where a physical reaction is linked to an emotion). Perhaps even more so than language in general, play-by-play commentary of sports events has been shown to consist of formulaic sequences (Ferguson 1983; Kuiper 1996; Reaser 2003). Ferguson (1983: 169) argues that recurrent routines in sportscasting stem from the communicative needs of the register and that they thus develop into the specialized language of a particular social group. In contrast to the present investigation, studies of the language of sports have generally been qualitative in nature and have been based on fairly limited material. The present large-scale corpus study combines the study of phraseology, metaphor, metonymy and football language with corpus methodo- 1 I thank Charlotte Hommerberg, Hans Lindquist and Carita Paradis for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of this paper. <?page no="147"?> 144 logy developed by Stubbs 2007a, forthcoming a, forthcoming b and tested in a number of papers (Levin / Lindquist 2007; Lindquist / Levin forthcoming). The aim is to (i) explore frequent phrases containing the words net, minute(s) and whistle occurring in play-by-play commentary and match reports; (ii) examine the role of metaphor and metonymy in the creation of football-related phraseology; (iii) investigate the functions, use, fixedness and variability of formulaic sequences in football reporting. 2. Material and method The method developed by Stubbs has the advantage of retrieving what is frequent and typical in a corpus rather than relying on intuition or dictionaries. A very large corpus is often required in phraseological studies to provide reliable results about the frequency (what is typical should be given more prominence), structure (canonical forms and variants), function (meaning and communicative purpose) and distribution (text-types in which they occur) of phrases (Stubbs forthcoming a). For the initial part of the investigation, I used Fletcher’s 2003/ 2004 database Phrases in English (PIE), which is based on the British National Corpus (BNC). The BNC, which consists of 90 million words of written and 10 million words of spoken British English, is a standard corpus containing all kinds of texts (Aston / Burnard 1998), of which football commentary only forms a minute part. Additional material was therefore gathered from the British newspaper The Independent (Ind) on CD-ROM from the years 1990, 1995 and 2000. PIE searches for all n-grams with a length between 2 and 8 words occurring 3 times or more in the BNC. The term ‘n-gram’ refers to recurring strings of words that may or may not have linguistic integrity, while ‘phrase’ or ‘pattern’ in this study refers to meaningful, linguistically structured recurring sequences of words. N-grams of different lengths and with the key word in different positions were detected. Thus all 8grams down to 2-grams containing the key words selected for this study were retrieved. Figure 1 illustrates the extraction of 4-grams. In the figure, N represents the key words (minute(s), net or whistle) and + represents any other word (the hash # is used for numerals in PIE). In this way lists of n-grams were generated that were examined manually for linguistically interesting material. For instance, “minutes from the end” (166 tokens) was found to have linguistic integrity, and was therefore analyzed further, while “of the net and” (11 tokens) was not. This method of extracting phrases has been called “from lexis to n-grams” by Stubbs forthcoming a. N + + + minutes from the end + N + + # minutes from time + + N + of the net and + + + N back of the net Figure 1: The extraction of 4-grams <?page no="148"?> 145 This study is restricted to n-grams with a minimum frequency of 3 that contained one of the words net, minute(s) or whistle, although some references will be made to related phrases containing other words. To some extent the researcher’s intuition affected the choice of key words, but these particular words were chosen mainly because exploratory searches had indicated that they were frequent enough in themselves and also that they occurred in football-related phrases. Most of the phrases analyzed are also used in other sports (and some rarely outside sports), but the vast majority are from football. 3. Phraseology, metonymy and metaphor An underlying assumption of this study is that formulaic sequences are not only used to maintain a high degree of fluency in commentary, but that they also constitute an integral part of human language in general. As in previous studies (e.g. Ferguson 1983; Kuiper 1996; Reaser 2003), the socially cohesive effects of using a common phraseology in sports will be discussed. Research into phraseology has produced a large number of terms and definitions. Kuiper’s (1996: 16) study of the speech of sports commentators defines the term ‘formulae’ as fulfilling the following criteria: (i) they consist of sequences of words, (ii) they have syntactic structure, and (iii) they carry out particular tasks for speakers in given situations. These criteria all fit the phrases investigated in the present study; they are made up of sequences of words with linguistic structure and they express specific meanings (e.g. the final whistle is a noun phrase referring to the end of a game). Kuiper’s discussion of his third criterion only includes oblique references to noncompositionality, which is one of the features in Moon’s (1998: 7-8) definition of units of meaning. This would seem to be a defining criterion for fixed phrases. In noncompositional phrases, meaning is allocated to the whole unit and not to the individual words, and such meanings are typically conventionalized. For instance, the phrase have the ball in the net often refers to a situation where a goal is disallowed, a meaning which cannot be deduced from its parts. Other criteria discussed by Moon relate to institutionalization and fixedness. Institutionalized phrases are often frequent, but there are several exceptions to this, as mentioned by, for instance, Moon and Kuiper. Fixedness, as discussed by Stubbs 2007a, relates to the non-exchangeability of features. This can concern a lack of singular/ plural distinction, no definite/ indefinite alternation and restrictions on adjective insertion. The present material, nevertheless, shows that some adjectives allow substitution and that some semi-fixed phrases allow variation between definite and indefinite articles without any notable meaning differences. Several studies, e.g. Nattinger / DeCarrico (1992: 31- 58), Moon (1998: 120-177) and Wray (2002: 48-51), have found very widespread variability in phrases. The phrases discussed in this paper are “conventional ways of expressing common meanings” (Stubbs 2007a: 100), consisting of holistically stored, noncompositional sequences of words having a linguistic structure. As will be seen below, many of these phrases are fairly unremarkable prepositional phrases with variable slots (cf. Stubbs forthcoming b). For quite a few of the phrases, it is difficult to determine just how much variation is possible and to identify the boundaries of linguistic units (Stubbs <?page no="149"?> 146 2007a). In some cases, phrases were found to adhere to such abstract patterns that they can even be argued to be constructions, i.e. they carry meanings independently of the words and are “form-meaning correspondences that exist independently of particular verbs” (Goldberg 1995: 1). Stubbs (2007a: 97) argues that the reason some words are frequent is that they occur in frequent phrases, and that such frequent phrases express frequent meanings, such as time, place or cause. Kuiper (1996: 22) proposes that recurring events tend to be associated with formulaic language. Kuiper (1996: 27) stresses that it is culturally significant events in the sport that are connected to formulaic language. In football, such frequent, culturally significant situations involve goal scoring and measuring time, and therefore formulaic language is likely to be used with reference to these events in football reporting. There are a number of reasons why certain phrases are restricted to football (or sports) reporting. Firstly, specific meanings that do not occur outside sports, such as goal scoring, need to be expressed, and such meanings are likely to be conveyed by recurrent semi-fixed phrases, as with other types of recurring human experiences. Secondly, the use of recurrent phrases facilitates rapid production for speakers as well as fast comprehension for listeners who receive information in well-established, prepackaged format. The phrases allow the neat expression of information that is of interest in football reporting. And thirdly, the phrases thus used may serve as register markers. The phrases in this paper only contain a narrow range of all possible lexical alternatives, and occur not only out of necessity, but out of convention and can therefore be argued as having become registerized (Reaser 2003: 314). Kuiper (1996: 96) proposes that traditions developed in sports commentary are often unintelligible to the uninitiated. Therefore such specialized registers both serve to include those who are familiar with the phraseology and to exclude those who are not. Crystal / Davy (1969: 142) argue that certain fixed phrases appear to be “an acceptable or perhaps even an expected part” of sports reporting. Special phraseology is thus necessary to express certain recurrent meanings and is expected by those who follow football, but it may also serve to exclude others. The phrases in the present study are based on metaphoric and metonymic links, which means that they are by definition non-compositional. It should be noted that phrases are generally more or less literal, and more or less metaphorical and metonymic (see, e.g., Goossens 1990; Lindquist / Levin forthcoming). The final whistle is an example where literal and non-literal meanings exist side by side; the literal meaning refers to the referee blowing the whistle for the last time, an action which is metonymically linked with the end of a match. Cognitively inspired work has devoted a great deal of attention to metaphor and metonymy, which have been found to be pervasive in human language. The distinction between metaphor and metonymy is defined in cognitive linguistics in terms of metaphor involving a mapping across two conceptual domains, while metonymy involves only one domain (Lakoff / Johnson 1980). Metaphor has been defined as “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 5). As an example of this, Lakoff / Johnson (1980: 42) show how the abstract concept of time can be conceptualized as a moving object (e.g. the time for action has arrived). In contrast, metonymy can be described as making one entity stand for another (e.g., the face can stand for the person) (Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 36). <?page no="150"?> 147 According to Lakoff / Johnson, metonymy enables speakers to highlight a certain aspect of an entity or an event. For example, if a football coach wants “fresh legs in midfield”, the focus is on the player’s ability to run rather than, say, his or her ability to head the ball. According to Partington (1998: 107-108), one characteristic of genres is probably the kinds of metaphors occurring in them. This would seem to be a natural result of writers needing a set of variable phrases to describe recurrent events in games. The present paper will, therefore, also explore to what extent the phrases under study, which are based on metaphors and metonymies, are restricted to football reporting. 4. Results 4.1. The phraseology of goal-scoring In view of the focus on phrases with net, all phrases connected with goal scoring in this study are based on metonymy. It should, nevertheless, be stressed that one of the most frequent verbs related to goal-scoring, namely shoot (‘kick the ball’), is based on a metaphor. However, although shoot is very frequent in itself, there are very few types of goal-scoring metaphors in English, while there are quite a few metonymies. As proposed by Stubbs (2007a: 97), it can be argued that the high frequency of a word such as net in a corpus is caused by it occurring in phrases expressing a frequent concept (in this case, goal scoring). The net is metonymically linked with the goal in, e.g., hit/ find the back of the net and [Verb] (the ball) into the corner/ roof of the net, where one aspect of scoring is highlighted, namely that the ball (usually) reaches the goal net when a goal is scored (e.g. Craig Hignett fired a hard shot into the roof of the net (Ind 1995)). Another phrase, (the ball) over the line, illustrates that the ball does not need to hit the net in order for there to be a goal (e.g. Chapman eventually forced the ball over the line (BNC)). Different metonymies thus allow speakers to highlight different aspects of scoring (cf. Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 36). According to Warren (1999: 122), some linguists have argued that the ability to access a whole state or event from the mention of a salient subpart of it constitutes “the hallmark of metonymic thinking”. The goal-scoring phrases in this section are the most frequent ones with net: the back/ corner/ roof of the net, (the ball) in the net, empty net and (into his) own net. It should be stressed that, although these phrases are metonymic in that they highlight a salient aspect of an event, they are also literal (the ball really ends up in the net). The most frequent goal scoring phrases with net consist of the n-grams the back/ roof/ corner of the net. These occurred 280 times in the material, and mostly in the constructions hit/ find the back of the net and [Verb] the ball/ cross (etc.) into the roof/ corner of the net. While the former is usually used simply as a synonym to score a goal, as in 1) below, the latter construction is a neat way of describing how and by whom a goal was scored, and where the ball went in. The verb slot for the back of the net is mostly filled by the verbs hit or find, whereas the roof/ corner of the net occurs with a wide variety of transitive and intransitive verbs. Curl, as in 2), bury, hammer, poke and sidefoot only constitute a handful of the more than 50 types found. Some of these verbs, like bury or hammer, are metaphorical, while others like sidefoot can be argued to be metonymic. <?page no="151"?> 148 1. Sooner or later we had to start hitting the back of the net. (BNC) 2. But Scunthorpe withstood the pressure and scored in injury time with the very last kick of the match, Ian Helliwell curling a free kick into the corner of the net. (BNC) The “roof/ corner of the net construction” (cf. Goldberg 1995) is similar to empty net and own net below in that there is a core in the constructions, which is hard to specify, with slots allowing almost limitless variation. For the roof/ corner of the net there is a real-world limitation to the number of specifiable places where a ball can hit the net, while no such limitations appear to apply to the number of ways a ball can be conveyed into it. The next phrase, (the ball) in the net, occurs with a restricted set of verbs, normally only have, put and get. Like the metonymic constructions above, the ball reaching the net is highlighted as a salient feature of scoring. Two distinct meanings are expressed with this phrase, the first of which refers to the superficially simple task of scoring the goals (usually with put or get), as seen in 3) and 13) below. 3. Bobby told me he needs somebody to put the ball in the net. (BNC) The second meaning (usually with the verb have) relates to cases where the goal is disallowed, as in 4), 5) and 19) below. This was the case for more than half of the 23 instances in the BNC, and about a third of the 55 instances from Ind. Usually, it is mentioned explicitly that the goal did not count, with phrases like was ruled offside or was disallowed, as in 4) and 19), but sometimes more implicit means are used, as in 5), where readers have to infer that a free-kick was awarded to the defending side. Hilpert (2006: 147) argues that, although phrases are motivated by metonymy, their meanings are not always predictable. Similarly, some knowledge of the conventions of football reporting is required for readers to be able to interpret phrases such as the ball in the net expressing meanings particular to the field. 4. Peacock had the ball in the net after 65 minutes but the effort was disallowed. (BNC) 5. Paul Sturrock’s men had the ball in the net in injury time but only after Alex Mathie had bundled Leighton over the line. (Ind 2000) Another goal-scoring construction with net is based on the 2-gram empty net. An/ the empty net is a metonymic expression used when there are no defending players obstructing the passage to the goal, as in 6). The net in empty net does not, as in the previously discussed phrases, refer to the meshed fabric at the back of the goal, but rather to the goalmouth. 6. But Foyle sealed Stoke’s fate when he rounded keeper Ronnie Sinclair to stroke the ball into an empty net with a minute to go. (BNC) This phrase is another illustration of both the fixedness and the variability of language. In the material there were 91 football tokens of empty net, and only a handful from other sports. Similar to the back/ roof/ corner of the net above, it can be argued that there is an <?page no="152"?> 149 “empty net construction” (Goldberg 1995), abstractly described as “[Verb] (the ball) into an/ the empty net”, allowing a great deal of variation as regards the verbs. There are no fewer than 34 different transitive and intransitive verb types describing how the ball was put into the empty net (e.g. belt, lob (as in 7) and 8) below), shoot, tap and wobble). As with the roof/ corner of the net above, some of the verbs are metonymic and some metaphorical. The empty net construction is also variable as regards article usage, as illustrated in 7) and 8) (an being more frequent with 69 (74%) out of 93 instances). This is interesting in view of Fellbaum’s finding (1993: 282) that pragmatically presupposed referents both in idioms (hit the roof/ ceiling) and literal strings (put this in the freezer) take the definite article, in contrast to the use of the indefinite article (When John heard the news he hit a roof; When you get home, put this in a freezer). 7. (…) Ince, who lobbed the eighth goal into an empty net from 30 yards. (Ind 1995) 8. (…) Lu Jun, who lobbed the ball into the empty net while Seaman lay in agony. (Ind 1995) There is further variation in this construction, since empty can be replaced with unguarded, as in 9) (19 instances with roughly equal preferences for an and the). Variation between (near-)synonymous adjectives was rare in Moon’s (1998: 127) study of idioms. In view of the typically unequal distribution of alternatives in phrases, Stubbs (forthcoming b) suggests that some choices can be seen as canonical, and here it can be argued that empty is the canonical alternative. 9. The winger passed inside to Platt, who had to check his stride but kept his balance, dragged the ball away from Steve Bruce, danced round Leighton, and rolled it into the unguarded net. (Ind 1990) Open goal, which would superficially seem to be similar, serves a different function than empty net. While the latter phrase almost exclusively occurs in contexts where goals are scored, the most frequent collocate of open goal is the verb miss (16 of 62 instances), as in The Soviet Union missed an open goal and Italy missed everything (Ind 1990). It is not surprising that a fixed phrase like open goal develops fixed collocates, since this is usually the case in lexicalization, according to Brinton / Traugott (2005: 105). Overall, 52 (83%) instances of open goal involved missed chances. Therefore, experienced followers of football expect a miss when a player is described as being faced with an open goal in 10). 10. In the ninth minute, Marc Degryse’s shot was palmed out by Eike Immel to David Hirst who, faced with an open goal, could only hit the post. (Ind 1995) The 2-gram own net obviously relates to the scoring of own goals, and the form of the “own net construction” can be summarized as [Verb] (the ball/ cross (etc.)) into his own net. 11) shows how the construction allows the neat packaging of the relevant information (who scored the goal and how). There were 79 instances related to football in the material, and the most frequent verbs were, in increasing order, punch, head and turn. The alternative, probably older, phrase score an own goal only occurs three times in the BNC, which suggests that the own net construction has become the default way of expressing the act of a player accidentally scoring against his own side. <?page no="153"?> 150 11. Lawrie McMenemy’s men went ahead when a free-kick by Tottenham striker Darren Anderton was headed into his own net by defender Nuno Luis. (BNC) The above findings related to the phraseology of goal scoring can be summarized as follows: to begin with, there are many different metonymic phrases in English referring to goal scoring. Metonymy permits the highlighting of different aspects of the goalscoring process, such as how the ball was hit and where it reaches the net. Fixed phrases with empty slots allow, in the words of Kuiper (1996: 96), “both for those aspects of the situation that are the same for all comparable situations to be given expression, as well as for those aspects that are unique.” Secondly, these metonymic phrases have obtained conventionalized, non-compositional meanings that have to be learnt. Although the present material supports Hilpert’s (2006: 146) claim that figurative language is organized in patterns, as with the net representing the goal in numerous phrases, it should be pointed out that superficially similar phrases like hit the back of the net and have the ball in the net usually refer to different events, the former involving goal scoring and the latter a disallowed goal. This demonstrates that there are some ways of describing a sports event that are taken for granted by reporters and fans alike. Kuiper (1996: 29) argues that “commentators exclude and to some extent occlude. They can say only certain things and in only certain ways. They are limited by the way their culture expects them to represent and re-represent events.” Apart from expressing concepts that are central to football, the phrases studied here can therefore be seen as register markers. This also applies to the phrases related to time, as will be seen in section 4.2. 4.2. The phraseology of football time In contrast to the phraseology of goal scoring, football time is mostly expressed with metaphors. Time expressions like in the nth minute are based on the conceptual metaphor TIME IS SPACE , in which time is conceptualized as having physical dimensions (Knowles / Moon 2006: 35, 41). Prepositions like in can be claimed to have both more literal spatial meanings and metaphorical meanings related to time. This is the position taken in the present paper, but it should be noted that, e.g., McGlone (2007: 123) argues that such prepositions instead are polysemous, and can be used either more literally or more abstractly. Football time is often specified in minutes, but time references also occur in relation to the final whistle, in relation to the two halves of the game (midway through the first half) or in relation both to minutes and halves (minutes into the second half). The phrase the final whistle was included because preliminary searches had indicated its strikingly high frequency, while the minute(s) phrases were selected because of their extremely high individual frequencies (in the nth minute and minute(s) from time) or because they were frequent in conjunction with related phrases (in the dying/ closing/ opening minutes and minute(s) from the end). Turning to the present data, it appears that the unremarkable phrase in the nth minute is probably the most common way of specifying time in football. This phrase is rather transparent semantically, since it is based on the firmly entrenched idea TIME IS <?page no="154"?> 151 SPACE , but it presupposes familiarity with the length of a football match. In the nth minute, as seen in 12) below and 10) above, occurs more than 700 times in the BNC. Out of a random sample of 100 instances, 88 were from football and only 12 from other sports. It is worth noting that 12) consists entirely of holistically stored, slightly variable items ( TEAM NAME take the lead, in the nth minute and against the run of play), and is thus an illustration of the extent to which a specialized register like football reporting is made up of pre-constructed phrases. 12. Villa took the lead in the 15th minute against the run of play. (BNC) In the dying/ closing minutes and in the opening minutes, referring to, respectively, the final and the initial minutes of a match, are similar to in the nth minute in their origin in the conceptual metaphor TIME IS SPACE . The dying minutes also involves personification (Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 33-34), since a sporting event is conceptualized as a living entity. The dying minutes is exemplified below in 13). 13. Slaven put the ball in the net in the dying minutes but the goal was disallowed for offside. (BNC) The phrases in the dying/ closing/ opening minutes are virtually limited to sports, and to football in particular. The phrases the dying minutes (92 tokens; 48 from football; 39 other sports; 5 non-sports), the closing minutes (111 tokens; 47 football; 56 other sports; 8 non-sports) and the opening minutes (as seen in 14) below) (88 tokens; 41 football; 39 other sports; 8 non-sports) could conceivably be used outside sports relating to events with fixed beginnings or ends, and where time is measured in minutes, but there were only very few instances of this (referring to, e.g., concerts). 14. Everton, urged on by a frenzied support, grabbed hold of the game in the opening minutes and only briefly loosened their grip. (Ind 1995) The preposition from also occurs in phrases expressing the number of minutes remaining in a game, as in minute(s) from time and minute(s) from the end (as seen in 15) and 16) below). These phrases are based on the conceptual metaphor TIME IS STATIONARY AND WE MOVE THROUGH IT (Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 42-44). As with in above, it can be argued that from is used metaphorically, and the same can be said for end, whose oldest records in the OED refer to concrete objects; only later does this noun appear to have been used with abstract concepts. 15. Pat Nevin scored the third five minutes from time. (BNC) 16. Mark Bowen’s goal two minutes from the end brought some consolation to Wales. (BNC) Minute(s) from time and minute(s) from the end are (almost) entirely restricted to sports reporting, and mostly to football (out of 329 tokens of minute(s) from time, 256 (78%) are about football; out of 147 minute(s) from the end, 116 instances (79%) refer to football, 28 to other sports, and only 3 are used outside sports). Like the time phrases discussed above, the findings for minute(s) from time/ the end indicate that football (to <?page no="155"?> 152 some extent together with other sports) has developed its own register-specific phraseology to express time. In contrast to the phrases discussed so far, the final whistle is mostly used to place events after a football match rather than within it. The metonymic link is here between full time and the official signal that the game is over, namely the referee blowing the whistle. As mentioned in section 3, this phrase is both metonymic and literal. A large majority of the 452 instances found occur in football reporting in prepositional phrases, such as after the final whistle (88 tokens), at the final whistle (88 tokens), before the final whistle (37 tokens) and on the final whistle (24 tokens). Three of the four most frequent phrases, and some others like as/ when … blew/ went (36 tokens), are used to place events taking place immediately after the game, rather than during the game. (The title of this paper is therefore slightly atypical.) At usually occurs with expressions of emotions or reactions to the result, as seen in 17), or as in gave the French side standing ovation at the final whistle and Leeds … were jeered off at the final whistle. After the final whistle, which sometimes includes further specification of time, such as just/ soon/ long after, also typically occurs with reactions to the result, but the use of this phrase is slightly more varied in that it co-occurs with descriptions of other post-match events such as crowd trouble and, as in 18), violent incidents on and off the field. 17. The boos ringing round Morumbi Stadium at the final whistle must have sounded sweet to the visitors. (Ind 2000) 18. This game was played in a sporting manner until moments after the final whistle when Middlesbrough’s Mark Proctor was apparently elbowed in the face by the Sunderland full-back Paul Hardyman. (Ind 1990) The final whistle can be compared with another metonymic phrase also referring to the end of a match, namely the (very) last kick (of the match/ first half). This is similar to the final whistle in that it refers to the last important event of a match, but in contrast to the final whistle, the last kick evidently relates to events during the match rather than after it. It is noteworthy that, in the material analysed, this phrase is more commonly associated with rugby than with football (34 football tokens and 47 rugby tokens). 19) below and 2) above illustrate uses from football. 19. Leeds also had the ball in the net with the last kick of the first half but it was disallowed for no apparent reason. (BNC) This exploration of the phraseology of football time has shown that there are some highly conventionalized ways of expressing time in football reporting, some of which are used with exact time (minutes from time), while others are vaguer (in the dying minutes). The use of such phrases follows naturally from the fact that we know when a game is supposed to end, the time usually being measured in minutes. In contrast to goal-scoring phrases, which are generally metonymic in nature, phrases related to football time were found to be mostly metaphoric in nature (with some exceptions). This is in line with non-corpus based findings that time is conceptualized as space and motion (Lakoff / Johnson 1980: 42; Kövecses 2002: 33; Knowles / Moon 2006: 35). Furthermore, as with goal-scoring phrases, it was found that time phrases have been <?page no="156"?> 153 conventionalized to serve different functions, the final whistle typically being used to refer to events taking place after the game, while others refer to events before the end of the 90 minutes. The fact that a frequently appearing phrase is mainly used in connection with post-match events highlights the cultural significance of such occurrences in match reports. Finally, the results show that the time phrases discussed above may conceivably be used outside football and sports, but are rarely so. This is in line with Partington’s (1998: 107-108) proposal that some metaphors are restricted to certain registers. Thus, it could be argued that they, like the goal-scoring phrases, are markers of the register of football/ sports reporting. 5. Conclusion The present study has investigated some frequently occurring phraseological patterns in football reporting. The phrases are motivated by typical patterns of conceptualization. Phrases related to goal scoring were found to be mostly metonymic, while phrases related to time tend to be metaphoric. Naturally, this may be due to the selection of phrases, yet it would seem that English usually expresses time with metaphors, while metonymy allows speakers to focus on one aspect of goal scoring at a time, e.g., by referring to the ball hitting the net. Previous corpus studies (e.g. Moon 1998; Stubbs 2007a) have produced striking findings both about the variability and fixedness of language. The present study is no exception as it has shown that the language of football is to a large extent built up from semi-fixed chunks of language. The variation in these phrases is both of a straightforward kind, as with in the nth minute requiring an ordinal, but other more complex cases occur, such as [Verb] (the ball) into an/ the empty/ unguarded net. For such instances where it is difficult to determine how much variation is possible and to specify the edges of the units, and thus to identify linguistic units (cf. Stubbs 2007a), it makes more sense to talk about constructions (Goldberg 1995) rather than phrases. Moreover, it was found that constructions or phrases that appear to be superficially similar have developed different functions, as empty net usually refers to goals being scored while open goal mostly refers to misses. Most of the phrases investigated are largely restricted to sports reporting in general and football reporting in particular. This finding supports Partington’s (1998: 107-108) suggestion that specific metaphors are used in specific genres, and also provides support for the idea that this is true also of metonymies. It is noteworthy that some metonymies, such as [Verb] the ball into his own net, have become the default way of referring to an event. In addition, it can be argued that these phrases have become markers of the register of football reporting because of their association with this register. Conventionalization plays a crucial role in the production of register variation as social groups develop shared norms (Ferguson 1983: 170). Since these phrases are typical of football reporting, and some of them have conventionalized nontransparent functions, it is important for the followers of the game to be familiar with these phrases. They both serve to describe typical events in succinct, and to the experienced devotee, unambiguous, ways, but also to exclude those who are not so well versed in the phraseology and terminology of the sport (cf. Kuiper 1996: 96). <?page no="157"?> 154 This paper has only investigated a limited set of typical football phrases. Future studies are not only valuable for the study of football language, but also for the investigation of fundamental properties of human language in general. References Aston, Guy / Burnard, Lou (1998): The BNC handbook. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Brinton, Laurel J. / Traugott, Elizabeth (2005): Lexicalization and language change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cacciari, Cristina / Tabossi, Patricia (eds.) (1993): Idioms: Processing, structure, and interpretation. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Crystal, David / Davy, Derek (1969): Investigating English style. Harlow: Longman Erman, Britt / Warren, Beatrice (2000): The idiom principle and the open choice principle. Text 20/ 1, 29- 62 Facchinetti, Roberta (ed.) (2007): Corpus linguistics 25 years on. Amsterdam: Rodopi Fellbaum, Christiane (1993): The determiner in English idioms. In: Cacciari / Tabossi, 271-295 Ferguson, Charles (1983): Sports announcer talk: syntactic aspects of register variation. 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Oxford: Oxford University Press, http: / / www.oed.com, 03/ 09/ 2007 Panther, Klaus-Uwe (ed.) (1999): Metonymy in language and thought. Philadelphia: Benjamins Partington, Alan (1998): Patterns and meanings. Using corpora for English language research and teaching. Amsterdam: Benjamins Reaser, Jeffrey (2003): A quantitative approach to (sub) registers: the case of “sports announcer talk”, Discourse Studies 5/ 3, 303-321 Stefanowitsch Anatol / Gries, Stefan Th. (eds.) (2006): Corpus-based approaches to metaphor and metonymy. Berlin: Mouton <?page no="158"?> 155 Stubbs, Michael (2007a): An example of frequent English phraseology: Distributions, structures and functions. In: Facchinetti, 89-105 Stubbs, Michael (forthcoming a): Quantitative data on multi-word sequences in English: The case of the word ‘world’. To appear in: Hoey et al., 163-189 Stubbs, Michael (forthcoming b): Quantitative data on multi-word sequences in English: The case of prepositional phrases. Lecture given at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 3 November 2006 Warren, Beatrice (1999): Aspects of referential metonymy. In: Panther (ed.), 121-135 Wray, Alison (2002): Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Magnus Levin School of Humanities Växjö University SE-351 95 Växjö e-mail: magnus.levin@vxu.se http: / / www.vxu.se/ hum/ eng/ staff/ english.xml <?page no="160"?> 157 MARIETTA CALDERÓN KAKÁ, GALLINAS, GENT BLAUGRANA AND OTHER SOCCER- RELATED ONYMIC PHENOMENA IN THE TEACHING OF ONOMASTICS 1 When Edson Arantes do Nascimento checks into a hotel, he can be quite sure that his name will not be spelled correctly by the receptionist. Ronaldinho is not a lesser Ronaldo. What are the differences between Camp Nou, Hanappi and Arnold Schwarzenegger? Some years ago, Lass es polstern, Toni! would not have been understood as an order to improve the quality of one’s furniture. Onymic phenomena of soccer-related name bearers are useful examples in the teaching of onomastics (especially name theory). The aim of this experience-based contribution is to present a systematic way for their use in order to make this linguistic discipline more attractive to students and to shed a methodological light on such ‘ordinary’ phenomena as surnames, name systems, word formation and naming fashions and traditions, using for this purpose the names of not so ordinary people - namely soccer players. 1. Introduction In order to promote onomastics in the teaching and curricula of German-speaking universities (especially in Romance Philology) 2 , doors to students are more easily opened if the examples used are interesting in themselves. Soccer-related proper names (and other onymic phenomena) provide motivation since soccer and/ or knowledge 3 about it can be considered part of general cultural knowledge 4 . . This allows students to contribute actively to the discussions by providing examples, to stimulate their curiosity and competence in using the adequate terminology and asking about methodologically relevant aspects (which, afterwards, may lead them to do research on onomastic topics). Generally, the three traditional subdisciplines of onomastics, namely anthroponomastics - dealing with personal names, toponomastics - dealing with place names, and chrematonomastics - dealing with names of things, are involved, anthronomastics being the most important subdiscipline concerning soccer-related proper names. In the following article, I shall use examples from this field of reference in order to demonstrate important onomastic concepts, some aspects of their terminology 5 , and their usefulness for understanding societal structures and developments. 1 This contribution is based on my experience in lecturing on different aspects of onomastics at the universities of Vienna (Institut für Judaistik) and Salzburg (Fachbereich Romanistik). 2 Over the last few years, research in this area has moved ahead (see, for instance, the respective articles in the still representative Eichler et al. 1996). 3 Various degrees of familiarity with this knowledge and other social (such as gender or class-related) differences can be used as starting points for discussions. 4 It is an essential part of the luso-, gallo-, italo-, and, partly, of the hispanophonic worlds. 5 I will rely here especially on Kamianets 2000 because he has developed onomastic terminology. His attempts might both iconically resume its problems and represent its state of the art (which includes constant discussions on terminology, especially in Eastern European countries). For a general survey, see Lindner 2007. In addition, I am indebted to Irene Theodoropoulou for her suggestions concerning <?page no="161"?> 158 2. Examples Starting with a comparison between two samples of single names, i.e. Barthez, Thuram, Lebœuf, Dessailly, Lizarazu, Deschamps, Zidane, Petit, Karembeu, and Guivarc’h, on the one hand, and Rottenberg, Hingst, Minnert, Stegemann, Garefrekes, Lingor, Müller, Gottschlich, Wiegmann, Wunderlich, Meinert, Prinz, on the other hand, the extralinguistic world knowledge of most of the participants in a lecture on onomastics may help to understand that the two groups represent soccer teams. Turning to describing similarities and differences between the two groups of names will show the helpfulness of onymic functions as defined, for instance, by Werlen 1996,1740 (translation and underlining M. C.): 6 a) identifizieren [= identification]: der Name ermöglicht die Identifizierung des Referenzobjektes. b) individualisieren [Kalverkämper 1978: passim: individuieren] [=individualization]: der Name stellt das Referenzobjekt als Individuum dar. c) charakterisieren [= characterization]: der Name charakterisiert das Referenzobjekt in einer bestimmten Hinsicht d) erinnern [= memorization]: der Name wird gelernt und kann leichter erinnert werden als etwa eine Beschreibung. e) anmuten [= positive connotation]: […] der Name soll […] ansprechen und so eine […] Bewertung des Referenzobjektes darstellen. This will help to explain, for instance, why usually just one name is required on the player’s shirt (namely, for individualization and identification) and why numbers on the players’ backs contribute to their identification but do not replace completely the corresponding names. Through societal aspects - and thus, entering socio-onomastics, a subdiscipline that provides an exciting range of approaches, and combining these with Werlen’s functions - it is possible to understand why it is easy to remember and/ or recognize some names and what can be symbolized by names (the functions involved are, above all, characterization and connotation.): for instance, language politics (by giving the example of Lizarazu), colonial history (by giving the example of Zidane), or the development of soccer and its place in different societies. Some very basic questions can be raised, such as: • What is a proper name? (e.g. Barthez is not as appellative a description as bold white goalkeeper of the male French soccer team which in the match against Brazil in 1998 became world champion or (former) lover of a top model called Linda Evangelista, see also Windberger-Heidenkummer 2001, 19 ff). • What kinds of names exist or were defined, and what for? (In the examples above, for instance, family names are used as single names.) Greek elements in the terms used by Kamianets. Instead of geortonyms (see 2.3.), an adaptation of Kamianets’ Geortonyme, she prefers, for instance, eortonyms or giortonyms; additionally, she suggests the term gepedonyms for ‘names of courts or stadiums’ (see 2.3.). For general aspects, see, for instance, Witkowski 1996. 6 For other possible definitions see e.g. Diederichsen 1996, 1762 f. Werlen’s categorization might, by the way, stem primarily from his work on brand names, see Calderón 2007, 106. <?page no="162"?> 159 • How can onymic demands be satisfied? By names themselves and/ or by other onymic phenomena (e.g. name stock, semantic, syntactic or morphological restrictions such as name systems)? This may lead to further intradisciplinary concerns on the one hand (i.e. other subdisciplines of onomastics such as name morphology or pragmaonomastics), and to interdisciplinarity on the other hand (for instance, differing legal regulations of names or psychology). We may assert that Zidane, for instance, is a quasi-synomym of Zizou (a morphologically interesting case of name shortening 7 ) and can also be quasisynonymically used alternately with its equally pragmatically constrained alternative Zinédine Zidane (a name set formed in accordance with the French personal name system valid at the time Zinédine Zidane was inscribed in the corresponding document 8 ). We may infer what kind of information is lost, what kind of information is added when Zizou/ Zidane/ Zinédine Zidane are used. The functions of characterization and of connotation may also explain the naming of Zinédine Zidane’s son, Enzo 9 . Vieira would normally be seen as a Portuguese name, thus giving rise, for instance, to questions such as what is a Portuguese name doing here if its bearer is French, and how to pronounce it ‘correctly’ (if this is possible at all since not all French people are able to produce a Portuguese intervocalic r), and what would happen if Vieira were to have this name put on his shirt when playing, say, for Brazil. 2.1. Anthroponymy: names of individuals The most obvious difference between onymic traditions typical of Brazilian soccer players and those of other countries lies in their function of characterization. It is the choice of the name that will be written on the shirt, which traditionally involves more possibilities than the mere use of family names. It starts with a legal name system where long chains and choices of family names are unmarked 10 - e.g. Diego Ribas da Cunha, Ricardo Isecson dos Santos Leite, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Ronaldo de Assis Moreira, Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira or Marcos Evangelista de Moraes. Add to it some pragmatically-based decisions: for instance, you cannot put Ricardo Isecson dos Santos Leite on the back of a T-shirt 11 . There are many ways to construct a personal “soccer player identity” by choosing elements for a personalized brand name; among these are, for example, the following: 7 For an introduction to the morphology and word-formation of names, see Schmitt 1996, especially 424f. Here, this subject will not be dealt with exhaustively due to lack of space. 8 The official civil French name system has slightly changed since. Since 2005, French citizens have been given more freedom concerning the transmission of their family names (see Consulat de France en Autriche 2007). Talking about changes in name systems may contribute to awareness in society, for societal values and their changes are reflected in name systems (see Calderón 2007). 9 Naming patterns are usually very interesting for students, because everybody feels personally involved. One among many topics illustrated by the example of a soccer player’s child is that of onymic identity constructions among migrants. 10 For the Brazilian name laws, see Brandhuber / Zeyringer 2000 [fascicle Brasilien], 13. 11 Double names can be put on shirts, e.g. Wright-Phillips (of the English team player Shaun Wright- Phillips), as can long single names, e.g. Schweinsteiger. But more or less individual solutions of problems may occur due to lack of space on the shirt, as on Ruud van Nistelrooy’s shirt: v. Nistelrooy, with an abbreviated particle. Shirts are not the only medium personal names are written on; there are diamesic distributions of synonymic variants - e.g. in team compositions, inserts, etc. <?page no="163"?> 160 • Diego Ribas da Cunha simply uses his first name, Diego; he does so even when he plays for a European club (Werder Bremen, see [Werder] 12 ), where other players stick to the tradition of using family names (e.g. Vranjes, Sanogo, Wiese, etc.), thus connoting ‘Brazilianness’ 13 , which in itself is positive on the international soccer market, while also underlining the international orientation of its club. • Ricardo Isecson dos Santos Leite already had his byname Kaká during childhood (see [de.Kak]). The information given in [es.Kak] highlights different onymic phenomena: see appendix for comments on this name and on other famous players’ nicknames. Carrying bynames can in itself be partly considered as connoting high value (primarily of the name bearer) if their bearers are soccer players. 14 Often, they acquire their bynames in the language(s) of the club(s) they work for. There are different types of bynames, such as de-appellativized common names, which have to do with the way the player operates (e.g. Goleador, ‘scorer’, designating an Austrian, Hans Krankl, when he played in Spain, or Kaiser, ‘emperor’, designating the German Franz Beckenbauer) or which are chosen (additionally or alternatively) by other criteria, e.g. the euphonious name [El] Buitre, ‘the vulture’, - which does not exclude an additional metaphorical motivation in its interpretation - for Emilio Butragueño Santos, or the already mentioned Zizou, which follows French morphological patterns productive in names. These show different levels of acceptance and spread (ranging - as has been mentioned - from spontanous appearances in press articles to names displayed on shirts or in team lists and sometimes even leading to the gradual disappearance of the civil name set), but at least in his passport, Pelé is still Edson Arantes do Nascimento. Bynames can follow onymic fashions, while intercultural influences may be observed. Of course, all onymic phenomena related to the players mentioned may also be observable among other people related to soccer, for instance, coaches. 15 The importation [X] [Hicke] [Y] in Josef Hicke Hickersberger is morpho-syntactically an Americanism which follows the pattern of inserted bynames, 16 and it is part of a name set of the current trainer of the Austrian soccer team. 17 12 In this article, I rely on information available from different Wikipedia articles, which are quoted in square brackets. 13 Interestingly, the Spaniard Raúl González Blanco, currently of Real Madrid (see [Ra]), is referred to relatively rarely (and in fewer text types) by his first name, Raúl, as compared with Brazilian soccer players. 14 For other connotations and general aspects of bynames see Van Langendonck 1996, especially 1231. 15 A morphologically marked game involving a name (for the term games with names, see Földes 1996, 586) is the blending of the family name of the current coach of the Greek national team, i.e. Otto Rehhagel, Rehhagel, with Heracles (the successful hero of ancient Greek mythology) resulting in Rehacles (used with and without the first name, Otto). Connoting both success and national pride, while serving the function of characterization, the result of the morphological procedure may symbolize also respect for the name-bearer’s origin (since the original name is not replaced completely) and fulfills, due to the density of information, also the functions of memorization and of individualization in an iconically and therefore noticeable way; it develops a playful tradition with this name by replacing the negatively connoted Torhagel (see [fanlager], [Otto], and - for the English Rehacles - [sagepub]). 16 For some examples of this type of bynames, see Ashley 1996, 1754. 17 See, for instance, also Otto “Maximale” (Baric), in, e.g.: Ein „Otto Maximale“ wird niemals leiser treten ([diepresse]), or, metaonymically: Seinen Spitznamen Otto „Maximale“ Baric verdankt er der Ver- <?page no="164"?> 161 2.2. Anthroponymy/ chrematonymy: names of collectives Ergonyms (see Kamianets 2000: 49ff, especially 53) 18 are another name type, situated at the intersection of anthroponymy and chrematonymy, which needs to be considered in soccer-related discourse. They include the names of organizations, ranging from spontaneously formed groups to clubs, leagues, and even to the names of umbrella organizations, such as UEFA and FIFA. Soccer-related acronyms, such as AS in AS Roma or FC in FC Barcelona, are usually deappellativized abbreviations of the compounds comprising appellatives: AS, for instance, stands for Associazione Sportiva, the entire official name being Associazione Sportiva Roma S.p.a (see [AS]), FC is an abbreviation of Futbol Club (see [FC]), and CABJ is used quasi-synonymically for Club Atlético Boca Juniors (see [Boca]). Some acronyms such as UEFA and FIFA are lexemes (their appellative counterparts function as their quasi-synonyms whose realization is linked to pragmatic circumstances). Like other brand names, they often, but not always, appear in their graphic realizations in combination with the corresponding logos. Another semiotic element which is closely related to the logo (and through the logo to the brand name) is color. Colors are frequently displayed on visible products such as shirts, with the intention of contributing to a corporate identity. 19 Sometimes, they enter the discourse by becoming deappellativized proper names such as: • gent blaugrana 20 (referring not only to the paid staff of FC Barcelona but also to the fans, as can be seen in the club’s anthem quoted below), • Giallorossi (referring to the team(s) of AS Roma - see [AS] -), or • [Les] Bleus (referring to the French national soccer team, which is quasisynonymically and also less officially called Equipe Tricolore (see [Franz]); [Les] Bleus is deappellativized also in the sense that its translation would lead to misunderstanding, thus damaging the byname function of identification. wendung seines Lieblingswortes „maximal“ (welches er „maximale“ ausspricht). Er scheut nicht, dieses Wort ständig zu verwenden (Beispiel: maximale Einsatz, maximale Konzentration). ([Otto Baric]). This “American-style” byname set seems to be mainly, if not entirely, endonymic, because to my knowledge it has not been used in other languages than German. Without the first name, Maximale has not been used as a byname. 18 Kamianets 2000, 53 claims: Der inneren Struktur der meisten Ergonyme gehören Appellativa an, die ihre appellativische Bedeutung bewahren. Abgesehen davon gehören die Ergonyme zu den EN [= proper names], da sie unabhängig von der Erhaltung der appellativischen Bedeutung von ihren strukturellen Elementen als individuelle sekundäre Bedeutungen einzelner Objekte funktionieren, deren Denotate bestimmt sind, was folglich ihre Konnotationen begrenzt. 19 There are rules concerning the dresscode that include the use of colors. Teams have to be able to adapt to circumstances (having more than one set of shirts). 20 The graphic realization of its initial letters in capital letters would be the next step towards onymization. In languages that do not use capital letters for appellatives, proper names are characterized in written realizations as proper names by the simple use of capital initials (e.g. Primera División) (see also footnote 22 and below). <?page no="165"?> 162 Effectively, there is a parallel name in Italian, [Gli] Azzurri or Squadra Azzurra (see [Italienische]). 21 • The same goes for leagues: Bundesliga, for instance, refers to two different entities, namely the Bundesliga of Austria, and the Bundesliga of Germany, and must therefore be disambiguated. Although formally still close to their appellative origin, they are not translated, and so they can be seen as proper names; they may have quasi-synonyms, too. Polysemously, Premier League may primarily signify something different to soccer fans (see also below), than, e.g., to poker fans. 22 A socio-onomastically relevant phenomenon that might disturb the functions of identification, of memorization and sometimes also that of connotation, is altering parts of a club’s name when changing the main sponsor. Usually the sponsor’s name (or part of its name), is integrated in the name of the club, e.g. Red Bull Salzburg (a name of a soccer club formerly called SV [i.e. Sportverein] Austria Salzburg - see [FC ]). There are pragmatic similarities between name changes of clubs and, e.g., name changes of individuals, such as legal regulations, consequences and other questions of identity construction. As for name theory and/ or terminology, this phenomenon may be described as ‘sequential synonymy’, for there are different (chronologically distributed) ‘signifiants’ in combination with one ‘signifié’. For pragmatic reasons, there is a widespread type of synchronic quasi-synonymy concerning names of soccer clubs. In the following example, in the anthem of FC Barcelona 23 , neither FC Barcelona nor its longer form is used. The proper name used instead is the (non-acronym-)abbreviation Barça 24 , which can be interpreted as an idionym connoting more intimacy than more official synonyms. 25 The use of this name (its repetition, its position at the end of the refrain, and the anaphoric metaonymic reference, Tenim un nom, el sap tothom) may be interpreted as manifesting its value as an element in the construction of a corporate identity. What follows is the text of the anthem (see [FC]): 21 But just imagine, especially after the final match of the of the 2006 World Cup, both Marco Materazzi and Zinédine Zidane playing for a ‘national soccer team of blue ones’ without specifying for which one they play by using the names of the corresponding languages. 22 An interesting example of the necessity of providing metaonymic information in addition to other documentary information in Wikipedias is the following one (my underlining, M.C.): Die Serie A ist die höchste Spielklasse in vielen italienischen Sportligen. Es gibt eine Serie A zum Beispiel im Eishockey, Volleyball und Basketball. Gleichbedeutend gibt es in manchen Sportarten auch eine Serie A1 (Handball). Außerhalb Italiens ist damit fast immer die italienische Profifußballliga gemeint. [Die Serie A] gehört gemäß der UEFA-Fünf-Jahreswertung nach der Primera División (Spanien) und vor der Premier League (England) zu den drei bedeutendsten europäischen Ligen. Der formelle Name der Serie A lautet Lega Nazionale Professionisti Serie A TIM. Ausrichter der Meisterschaft[…] ist die Lega Nazionale Professionisti (ital. Nationale Profiliga), eine Unterorganisation des italienischen Fußballverbandes F.I.G.C. (Federazione italiana giuoco calcio). In der Regel wird der Verband jedoch schlicht „Lega Calcio“ genannt. […] am häufigsten wurden Spieler der Serie A zu Europas Fußballer des Jahres gewählt, am häufigsten Spieler von Juventus Turin […]. ([Serie]). 23 Names of anthems may be called ‘artionyms’ (see Kamianets 2000, 49ff, especially 51f). 24 El Futbol Club Barcelona, popularment conegut com a Barça, es l’entitat esportiva futbolística més important de Catalunya pel que fa a projecció i massa social ([Futbol]). 25 The variant Barcelona - in different phonetic endoand exonymic forms - see Lindner 2007: 217 - may be realized, for example, on television. <?page no="166"?> 163 Tot el camp ! / És un clam ! / Som la gent blaugrana,/ Tant se val d’on venim,/ Si del sud o del nord,/ Ara estem d’acord, estem d’acord,/ Una bandera ens agermana./ / Blaugrana al vent,/ Un crit valent/ Tenim un nom, el sap tothom,/ Barça, Barça, Barça ! / / Jugadors ! / Seguidors ! / Tots units fem força,/ Són molts anys plens d’afanys,/ Són molts gols que hem cridat./ I s’ha demostrat, s’ha demostrat,/ Que mai ningù no ens podrà torçar./ / Blaugrana al vent,/ Un crit valent/ Tenim un nom, el sap tothom,/ Barça, Barça, Barça ! In the anthem there is a second element that may contribute to the collective identity of the paid and non-paid individuals associated with Barça 26 : [la] gent blaugrana, originally appellative and therefore still set entirely in small letters, might be seen as a signifier on its way to deappellativization, forming an (unofficial and quasisynonymical) proper name. Since in the anthem there are explicit definitions of its ‘signifié’, which include both players and fans, it might be seen as referring to a greater entity than e.g. FC Barcelona, which is a meronym to la gent blaugrana. Starting from the traditional onomastic term ‘allonymy’ (as usually comprising exonymy/ endonymy 27 ) 28 , one could forge the terms ‘polemionym’ 29 for a proper name used from an external perspective, and, accordingly, ‘philonym’ for a proper name from an internal perspective. The existence of many quasi-synonyms can be generally understood as a result of positive - but, theoretically, also negative - social appraisal and, simultanously, as a sign of the name-bearer’s position on the market. Attention should be paid, in addition, to the discursive importance that is put on name etymologies. They are often part of collective identity constructions (resulting, in turn, in narratives about names). Another kind of distinction can be found in the case of La Máquina and La Maquinita - an example of discursive need for signifiers referring to different teams of the same club, e.g. belonging to different generations (see [River]). If the need for differentiation is not felt (or if it is not satisfied), there is (apparent or implicit) polysemy. Polysemy or homonymy can be fâcheuse not only concerning proper names of individuals, but also teams or even clubs. 30 2.3. Chrematonymy: names of buildings and names of events Proper names of soccer (and other) stadiums belong to the group of ‘oecodomonyms’ (names of buildings, see Kamianets 2000, 48), i.e. chrematonyms at the intersection 26 For text linguistic aspects of proper names, see Kalverkämper 1978 or Kalverkämper 1996. 27 The terms ‘exonym’ (a name given/ used from outside) and ‘endonym’ (a name given/ used from inside) are traditionally used for toponyms (see Back 2002, quoted also in Lindner 2007, 215, and Lindner 2007). The generally lesser known term ‘allonomy’, however, is used mainly for anthroponyms such as Mary, Marie, María, etc., and, at least theoretically, also Miriam (see Haas 1996, 1233f). 28 The possibilities of onomastic terminology (some of the terms being hybrid compounds, i.e. having partly Latin, partly Greek components) can be seen in Kamianets 2000. 29 For Gallinas and Bosteros see [River] and [Boca]. I am indebted to Andrew Skinner and other participants of our workshop for adding British quasi-synonyms such as The Magpies (designating ‘Newcastle United’), The Gunners (designating ‘Arsenal’) and The Canaries (designating ‘Norwich City’). 30 I remember an interesting misunderstanding with neighbors in Jerusalem: they invited me to watch a game of Maccabi; I was proud of having guessed correctly that they were fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv (and not of another team having Maccabi in its name), but a little disappointed when I realized that I was supposed to watch a basketball game (theoretically, it could have been a volleyball game, too, as I learned afterwards). <?page no="167"?> 164 with toponyms. 31 Many phenomena already mentioned are found also in this group. Usually, there are compounds of the appellative ‘stadium’ in their endonymic (and usually subsequently formal) exonymic versions, and originally anthroponymic and/ or toponymic elements. One name that, at first sight, seems to be a famous exeption to this naming practice - and therefore is perhaps so easy to remember - is Camp Nou. It is the result of a deapellativization of both camp and nou (graphically marked by capital letters at the beginnings of each single word). Stadiums are often named after people influential in soccer, e.g. Santiago Bernabéu Yeste, who, according to [Santiago], was president of Real Madrid from 1943 to 1978, and is still remembered in the name Estadio Santiago Bernabéu (the Spanish name set 32 is slightly abbreviated but still contains a former first and a former family name). Until 1955, the stadium, opened in 1947 and extended in 1953, was called Nuevo Estadio Chamartín (see [Estadio]). In Vienna, a stadium which until 1992 bore a name containing a toponymic element, Prater-Stadion, was renamed after an Austrian soccer player and trainer, Ernst Happel, and another stadium was built by a former soccer player, Gerhard Hanappi, who after his career as a soccer player worked as an architect: its first name, West- Stadion, containing geographical information, was later replaced by a name containing the familiy name of its architect and is nowadays called Hanappi-Stadion (see [Hanappi] and [Hanappi-Stadion]). The honor of having a stadium named after one’s personal name can also be given to people who are famous chiefly for reasons other than soccer, for instance, politics. In Jerusalem, the stadium that, in English, is known under both Teddy Stadium and Teddy Kollek Stadium, in Hebrew is called (Itztadion Teddy), i.e., it does not even need the family name of the city’s former mayor to be a constituent of its name. This may be interpreted as especially honorific and, at the same time, typically Israeli (especially in its abbreviated form, (Teddy), instead of Theodor). 33 The opposite of honor, namely shame, can also be used in politics as far as the name of a soccer stadium is concerned: the former Arnold-Schwarzenegger-Stadion in Graz was renamed UPC-Arena 34 in 2006 after face-threatening discussions because of the Californian governor’s refusal to pardon a man sentenced to death. This led to his withdrawal of the name rights (see [Arnold]). In both cases, it is the function of connotation that is in the center of the respective metaonymic deliberations. 31 Kamianets 2000, 48, approximates them more to toponyms, as follows: Die EN einzelner Gebäude, sakraler Bauten, Friedhöfe, Innenräume können den Urbanonymen auf einer niedrigen Gradationsebene der Toponyme zugegliedert werden. In der Regel wird nicht jedes Gebäude und nicht jeder Bau proprial bezeichnet, nur die bekanntesten, attraktivsten, Interessantesten unter ihnen, z.B. der Zwinger, der Stephansdom, Schloss Sancoussi [sic], Schloss Cecilienhof u.a. Diese EN können mit den Termini Oikodomonyme (gr. oikodome ‘Gebäude’ + -onym), die einzelne Gebäude benennen, Ekklesionyme (gr. ekklesia ‘Versammlungsstätte, Kirche’ [christianocentrically chosen term] + -onym), die sakrale Gebäude benennen und Nekronyme (gr. nekros ‘Toter’ + -onym), die Begräbnisstätten benennen, bezeichnet werden. 32 For Spanish name sets, see, for instance, Brandhuber / Zeyringer 2006 [fascicle Spanien], 17. 33 Teddy Kollek was one of few official representatives of the time who did not change one or all of their civil names into Hebrew ones. 34 In current German renaming, there is a gradual move from the appellative element Stadion to the equally appellative element Arena. <?page no="168"?> 165 In view of the 2008 European Championship, it may be of current interest that the names of events are, terminologically (see Kamianets 2000, 49ff), ‘geortonyms’. 35 Morphologically, they are usually compounds containing appellative constituents (there can be other constituents, too). Not all of them show such a large number of relevant aspects as the UEFA European Football Championship. Starting with EURO 72, the respective events are referred to officially by the hyperonym UEFA European Football Championship - until 1968, the corresponding hyperonym was European Nations Cup. Apart from this name change at the hyperonymic level, which is very close to appellatives, there must have been a need to fill the lexical gap felt at the hyponymic level by creating a geortonym close to a brandname and containing stable elements: the X in Euro [X] is filled in accordance with the year the event takes place; this reference to the year includes, from 2000 on, also the explicit indication of the century (whereas from 1972 to 1996, X was filled by just two ciphers). Despite little graphical allonymy (where the realizations in Latin characters dominate), there is a considerable number of different realizations in speech due to the simple fact of different languages. Furthermore, for some cup events, there are quasi-synonyms (differing, among other things, in their degree of officiality), including appellatives with contextual delimitations. I limit myself here to mentioning Copa Libertadores and Supercopa Sudamericana 36 , adding that the appellative prefix superimplies a hierarchy of denoted events. 3. Conclusion The wide range of onymic phenomena observable in soccer-related contexts has been presented here, in selected examples (including metaonymic texts), and mainly according to different name-bearers. It has been argued that interesting name-related phenomena may inspire name-users to utilize language more consciously. The vast terminological field has been tackled both in actu (culminating in the innovative terms ‘polemionym(y)’ and ‘philonym(y)’), as well as from a metacommunicative point of view. The main aim of this contribution has been to shed light on onomastics as a valuable discipline for analyzing social changes and societal representations. In my opinion, onomastic studies, therefore, should be promoted more in academic curricula. 35 Kamianets 2000, 50f states: [Es] können […] die EN von Feiertagen, Jubiläen, Feierlichkeiten usw. sowie die EN von gewissen Aktionen, Kampagnen, Kriegen u. ä. ermittelt und mit dem Terminus Geortonyme (gr. heorte ‘Feier’+ onym) bezeichnet werden. […] Obwohl das von einem Geortonym bezichnete Denotat keine Zeit ist, sondern ein Ereignis, dass [sic] einen gewissen Komplex von Merkmalen beinhaltet, sind die oder jenige [sic] Feierlichkeiten, Kampagnen usw. trotzdem mit bestimmten Zeitabschnitten und Zeitpunkten verbunden […]. Die Benennungen verschiedener Aktionen, Kampagnen u.ä., die einmal stattfinden oder stattgefunden haben, können auch, wenn sie gut genug bekannt sind, als eigenartige Chrononyme betrachtet werden, denn sie sind in jedem Fall an einen bestimmten zeitlichen Raum angewiesen [sic], z. B. die Völkerschlacht, der 30-jährige Krieg, der Krim-Krieg u.a.m. 36 There is a longer quasi-synonymical form of this name, formed by adding the abbreviation af a long name set, namely Jean-Marie Faustin Godefroid de Havelange (see [Jo]) to Supercopa Sudamericana, namely Supercopa Sudamericana Jo-o Havelange (see [Supercopa]). Jo-o Havelange was a famous Brazilian soccer official. <?page no="169"?> 166 Appendix: Important soccer players and their nicknames (my remarks in brackets, M.C.): Kak á Apodo[: ] El sobrenombre [byname] Kaká, viene del portugués [name etymology: endonymy], y lleva un acento en la segunda ‘a’ para darle énfasis a esa sílaba. En italiano, el idioma de su actual equipo, la fonética equivalente es escrita como Kakà [partial allonymy, partial (name) homonymy: exonymic allography in Italian for a Portuguese word], que es usada por la televisión italiana [diamesic allonymy]. Sin embargo, la camiseta del jugador [diamesic allonymy], ya sea la de la selección nacional o la del Milan, llevan escritas la palabre KAKA’ (con un apóstrofe al final, similar a una ‘A’ acentuada) [partial allonymy, partial (name) homonymy: internationalized compensatory allography (reducing two different diacritic signs to one by replacing them)]. En Brasil este apodo es comúnmente usado [unmarkedness] en personas llamadas „Ricardo“ [name morphology: name shortenings, name doubling]. Kaká supuestamante [reconstruction of personal name history = part of discursive identity constructions] obtuvo [name usage: naming] este sobrenombre ya que su hermano menor [name usage: name-chooser, name-giver] cuando era pequeño no podía pronunciar la palabra [name choice motivation] ‘Ricardo’ y lo llamaba ‘caca’ [homonymy with an appellative], que con el tiempo cambió [name change] a ‘Kaká’ [disambiguation of the homonymy] (aconsejado [name change motivation] por el empresario [name-chooser] que lo representaba [name change-authority] ya que creía [function of connotation] que sería más comercial [partial name conversion by shift in name types in favor of brand names] el segundo [personal history of name changes]. ([es.kak]) Pelé [ = Edson Arantes do Nascimento ] Als kleiner Junge begeisterte er sich für den Torwart der Mannschaft seines Vaters [external/ depending on interpretation: internal naming after somebody] namens „Bilé“ [name model] und erklärte, dass er auch so spielen wolle wie „Pilé“ [phonetic change (supposedly: phonologic overgeneralization) but euphonic name]. Daraus entwickelte sich [naming] der Spitzname [nickname, later name conversion], der ihn zunächst [personal onymic history] ärgerte [name usage: function of connotation, name scorn]. Der bürgerliche Vorname [civil given name: onomastic terminology implies, of course, perspectives and positions, see Calderón 2007, 110ff] lautet „Edson“ […]. Der Name bezieht sich auf den amerikanischen Erfinder Thomas Edison [external naming after somebody; the conversion from family name to a given name is a change not excluded in the Brazilian name regulations, see Brandhuber / Zeyringer 2000 [fascicle Brasilien], 13]. Heute wird Pelé in Brasilien auch „O Rei“ [byname] (der König) genannt. ([Pel]) Ronaldinho Ronaldinho is a diminutive of Ronaldo. 37 Identification and individualization are made possible in this case by characterization, i.e. by adding Gaúcho 38 to Ronaldinho, thus fulfilling the same functions, as does de Assis Moreira in situations where its bearer is referred to also by Ronaldo. (Other possibilities of disambiguation are the shortening Naldo, referring to Ronaldo Aparecido Rodrigues, and the suffixation of this shortening, which results in Naldinho, being used to refer to Naldo’s son - see [Naldo]). The same goes for ergonymic phenomena (see above). Disambiguating, for instance, appellative meanings of ‘deutsche Fußballnationalmannschaft’ by explicitly adding one or more semes (e.g. [+female], [+under a certain age] [- after the peak of their soccer careers]) permits insights into discursively constructed expectations. According to [S], Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira, a physician, was called Sócrates as well as Dr. Sócrates. These synonyms differ in the addition Dr., result of a slightly 37 With the productive suffix -inho typical of Portuguese. According to [Ronaldinho], in Brasil both Ronaldo Luís Nazario de Lima (known internationally as Ronaldo (see [de.Ronaldo], and [pt.Ronaldo]) and Rolando de Assis Moreira (known internationally as Ronaldinho) are called Ronaldinho. 38 Which refers to Ronaldo de Assis Moreira’s regional origin from the Rio Grande do Sul and whose initial letter is, due to the conversion of gaúcho to a personal name, a capital letter. <?page no="170"?> 167 marked onymic practice (consisting in combining an addition not with an element out of a family name position, but with a given name). Cafu Metaonymic information available in the internet about Marcos Evangelista de Moraes (see, for instance, [de.Cafu]), nationally and internationally known best under the following byname, is varied - I consider the following examples of onomastic interest and add explanations in brackets: Fue bautizado[christianocentricly based designation of the naming practice] „Cafu“ [byname] por sus compañeros de equipo [name-givers] cuando era muy pequeño [personal onymic history]. Su juego penetrante por las bandas era muy parecido al de un jugador [name model] […] llamado Cafuringa [morphology: base], de ahí el apodo [byname]. ([superfutbol]). Cafu is correct [metaonymic opinion] as opposed to Cafù [partial quasi-homonymie fâcheuse]. He was given this nickname [no metaonymic differentiation between byname and nickname] because [naming motivation] his speed up and down the right flank was reminiscent of that of Cafuringa [name model], […]. He is sometimes referred to by the European [mostly exonymy] media [name-(set)-givers] as Marcos Cafu [combination of his first name and his byname for the functions of individualization and identification follow usual pattern of one-name systems changing into systems consisting of more than one single name - see, e.g., Calderón 2007)]. ([en.Cafu]). [Ad Cafù: The similarity with the byname given to Arlindo Gomes Semedo (which is - according to [de.Caf] - a soccer player from the Cap Verde Islands who holds a Portuguese passport) may contribute to the necessity of producing the amount mentioned of metaonymic information, which consists in reactions to misunderstandings based on graphic accents. Tras un breve regreso a Brasil, trasladándose al [grammatical rules concerning proper names] Palmeiras [for ergonyms, see 2.2.] en 1996, Cafú [sic, see above] firmó por el equipo italiano de AS Roma [ergonym, see 2.2.] en 1997, y ganó el título de la Serie A [ergonym - see 2.2 (and especially footnote 22)] en 2001. Cafú [sic, see above] fue firme favorito de la afición local, ganándose [name use: naming practice - naming motivation: honorific name] el apodo [byname] de Il Pendolino [name conversion from chrematonymy to anthroponymy] (‘el tren expreso’) […]. ([es.Caf]). References Ashley, Leonard R.N. (1996): Nicknames and sobriquets. In: Eichler et al., 1750-1758 Back, Otto ( 3 2002): Übersetzbare Eigennamen. Eine synchronische Untersuchung von interlingualer Allonymie und Exonymie. Wien: Praesens Brandhuber, Rupert / Zeyringer, Walter (2000, 2006 et al.) [loose-leaf; different numbers]: Standesamt und Ausländer. Sammlung systematischer Übersichten über die wesentlichsten Rechtsnormen ausländischer Staaten, Frankfurt am Main et al.: Verlag für Standesamtwesen Calderón, Marietta (2007): Wechselwirkungen europäischer Personennamensysteme. In: Danler et al., 125-129 Consulat de France en Autriche (2007): Le nom de famille. http: / / www.ambafrance-at.org/ article.php.3? id_article=926, 02/ 01/ 2007 Danler, Paul / Ertler, Klaus-Dieter / Krömer, Wolfram / Pfeiffer, Erna / Rodrigues-Moura, Enrique (eds.) (2007): Österreich, Spanien und die europäische Einheit. Austria, España y la unidad europea. Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press Diederichsen, Uwe (1996): Namensrecht, Namenpolitik. In: Eichler et al., 1762-1780 Eichler, Ernst / Hilty, Gerold / Löffler, Heinrich / Steger, Hugo / Zgusta, Ladislav (eds.) (1996): Namensforschung. Ein Internationales Handbuch zur Onomastik (Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft 11/ 2). Berlin et al.: Walter de Gruyter Földes, Czaba (1996): Namenspiele, Spiele mit Namen. In: Eichler et al., 586-593 Haas, Walter (1996): Personennamen in mehrsprachigen Ländern und Regionen: Schweiz. In Eichler et al., 1232-1241 Kalverkämper, Hartwig (1978): Textlinguistik der Eigennamen. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta <?page no="171"?> 168 Kalverkämper, Hartwig (1996): Textgrammatik und Textlinguistik der Eigennamen. In: Eichler et al., 440-447 Kamianets, Wolodymyr (2000): Zur Einteilung der deutschen Eigennamen. In: Grazer Linguistische Studien 54, 41-58 Lindner, Thomas (2007): Von Preßburg [sic] nach Bratislava und zurück. Zur Problematik der Exonymie. In: Moderne Sprachen 51, 213-220 Schmitt, Rüdiger (1996): Morphologie der Namen: Vollnamen und Kurznamen bzw. Kosenamen im Indogermanischen. In: Eichler et al., 419-427 Van Langendonck, Willy (1996): Bynames. In: Eichler et al., 1228-1232 Werlen, Iwar (1996): Namenprestige, Nameneinschätzung. In: Eichler et al., 1738-1743 Windberger-Heidenkummer, Erika (2001): Mikrotoponyme im sozialen und kommunikativen Kontext. Flurnamen im Gerichtsbezirk Neumarkt in der Steiermark (Schriften zur deutschen Sprache in Österreich 30). Frankfurt am Main et al.: Lang. Witkowski, Teodolius (1996): Probleme der Terminologie. In: Eichler et al., 288-294 http: / / ca.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Futbol Club Barcelona, 08/ 22/ 07 [= Futbol] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Arnold Schwarzenegger, 08/ 19/ 07 [= Arnold] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ AS Rom, 08/ 22/ 07 [= AS] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Boca Juniors, 08/ 25/ 07 [= Boca] http: / / de.org.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Caf%C3BA, 08/ 22/ 07[= de.Caf] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Cafu, 08/ 22/ 07 [= de.Cafu] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Deutsche Fu%C3%9Fballnationalmannschaft der Frauen, 08/ 28/ 07 [=Deutsche] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Fabul%CE%B6se Thekenschlampen, 08/ 19/ 07 [= Fabul] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ FC Barcelona, 08/ 06/ 07 [= FC] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ FC Red Bull Salzburg, 08/ 22/ 07 [= FC_] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Franz%C3%B6sische Fu%C3%9Fballnationalmannschaft, 08/ 22/ 07 [=Franz] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Fu%C3%9Fball-Weltmeisterschaft 1998/ Frankreich, 08/ 22/ 07 [= Fu] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Gerhard-Hanappi-Stadion, 08/ 25/ 07 [Hanappi-Stadion] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Gerhard Hanappi, 08/ 25/ 07 [Hanappi] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Italienische Fu%C3%9Fballnationalmannschaft, 08/ 22/ 07 [= Italienische] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Jo%C3%A3o Havelange, 08/ 25/ 07 [= Jo] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Kak%C3A1, 08/ 06/ 07 [= de.Kak] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Naldo, 09/ 19/ 07 [= Naldo] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Otto Baric, 09/ 16/ 07 [= Otto Baric] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Otto Rehhagel, 09/ 30/ 07 [= Otto ] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Pel%C3%A9, 08/ 06/ 07 [= Pel] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Ra%C3BAI_Gonz%C3%A1lez_Blanco, 09/ 19/ 07 [= Ra] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ River Plate, 08/ 06/ 07 [= River] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Ronaldinho, 08/ 06/ 07 [= Ronaldinho] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Ronaldo, 08/ 22/ 07 [= de.Ronaldo] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Santiago Bernab%C3%A9u, 08/ 19/ 07 [= Santiago] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ S%C3%B3crates, 08/ 07/ 07 [= S] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Serie_A, 08/ 22/ 07 [= Serie] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Toni Polster, 08/ 19/ 07 [= Toni] http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Werder_Bremen, 09/ 16/ 07 [= Werder] http: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Cafu, 08/ 06/ 07 [= en.Cafu] http: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Teddy_Kollek Stadium, 08/ 19/ 07 [= Teddy] http: / / es.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Caf%C%BA, 08/ 06/ 07 [= es.Caf] http: / / es.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Camp Nou, 08/ 06/ 07 [= Camp] http: / / es.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Estadio Santiago Bernab%C3%A9u, 08/ 28/ 07 [= Estadio] http: / / es.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Kak%C3A1, 08/ 06/ 07 [= es.Kak] http: / / es.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Supercopa Sudamericana, 08/ 25/ 07 [= Supercopa] http: / / pt.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Ronaldo_Luis_Naz%C3%A1rio_de_Lima, 09/ 16/ 07 [= pt.Ronaldo] http: / / www.diepresse.com/ home/ sport/ fussball/ 311137/ index.do, 09/ 16/ 07 [= diepresse] <?page no="172"?> 169 http: / / www.fanlager.de/ fussball-stammtisch/ als-rehakles-noch-torhagel hiess-18666.html, 09/ 30/ 07 [=fanlager] http: / / www.superfutbol.com.ar/ jugadores/ BrasilCafu.htm, 08/ 06/ 07 [= superfutbol] mcs.sagepub.com/ cgi/ reprint/ 28/ 4/ 483pdf, 09/ 16/ 07 [= sagepub] Ass.Prof. in Dr. in Marietta Calderón FB Romanistik Universität Salzburg Akademiestraße 24 A-5020 Salzburg e-mail: marietta.calderon@sbg.ac.at <?page no="174"?> 171 KHATIJAH SHAMSUDDIN AND FAUZIAH KAMARUDDIN “CANARIES VERSUS ROARING LIONS”: LANGUAGE AND FOOTBALL IN MALAYSIAN NEWSPAPER REPORTING Language plays a crucial role in everyday communication activities. There are different language styles used for different purposes of communication. In the field of sports reporting in newspapers, writers are required to be highly competent in language relating to sports as reading about sports requires a vivid representation of the game in readers’ minds. In addition, readers of sports sections in newspapers tend to be those who have emotional attachment to the game that they read about. Thus, to understand how sports are represented to the public, we need to look at language that is used and the values and associations which come with that language. In doing so, we will gain a greater understanding of the sports that take place in society and how this reflects the values that society holds. This paper presents some findings on text analysis of media reports on the national professional Football League, the Merdeka Cup and the Asian Cup tournaments held in Malaysia, as reported in two Malaysian English-language newspapers ‘The New Straits Times’ and ‘The Malay Mail’ from May to September 2007. It will focus on language use and preferences among Malaysian sports writers. The findings will show that, besides using technical words in the genre of sports, a lot of reporting is often expressed in metaphorical terms. This makes reading about football an emotional experience. 1. Introduction Language plays a crucial role in everyday communication activities. There are different language styles used for different purposes of communication. In the field of sports reporting in newspapers, writers are required to be highly competent in language relating to sports as reading about sports requires a vivid representation of the game in readers’ minds. Beard 1998 states that there are many types of sports writing and what is important is the primary purpose that lies behind such writing. In writing match reports, the main purpose is to inform readers about the game so that they pick up the details of the matches, as well as the actual description of how the game was played. Sometimes reporters will also try to persuade readers to take a particular point of view. Thus, when writing, writers also need to take the target readership into account. In recent years, the purpose of sports coverage has not been as straightforward as simply informing the reader. It also involves gossip, intrigue and the personal lives of the players (Beard 1998: 83). So, a good deal of sports coverage is more concerned with entertainment than information. Sports writers must then be able to inform readers in an entertaining way as the target readership tend to be those who have emotional attachment to the game that they read about. This paper will discuss the findings on text analysis of newspaper reports in ‘The New Straits Times’ and ‘The Malay Mail’ on the national Professional Football League, the Merdeka Cup as well as the AFC Asian Cup, tournaments that were held in Malaysia recently. The reports were written by three local writers: two Malays and an <?page no="175"?> 172 Indian. It will focus on language use and preferences among Malaysian sports writers in their football match reports. Besides using technical words in the genre of sports, a lot of reporting is often expressed in metaphorical terms. These forms of expression create an emotional experience for readers. 2. Professional football league tournaments in Malaysia At present, the professional football league in Malaysia is divided into three groups: 1. First Division: Malaysian Super League 2. Second Division: Malaysian Premier League Group A 3. Second Division: Malaysian Premier League Group B The Malaysian Super League is the top flight of football in Malaysia. It is the highest division a professional football team in Malaysia can participate in. It was introduced in 2004. Initially it catered for only the top eight football teams in the country. The bottom two teams at the end of the season are usually relegated to the Malaysian Premier League. Since 2006/ 2007 the league has had 14 teams and all teams play each other twice, or 26 matches in total. The Malaysian Premier League is the second-tier football league in Malaysia. It was introduced in 2004. It has two groups: Group A and Group B. At the end of the season, the top team of each group of the Premier League is promoted to the Malaysian Super League. The two group champions also face off to determine the Malaysian Premier League Championship. We have many imported players, hired to play for the local teams. Many of them come from African nations like Zambia and Zimbabwe. There are also players from Bosnia, Croatia, Indonesia and Brunei. 3. The Merdeka Cup The Merdeka Cup was founded to commemorate Malaysian independence from British colonial power in 1957. The inaugural tournament was then the premier football competition in Asia. It has been held annually in honour of Malaysian National Day, which falls on August 31. However, from 1989 to 2007, it has been held only 7 times. Malaysia played Myanmar in the finals and won the game in the recent Merdeka tournament. 4. The AFC Asian Cup The Asian Cup football tournament is organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The winning team becomes the champion of Asia and automatically qualifies for the FIFA Confederations Cup. The Asian Cup has been held once every four years from 1956 onwards. In 2007, the tournament was held in the Southeast Asian nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. The Malaysian team did not fare very well. They were placed in Group C together with China, Uzbekistan and Iran. They lost all <?page no="176"?> 173 three matches with an aggregate of 12-1, becoming the only team that finished the tournament with no points. 5. ‘The New Straits Times’ ‘The New Straits Times’ is a Malaysian English-language newspaper. It is Malaysia’s oldest newspaper. It was founded in 1846 and has a circulation of over 200,000 throughout the nation. ‘The New Strait Times’ is printed by New Straits Times Press, which also produces ‘The Malay Mail’, which is an afternoon tabloid. 6. ‘The Malay Mail’ ‘The Malay Mail’ was first published in December 1896. The Malay Mail grew with the nation, developed a social conscience and in recent years received its much-loved nickname, ‘The Paper That Cares’. From its early years, ‘The Malay Mail’ established itself as the newspaper for office workers, urban executives and homemakers who keenly followed developments in the world, the neighbourhoods they lived in, sports, fashion and the retailing industry. At present the paper is widely read in the urban areas around the capital, Kuala Lumpur. 7. Related studies A considerable number of studies have been carried out on language in sports. Most of them concern the linguistics studies of sports commentary (Delin 2000: 43). Delin 2000 presents a linguistic analysis of two sports commentaries, namely on horse racing and football. In the studies she mentions the many characteristics of language use in sports, especially vocabulary. Commentaries are verbal descriptions of sport events: utterances with a range of different functions. Besides vocabulary, other linguistic characteristics include nongrammatical structures, such as the use of ellipsis due to the speed of delivery and errors in clause structures. Intonation can also be analysed in sports commentaries. It arises out of the desire to create excitement. Sometimes intonation is exaggerated on purpose. All these linguistic characteristics are basically the features found in the verbal description of a sports event. Beard 1998 discusses the language used in a text taken from a football fanzine called ‘Follow Follow’, which supports Glasgow Rangers. The text ‘Rangers’ is about how a new player has helped Rangers to win several games: this new player is black. The inclusive plural pronoun we used throughout the article implies that the writer is a supporter of the team and that he is writing as though speaking to fellow like-minded supporters. The type of language used is persuasive so as to gain support for the idea that Rangers fans must change their attitude towards black players. <?page no="177"?> 174 8. Research methodology The study is essentially descriptive in nature, using a text analysis method in which 30 match reports provide a corpus of data; close to 100 metaphors are extracted from these reports. The long-term focus of the research is on lexical features, covering choice of vocabulary, idiomatic expressions and metaphors. This paper, however, will only concentrate on the use of metaphors in football reporting in the local newspapers. Carter et al. 2001 state that an analysis of text starts at the level of the word, as words are clearly visible units in a written text. There is a complex relationship between words and their meanings. Lexical ambiguity looks at the way users of text exploit the capacity of words to carry more than one meaning. Another feature of the text that can be analysed is the use of idiomatic expressions. This paper will focus on the use and effects of metaphors that operate within the text. The metaphors extracted from the reports are listed in a table and later analysed for their purpose and effective use in the newspaper reports. The findings are represented in a table with five columns. Each column is given one of the following headings: Source field, Metaphorical Expression, Abstract Component, Concrete Component, Meaning and Description (Cameron / Low 1999). 9. Results of the study From the 30 newspaper reports studied, phrasal and sentential level metaphors were found to be predominantly used by the three sports writers of the newspapers. Examples of these include marketing arm, goal drought, a studded side and Super League leaders Kedah gave UPB-My team a good taste of top flight football by whipping the League Campaigners 4-1. For the purpose of this study, the metaphors were identified based on Nielsen / Nielsen’s (1978, quoted in Sahuri / Sahuri 2000: 158) distinction between the abstract and concrete components found in a metaphorical expression, which tend to comprise words from two different semantic fields. In this context, the ‘abstract’ component refers to the word/ expression that functions as the ‘topic’ of the utterance while the ‘concrete’ component refers to the expression which explains the topic. It was found that the metaphors in the newspaper reports tend to fall into the following categories (in Sahuri / Sahuri 2000): 1) Grammatical construction (Brooke-Rose 1958) Grammar-based metaphors include noun metaphors, verb metaphors, prepositional and adjectival metaphors. Examples of grammatical metaphors in the context of football reporting include on the right track, suicidal mission and whipping boys. 2) Image-based metaphors (Ullman 1962 and Nilsen / Nilsen 1978) These are expressions which ‘humanise’ things or objects being discussed. Thus, they involve the personification of an inanimate entity. In addition, a popular metaphorical device of employing animal characteristics for human activity is also apparent in football reporting. 3) Conceptual-based metaphors (Lakoff / Johnson 1980) <?page no="178"?> 175 Part of the aims of this study is to identify conceptual metaphors, which might reveal the writers’ professional perceptions and their ways of thinking. As evident in the collection of reports studied, football metaphors reflect the writer’s perception regarding the players’ performance, the context in which the game itself is set (that it is a battleground, a conflict), and the writer’s thinking, attitude, frustration and hope. As with any kinds of communication systems, football writers in Malaysia reach out to inform and influence readers, as well as narrate and evaluate the games. More often than not, the metaphors are emotional and an aspect of individual style (Leezenberg 2001). While some of the metaphorical expressions used can be categorized as ‘dead’ metaphors, in that they are now used almost as clichés, such as cold storage and in the running, there are also an observable number which are more actively akin to constructions with a local flavour, such as curse of the seven generations. 10. Discussion of analysis Based on the textual analysis conducted, most of the metaphorical devices used generally describe the following: 10.1. The game Malaysian sports writers are quite keen on using metaphors. The progress and the quality of a game are described in quite elaborate metaphors. Below are several examples of utterances which reflect the writers’ emotional and professional descriptions of a finished game or a game in progress. 1. Super League leaders Kedah gave UPB-My Team a good taste of top flight football by whipping the League Campaigners 4-1 … The expression a good taste of top flight football may be considered as metaphorical by virtue of the fact that taste and football are two words from two different domains that are not compatible; the former is a word expressing a sensory experience whilst the latter has to do with a specific type of sport. A combination of both results in the creation of an ‘artificial’ metaphor (Fowler / Fowler 1979), which suggests a different sense of tasting: one that is almost elitist in expression. 2. The Canaries are flying high and they will be … As in example 1, there is a metonymic relation to be understood here in example 2 as the Canaries in this construction is an expression used to refer to an actual football team. Instead of functioning as a metaphor, Canaries is primarily referential, that is, it is used as one entity to stand for another (Lakoff / Johnson 1980). The Canaries are flying high is a metaphorical expression to describe the position of this particular football team that is doing well at that moment in the tournament. Canaries in full flight suggests that the Canaries are not just another football team, but, more importantly, it gives the impression that it is a team on the up. <?page no="179"?> 176 3. We have warriors to do the battle and they have promised to go the extra mile… This is another example of a construction that highlights a metonymical relationship in that warriors is used to stand for the players. In addition to highlighting a metonymic relationship, this construction also has a metaphorical aspect to it. Football is perceived as a battlefield and the players or the warriors fight and attack in order to win the ‘war’. This is supported by Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) position on their conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR. In their discussion, an argument is seen in terms of war where there are opponents and attacks and there emerges a winner and a loser. In much the same way, winning a football tournament involves the players viewing themselves as warriors out to win a war. The expression to go the extra mile… is again a form of figurative language to emphasize the degree of commitment necessary to secure success in this ‘battle’. It is idiomatic in nature and suggests that a special effort is a necessary ingredient for winning the game. 4. The race for the title may well go down to the wire. This construction and usage is identified as metaphorical for the simple reason that the expressions race and wire do not collocate with each other and therefore the tension which results from this combination produces an image that is abstract in nature. This metaphorical expression suggests a very close and tense race to secure the coveted title. Rather than impersonally narrate the direction of a game in a purely objective manner, writers can effectively influence readers and players using image-laden metaphors to report events on the field. The effect is that without watching the game, the metaphors enable readers to experience and imagine the game blow by blow and this is made possible especially because metaphors present not just the course of the game, but also the emotions, attitude, jubilation and exasperation felt by the writers. 10.2. Winning a game / victory 5. The strike has changed the entire complexion for the return match in Ipoh. In this example, strike, complexion and return match are not words that are normally closely related, but which are still used in this same sentence. Strike, which here refers to a ‘goal’, has affected (either negatively or positively) the ‘chances’ in the return match. 6. The Northern Lions are fresh from delivering a 5-1 thrashing to Sarawak… The impact of winning is exaggerated by this construction, in which the abstract delivering is explained by the concrete form thrashing. The Northern Lions are here depicted as fierce animals that befit the nickname given to them. Many of the other expressions are not associated with winning but rather with the act of scoring a goal, as can be seen in the following examples: <?page no="180"?> 177 7. A sharp Kedah line-up took only 11 minutes to open the floodgates last night… 8. Hassan then seized centre-stage by bagging a double in the 40th minute… 9. four minutes later he headed home a cross from Wan… In example 7, we find an example of a metonymic relation in which floodgates refers to the goal area and, once opened, led to a series of goals. The expression seized centre-stage by bagging a double is really a contrast in domains in that centre-stage is associated with stage drama whereas bagging a double relates to scoring a brace of goals. This metaphoric construction dramatizes the event. In addition, the metaphor here may be said to highlight the thrill experienced by the writer. Headed home a cross may be regarded as an implicit metaphor whereby the object referred to is not explicitly stated. Though metaphorical, this construction is rather matter-of-fact and, as such, does not really have the typical effect which accompanies a metaphoric usage. 10.3. Losing a game / defeat In contrast to the three earlier aspects of football discussed, based on the data gathered, expressions to describe the notion of losing or having lost a game are less frequent. 10. There was little sympathy offered to the national team in the aftermath of the 5-1 walloping by China… 11. The curse of seven generations 12. FAM (Football Association Malaysia) RIP Example 10 sees China humanized by walloping the opponent. The curse of seven generations is culturally specific. It comes from the title of a legend about Princess Mahsuri on the Island of Langkawi, who was accused of adultery. Prior to being executed, the princess laid a curse on the island whereby there wasn’t to be any growth on the island for seven generations following her execution. The legend had it that, as a testament to her innocence, the blood which flowed out of her body was white in colour. So the sports writers attempts to explain the future of football in Malaysia in terms of the curse laid on the island of Langkawi. All local readers will have understood the message perfectly. In example 12, RIP expresses the writer’s perception regarding the status of football in Malaysia. It is considered dead and buried: a dramatic and shocking effect. 11. Conclusion The study finds that the majority of metaphors identified in the newspaper reports are used to describe the game itself, as well as winning and losing. The analysis also reveals that in Malaysian newspapers sports writers use metaphors in their reports mainly for three distinct reasons. Firstly, in some cases, by using metaphorical expressions the writers are able to economise on the number of words used. Secondly, metaphors are used in an emotionally charged manner. Thirdly, <?page no="181"?> 178 carefully chosen metaphors have the effect of persuading readers to agree on a stance. It can be concluded that the use of metaphors is relatively common in football reporting in Malaysian newspapers. References Beard, Adrian (1998): The language of sport. London: Routledge Brooke-Rose, Christine (1958): A grammar of metaphor. London: Secker and Warburg Cameron, Lynn / Low, Graham (eds) (1999): Researching and applying metaphor. Mebourne: Cambridge University Press Carter, Ronald et al. (2001): Working with texts - A core introduction to language analysis. New York: Routledge Delin, Judy (2000): The Language of Everyday Life. London: Sage Publications Fowler, Henry W. / Fowler, Francis G. (1979): The King’s English. London: Oxford University Press Lakoff, George (1993): The contemporary theory of metaphor in metaphor and thought. 2 nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Lakoff, George / Johnson, Mark (1980): Metaphor we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Leezenberg, Michiel (2001): Context of metaphor. Amsterdam: Elsevier Nielsen, Don L.F. / Nielsen, Alleen Pace (1978): Language play: An introduction to linguistics. Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers Sahuri, Sakina / Sahuri, Suffian (2000): Manusia dan Alam Sebagai Medan Sumber Metafora Melayu: Satu Kajian Semantik. Phd Thesis Ullman, Stephen. (1962): Semantics: An introduction to the science of meaning. Oxford: Basil Blackwell The Malay Mail 15 May - 15 September 2007 The Straits Times 15 May - 15 September 2007 http: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Malaysian_Premier_League http: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Malaysian_Super_League http: / / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ AFC_Asian_Cup http: / / www.nstp.com.my Khatijah Shamsuddin Lecturer Department of English Language Faculty of Languages and Linguistics University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur Malaysia e-mail: khatijah@um.edu.my Fauziah Kamaruddin Part-time Lecturer Department of English Language Faculty of Languages and Linguistics University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur Malaysia e-mail: fauziahk@um.edu.my fauziahkdn@yahoo.com <?page no="182"?> 179 BARBARA SONNENHAUSER ‘FIDONESS’ IN FOOTBALL REPORTING: PROPER NAMES BETWEEN DEMONSTRATIVES AND COMMON NOUNS The present paper deals with the combination of the indefinite article ein and a proper name. Based on a semiotic (Peircean) framework, the development of proper names from pure demonstratives to (almost) common nouns is sketched, arguing that from a semiotic point of view neither proper names as such nor their combination with an indefinite article need to be regarded as exceptional. The popularity of ‘ein + proper name’ in football reporting can be explained by one specific effect this construction gives rise to. Combining the individuating indefinite article ein with a proper name introduces the presupposition of the existence of a category, one element of which is picked out by ‘ein + proper name’. This in turn suggests that there exist certain properties allowing this class of elements to be distinguished from other classes. Using ‘ein + proper name’, the speaker assumes the hearer to be familiar enough with the proper name and its bearer and to be in a position to infer the properties alluded to. In this way, a community of experts is created as opposed to those who either do not recognise the proper name at all, or are not familiar with its bearer. 1. Introduction Paraphrasing Russell, Jakobson (1971/ 1957: 131) distinguishes proper names from appellative (common) nouns as follows: The appellative pup means a young dog, mongrel means a dog of mixed breed, hound is a dog used in hunting, while Fido means nothing more than a dog whose name is Fido. The general meaning of such words as pup, mongrel, or hound, could be indicated by abstractions like puppyhood, mongrelness, or houndness, but the general meaning of Fido cannot be qualified in this way. […] there are many dogs called Fido, but they do not share any property of ‘Fidoness’. The absence of ‘fidoness’ seems to be the distinguishing feature of proper names. However, examples as illustrated in (1), which are quite commonly found in sports reporting, undermine this characterisation of proper names: 1 1a. Glauben Sie, daß sich ein Borowski oder think: P RS you, that R EFL INDEF . ART Borowski: P N or ein Mertesacker nervös machen lassen […], fragte Frings. INDEF . ART Mertesaker: P N nervous cause to become, ask: P ST Frings: P N [SZ, 5./ 6.5.07] 1 The following glosses will be used: A UX (auxiliary), INDEF . ART (indefinite article), I NF (infinitive), N EG (negation), P ART (particle), P N (proper name), P RS (present tense), P ST (past tense), R EFL (reflexive). For a short introduction of the proper names dealt with, cf. the appendix. <?page no="183"?> 180 1b. Einen Namen mussten die Bayern von der Wunschliste one Name have.to: P ST the Bayern from the shopping.list streichen. Zwar auch kein Ronaldinho, dafür cancel: I NF certainly likewise INDEF . ART : N EG Ronaldinho: P N , but immerhin ein Deco. still INDEF . ART Deco: P N [Sportbild 21/ 07, 23.5.07] In these cases, the combination of the indefinite article ein with a proper name suggests some kind of ‘fidoness’. The present paper deals with such prima facie deviant uses of proper names from a semiotic, more precisely Peircean, point of view. 2. Deviant uses of proper names There are various so-called deviant uses of proper names, cf. (2): 2a. Trieste is no Vienna [Boer 1978: 178] 2b. He is a Smith. [ibd.] 2c. I wish I were Paul Getty. [Boer 1978: 183] 2d. Es gibt nur einen Rudi Völler. there is only one Rudi.Völler: P N [German saying] According to Boer (1978: 179), in cases like (2a, 2b) we are not dealing with proper names at all. Rather, Vienna and Smith function as a shortcut for a referential name (‘Trieste is no match for Vienna’) and a fused part of a referential description (‘he is a member of the Smith family’). The proper name in (2c) does not function as a singular term, but as a predicative device; it is used attributively. The utterer of (2c) would not express the desire to inherit Getty’s body, but the desire to be the world’s richest person (Boer 1978: 183). Another interesting case is illustrated in (2d). On the one hand, assuming that bearers of proper names are singular individuals, it is superfluous to use the quantifier ein (‘one’). On the other hand, granting that there might be different individuals bearing the same name (2d) would simply be false. Again, the proper name is used attributively, attributing a certain property or set of properties to one specific individual, which is then unique for these properties. 2 The present paper focuses on yet other another kind of allegedly deviant uses of proper names, namely proper names combined with the indefinite article 3 , as illustrated in (1) above and (4): 2 This property, or set of properties, does not have to be the same for all utterers and interpreters. 3 Proper names may very well be accompanied by the definite article. This is common in South German dialects, like Bavarian. An interesting case not dealt with here is proper names used in the plural: 3. Nichts gegen die Ottls, Lells, Podolskis und wie sie alle hießen. nothing against DEF . ART Ottl: P N .P L , Lell: P N .P L , Podolski: P N .P L and how they all call: P ST Gegen Inzaghi & Co. hat es nicht gereicht Against Inzaghi: P N & Co. Aux.P ST it not enough [RTL 12.4.07, 6: 10] <?page no="184"?> 181 A C B A C B 4a. Ein gesunder Lincoln hat […] immer INDEF . ART well Lincoln: P N have: P RS always einen Stammplatz, sagte er. a firm.place say: P ST he [Sportbild 20/ 07, 16.5.07] 4b. Denn diesmal sollen Stars kommen, Kaliber wie Toni […] oder since this.time are.to stars come: I NF , types as Toni: P N or Ribery - die sind nicht so pflegeleicht wie ein Hilbert Ribery: P N - they are not as easy.to.get.along as INDEF . ART Hilbert: P N oder Pardo. or Pardo: P N [Kicker 44/ 07, 29.5.07] Such cases are frequently encountered in sports reporting. Sports reporting is interesting also insofar as it nicely serves to illustrate the various stages involved in the development of proper names, leading to and making possible the uses illustrated in (1) and (4). 3. Towards a semiotic analysis of proper names Most controversies about proper names concern questions of sense and reference. Simplifying matters drastically, with respect to their semantic description, proper names are assumed to be devoid of sense or connotation (Mill, Kripke), or shortcuts for a definite description (Russell) or a cluster of descriptions (Searle). As regards the referential mechanisms, proper names have been analysed, e.g., as directly referential (Kaplan) or as rigid designators (Kripke). 4 Basic to all these accounts seems to be some form of the semiotic triangle, according to which a sign representamen (A), mediated via some concept associated with it (B), denotes a set of possible referents (C): Figure 1: The semiotic triangle The lack of either B or C, or the unusual character of one of both is commonly taken to distinguish proper names from common nouns. Consequently, in (1) and (4) we are dealing not only with proper names as exceptional linguistic signs, but also with exceptional uses of these exceptional signs. There is, however, one alternative to the semiotic triangle approach which allows us to regard proper names as ordinary signs and to account for their various possibilities of usage without considering them exceptional: Peirce’s triadic conception of signs. 4 A collection of various standpoints on proper names can be found in Wolf 1993. <?page no="185"?> 182 3.1. Peirce on signs Peirce considers signs as triadic relations of a representamen (R) standing in relation to an object (O) and causing an interpretant (I) to stand in the same relation to that object. The interpretant constitutes the representamen for further sign processes. Crucially, these three parts of a sign are not resolvable into dyadic relations; together - and only together - they constitute a sign: R I O R I O Figure 2: The triadic sign What is commonly understood by ‘reference’ of linguistic entities can roughly be captured by the object relation, the ‘sense’ of linguistic entities by the interpretantrelation. 5 There may be various such interpretants - effects in an interpreting mind - for one and the same representamen. Accordingly, Peirce (2000a: 347f.) attributes the interpreter a certain latitude with respect to the interpretation - the sign concedes the interpreter the right to deliver part of its meaning. The decisive point is that the various effects, i.e. the various interpretants, of one and the same representamen all share one and the same object. Every sign is specified for the full triad, with the degrees of this specification ranging from mere possibility via actual existence to habits and rules: representamen object relation 6 interpretant relation possibility (firstness) qualisign icon rheme existence (secondness) sinsign index dicent habit, rule (thirdness) legisign symbol argument Table 1: Peirce’s classification of signs Possibility, existence and habit are instantiations of Peirce’s three universal categories firstness, secondness and thirdness. These categories allow for a characterisation of signs with respect to their determination of the three relations: 5 Note, however, that Peirce does not speak of ‘sense’ and ‘reference’. 6 The object-relation is the most well-known dimension of the sign. An icon allows reference to an object because of some inherent property, an index refers to an object due to a relation of contingency or causality, and the object relation of a symbol is determined by a rule or habit. <?page no="186"?> 183 R I O 1. rheme 2. dicent 3. argument 1. quali 2. sin 3. legi 1. icon 2. index 3. symbol R I O 1. rheme 2. dicent 3. argument 1. quali 2. sin 3. legi 1. icon 2. index 3. symbol Figure 3: The three sign dimensions Based on these different categories, the special nature of proper names - as opposed to pure demonstratives on the one hand, and to common nouns on the other - can be illustrated, and prima facie unorthodox uses of proper names can be explained. 3.2. Peirce on proper names Peirce himself drops a few remarks on proper names, stressing how they may develop from genuine indices to symbols: A Proper name, when one meets it for the first time, is existentially connected with some percept or other equivalent individual knowledge of the individual it names. It is then, and then only, a genuine Index. The next time one meets with it, one regards it as an Icon of that Index. The habitual acquaintance with it having been acquired, it becomes a Symbol whose Interpretant represents it as an Icon of an Index of the Individual named. (Pape 1982: 344; cf. also Peirce 1983: 88) Thus, a proper name has a purely demonstrative (indexical) function only the first time it is encountered: on this occasion it does nothing but identify the individual it is indexically connected with. From then on, a percept is connected with the proper name, i.e. the index includes an icon. Basic to this process is the accumulation of more and more information associated with the proper name. However, this ‘meaning’ is not derived from the author, but ascribed to it by the interpreter: Yet the name itself will remain a designation devoid of essential signification, and so much of the accidental kind as it may at any time have acquired will not have been derived, in however slight measure, from the utterer of any sentence which it may furnish with informatory interest, - at least, not from him in his capacity as utterer of that sentence. (Pape 1990: 386f) Being used in more and more situations, a proper name acquires more and more regularity not only with respect to its form, but also with respect to its object - it becomes a symbol. This symbol-quality allows for cross-referential use, i.e. for using the proper name when the bearer of that name is not present in the actual situation. Thus, in a Peircean account of proper names, demonstrative identification and crossreference are distinguished, but at the same time integral parts of one and the same sign (cf. Pape 1982). <?page no="187"?> 184 With their demonstrative feature, proper names resemble indexical signs such as demonstrative pronouns, quantifiers or the personal pronoun I; with their capacity for cross-reference, proper names resemble common nouns. In order to capture the semiotic development 7 of proper names and their differences to demonstratives and common nouns, it is necessary to have a closer look at the specification of the sign triad. The context of football reporting proves quite useful in this respect. 3.3. The development of proper names Step I: rhematic indexical sinsign On the first encounter, a proper name resembles a spontaneous cry, merely directing someone’s attention to some object. Even though this spontaneous cry does not yet have a conventionalised form, it is existent and thus a sinsign as regards the representamen. The object relation is existent, hence it is an index, whereas the interpretant relation is a mere possibility, hence the sign is rhematic in this respect. Imagine watching the first round in the UEFA-Cup, with Bayern Munich playing, say, Drava Ptuj (Slovenia). At the beginning, a supporter of Bayern Munich (who is used to watching Champions League only) most probably will not know a single name of the Slovenian team. Observing a player entering the penalty area and hearing the reporter scream a string of sounds, he probably infers that this cry was intended to direct his attention to that specific player. Step II: rhematic indexical legisign With the second and third encounter of the same cry, it manifests itself not as spontaneous and ad hoc, but as an instantiation of one and the same basic type of articulated sounds, say Damir Zagoršek. The representamen has become a replica (token) of a legisign (type). The object relation is not yet established as a habit, the interpretant remains a mere possibility. A proper name as a rhematic indexical legisign serves to create a situation and accentuate it by bringing the indicated object into the focus of attention (Scherer 1984: 261). At this stage, the former cry becomes similar to a demonstrative pronoun (e.g., Peirce 1983: 129), which is fixed in shape (hence a legisign), but does nothing more than direct attention to an object indicated by an accompanying symbolic sign (usually a common noun). One decisive difference between proper names and demonstrative pronouns 8 consists in the following: whereas the different replicas of the latter signify different things, each replica of the former “signifies whatever earlier replicas signified, going back to its original replicas, assigned, by an act of naming” (Short 1982: 295; cf. also Peirce 2000b: 153). This act of naming does not have to be an act of baptizing; the first acquaintance with that name may also be taken as the starting point for the chain of replicas signifying the respective individual. Step III: dicentic indexical legisign Gaining more information about the indicated object, e.g. that Damir Zagoršek is a striker, was born in 1988, is 172 cm tall, etc. 9 , the former cry can be interpreted as 7 Crucially, the stages of this development are a matter of use, not an intrinsic property of the name. 8 The same holds for pronouns like I, relative pronouns or quantifying words. 9 <http: / / www.nkptuj-klub.si/ > (accessed 5-23-2007) <?page no="188"?> 185 shortcut for ‘this is Damir Zagoršek’, that is, the interpretant relation changes from mere possibility to existence. Signs of this class include an iconic legisign in order to express some information, and a rhematic indexical legisign in order to denote the object of this information. Denotation is combined with signification. The inclusion of an icon distinguishes proper names from demonstrative pronouns - proper names both denote (index) and signify (icon) their object. Even though the sign at this level gives a rule of how to identify the object, the functioning of the index is still dependent on the existence of the object within the same situation (Scherer 1984: 264). Step IV: rhematic/ dicentic symbolic legisign Contrary to demonstrative pronouns, fully-fledged proper names are able to cross-refer, i.e. to signify an individual without it having to be present in the actual situation. The possibility of cross-reference is the second defining characteristics of proper names: An expression is a proper name, if and only if it is possible to introduce it as an index of an individual object so that this name is used as a symbol in all other situations different from the one where the object is present and indexically identified. (Pape 1982: 346) Once the object does not have to be present in the actual situation, the proper name is characterised as rhematic/ dicentic 10 symbolic 11 legisign. Since this characterisation is true of common nouns as well, the question arises as to whether there is a difference at all, and if so, what it consists in. 4. Proper names and common nouns If proper names were just ordinary common nouns, the uses in (4) should not sound as marked as they do. And indeed, the combination ‘ein + proper name’ is not possible in all contexts where common nouns are perfectly acceptable: 5a. Das ist eine Zitrone. this is INDEF . ART lemon. 5b. *Das ist ein Lukas Podolski. this is INDEF . ART Lukas.Podolski: P N . 5c. Das ist Lukas Podolski. this is Lukas.Podolski: P N . 6a. Eine Zitrone ist eine Zitrusfrucht. INDEF . ART lemon is INDEF . ART citrus.fruit. 6b. *Ein Lukas Podolski ist ein Fußballspieler. INDEF . ART Lukas.Podolski: P N is INDEF . ART football.player. 10 As an abstract entity, it is a rheme (possible), but as soon as it is uttered, it becomes a dicent (existing). 11 Short (1998: 120f., fn 9) does not regard proper names as symbols. Relying on Peirce (2000b: 153), he takes them as indexical legisigns. Peirce (ibd.), however, emphasises that he is not yet sure about this characterisation. <?page no="189"?> 186 6c. Lukas Podolski ist ein Fußballspieler. Lukas.Podolski: P N is INDEF . ART football.player. 7a. Eine Zitrone ist sauer. INDEF . ART lemon is sour. 7b. *Ein Lukas Podolski ist schnell. 12 INDEF . ART Lukas.Podolski: P N is fast. 7c. Lukas Podolski ist schnell. Lukas.Podolski: P N is fast. These examples reveal one specific feature of proper names, distinguishing them from common nouns: the proper name symbol has only one replica. This difference cannot be captured in terms of the sign elaborated in Figures 1-3. Starting around 1905, however, Peirce developed a more fine-grained categorisation of signs, which eventually led to a classification into sixty-six signs. Decisive for the purposes here is the relation of the sign to its immediate object - the object signified by the sign - as indefinite, singular or general, and the nature of the real object - the object that brings the sign into being - as abstract, concrete or collective (e.g. Pierce 2000b: 212-227). 13 Whereas a common noun is characterised as general and collective, proper names are singular and concrete. Contrary to the examples in (1) and (4), the indefinite article in (5)-(7) is used generically, that is, it denotes a class as such and not a single individual. (5) illustrates that the object of the proper name Lukas Podolski is a single individual and does not belong to a category, a member of which could be picked out. (6) shows that the object of a proper name is not part of hierarchically ordered categories. The oddness of ‘ein + proper’ name in (7) illustrates that such an object does not have a set of defining properties. Proper names are thus symbols of a special type - they are singular symbols (Pape 1982: 345) having only one unique argument: Symbols are like functions in that they take as arguments an unspecified number of individual objects fitting a certain description as their possible values. This important property of symbols is restricted by the uniqueness clause to the one individual object which is the one and only argument of a proper name. (Pape 1982: 345f.) The uniqueness of their argument explains the markedness of the uses of ‘ein + proper name’ in (1) and (4), and the unacceptability in (5) - (7). Still, proper names are not devoid of descriptive content. It is this descriptive content provided by the iconic component that distinguises proper names from demonstratives. The point that there is a description a proper name fits is illustrated by the uses of ‘ein + proper name’ in (1) and (4). Just like any other signs, proper names have - and as signs, they must have - the potential to produce effects in the interpreting mind, that is, to produce various interpretants. By their interpretants, proper names have as much ‘meaning’ as any other sign. 14 Thus, there is nothing special about proper names, except for their having only one object. Proper names represent a specific stage 12 Intended reading: fastness as defining characteristic. 13 The relation to the real object is that of a symbol for both proper name and common noun. 14 Peirce (2000b: 336) uses the term ‘meaning’ for any kind of effect (= interpretant) a sign may have. <?page no="190"?> 187 in the development of signs, more specifically, linguistic signs. Repeated use of a sign leads to its habitualisation in terms of form, object and interpretant. That proper names may continually develop with respect to their interpretants is illustrated in the following examples: the set of descriptions (of possible interpretants) associated with Werner Lorant in (8a) had to be updated in the course of the football season 2006/ 2007 with (8b); (8c) represents a prediction concerning the possible future enrichment of this set: 15 8a. Ein Werner Lorant steigt nicht ab […]. INDEF . ART Werner.Lorant: P N be.relegated: P RS N EG P ART [Sportbild 20/ 07 16.5.07] 8b. Ein Werner Lorant steigt doch ab! INDEF . ART Werner.Lorant: P N be.relegated: P RS does P ART [SZ 22.5.07] 8c. Wenn ein Werner Lorant absteigt […] steigt er if INDEF . ART Werner.Lorant: P N be.relegated: P RS promote: P RS he auch wieder auf. also again P ART [SZ 22.5.07] One crucial prerequisite for the use and interpretation of a proper name is prior acquaintance with it, by means of direct or indirect experience (Pierce 2000b: 337f.). If the interpreter is not acquainted with the object signified by the proper name, his mind cannot distinguish it from a common noun (Pierce 2000b: 196), as is illustrated in the following example, taken from Mendoza (2004: 162f): 9. [The bell rings. A opens the door, a man introduces himself with “Schmidt” and wants to talk to B] A to B: Ein Herr Schmidt möchte dich sprechen INDEF . ART Mr Schmidt want: P RS you talk: I NF In this case, the proper name functions as an ordinary common noun; the indefinite article introduces a discourse-new referent, which A is not in a position to accommodate from the context or his knowledge. Given that A does not have any acquaintance with Herr Schmidt, this is not an unusual use of a proper name, but rather quite an ordinary use of a common noun. Now what about the uses of ‘ein + proper name’ in cases where utterer and interpreter are familiar with the object of that proper name? 5. Creating a group of experts Comparing examples (1), (4) and (8) with (5) - (7) reveals that in the odd examples the indefinite article is not used in an individuating, but in a non-referential function. This is not possible for proper names, which cannot but denote individuals. 16 The overcoding of individuation in (1), (4) and (8) presupposes the existence of more than one exemplar, i.e. of a category encompassing a set of individuals, one of which is selected by ‘ein + 15 In the meantime (October 2007), reality has proven the contrary: Werner Lorant quit his job after a not too successful start to the 2007/ 2008 season. 16 Given, of course, the proper name is recognised as a proper name and thus functions as such. <?page no="191"?> 188 proper name’. This in turn suggests that there exist certain properties allowing this class of individuals to be distinguished from other classes. Compare Peirce’s distinction (2000b: 217) of indefinite article plus noun vs. proper name: the former has a simple quality as immediate object 17 , whereas the latter has a familiar, existent aspect as immediate object. This does not hold, however, for an interpreter who is not acquainted with this existent aspect. This latter property of proper names can be regarded as the basis for the effect created by ‘ein + proper name’. Combining ein with a proper name turns the immediate object of the proper name into a simple quality. Even though in this construction the proper name resembles a common noun, only if the hearer is familiar with the proper name and its bearer will he be in a position to accommodate or infer (by deduction) at least one appropriate quality. Using ‘ein + proper name’, the speaker assumes the hearer to be familiar enough with the proper name and its bearer, and to be in a position to infer the properties alluded to. This serves to create a community of experts as opposed to those who do not recognise the proper name as a proper name at all and those who recognise it, but still are not familiar with the bearer 18 - a subtle way for reporters to demonstrate their expertise while at the same time pretending not to show off. 6. Conclusion Within a semiotic approach as sketched here, the distinction of sense and reference and the question which of the two is lacking with proper names becomes irrelevant. Just as any other sign, proper names exist in a triad of relations. Just as with any other sign, these relations may develop from mere possibility via existence to a habit or rule. That proper names cannot be ascribed a definite meaning, or a definite description or cluster of descriptions, does not make them something special either. Just like any other sign, a proper name may cause various effects in the minds of the interpreters, which all relate to the immediate object indicated by the sign representamen. Contrary to common nouns, however, proper names are singular symbols; that is, their object types may be instantiated only with one object token. This property is in conflict with the additional, individuating use of the indefinite article, thus creating the expert-group-effect outlined above. 19 Instead of regarding proper names as defective in some respect, they can be taken as the most complete kind of linguistic sign. As “indexico-iconico-symbolic articulations” linking saying to showing, they are the only terms “capable of showing in actu the three categorical moments of reality in process.” (Thibaud 1987: 534) Appendix: Proper names mentioned in the paper BOROWSKI, Tim German player, Werder Bremen (Germany) 17 This is independent of the nature of the real/ dynamic object. 18 Jokes about Francesco Totti, for example, have their intended effects only to those who are familiar with the clichés, i.e. the set of properties, associated with him. 19 Proper names may, of course, have developed from common nouns by the principle of iconicity. In most cases, the iconic connection has been lost. <?page no="192"?> 189 DECO Portuguese player, FC Barcelona (Spain) FRINGS, Torsten German player, Werder Bremen (Germany) HILBERT, Roberto German player, VfB Stuttgart (Germany) INZAGHI, Filippo Italian player, AC Milan (Italy) LELL, Christian German player, Bayern Munich (Germany) LINCOLN Brasilian player, Schalke 04 (Germany) LORANT, Werner former German coach, 1860 Munich and SpVgg Unterhaching (both Germay) MERTESACKER, Per German player, Werder Bremen (Germany) OTTL, Andreas German player, Bayern Munich (Germany) PARDO, Pável German player, VfB Stuttgart (Germany) PODOLSKI, Lukas German player, Bayern Munich (Germany) RIBERY, Franck French player, Bayern Munich (Germany) RONALDINO Brasilian, player, FC Barcelona (Spain) TONI, Luca Italian player, Bayern Munich (Germany) TOTTI, Francesco Italian player, AS Roma (Italy) VÖLLER, Rudi former German player, former coach of the German national team References Boer, Steven E. (1978): Attributive names. In: Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 19: 1, 177-185 Jakobson, Roman (1971/ 1957): Shifters, verbal categories and the Russian verb. In: Jakobson (ed.) 130- 147 Jakobson, Roman (ed.) (1971): Selected Writings. Vol. II. The Hague: Mouton Mendoza, Imke (2004): Nominaldetermination im Westslavischen. Habilitationsschrift, München Oehler, Klaus (ed) (1984): Zeichen und Realität. Band I. Tübingen: Stauffenberg Pape, Helmut (1982): Peirce and Russell on proper names. In: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 18: 4, 339-348 Pape, Helmut (1990): Charles S. Peirce on objects of thought and representation. In: Noûs 24: 3, 375-395 Peirce, Charles S. (1983): Phänomen und Logik der Zeichen. Herausgegeben und übersetzt von Helmut Pape. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Shapiro, Michael (ed): The Peirce Seminar Papers 3. New York: Peter Lang Scherer, Bernd M. (1984): Peirces Analyse der Referenz im Rahmen seiner pragmatisch begründeten Semiotik. In: Oehler (ed) 259-266 Short, Thomas L. (1982): Life among the legisigns. In: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 18, 285-310 Short, Thomas L. (1998): Jakobson’s problematic appropriation of Peirce. In: Shapiro (ed) 89-123 Peirce, Charles S. (2000a): Semiotische Schriften II. edited by Christian Kloesel and Helmut Pape. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Peirce, Charles S. (2000b): Semiotische Schriften III. edited by Christian Kloesel and Helmut Pape. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Thibaud, Pierre (1987): Peirce on proper names and individuation. In: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 23, 521-538 Wolf, Ursula (ed.) (1993): Eigennamen. Dokumentation einer Kontroverse. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Dr. Barbara Sonnenhauser Institut für Slavische Philologie Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1 D-80539 München e-mail: basonne@lmu.de <?page no="194"?> 3. FOOTBALL DISCOURSES <?page no="196"?> 193 ARNAUD RICHARD TELEVISED FOOTBALL COMMENTARIES: DESCRIPTIONS, NARRATIONS & REPRESENTATIONS OF A NON-VICTORY. THE EUROPEAN CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL 1976 (BAYERN MUNICH VS AS SAINT-ÉTIENNE) May, 12 th , 1976, in Glasgow, nearly thirty years after the end of the Second World War, two of the most renowned soccer team from France and Germany faced each other in the final of the European clubs championship. International sports events provide great evidence of the way national cultures frame their view of other nationalities. I will seek through various examples to point out links between the operation of media sports discourse and the possible interests of countries as they occur in practice. This is examined through qualitative discourse examples from the transcription of the French television broadcast. Past and present issues of identity politics between France and Germany can be illuminated through this analysis. Attention is paid to whether national stereotyping, I/ we images, established/ outsider identities/ relations were evident in the direct broadcast of this soccer game. I will examine how television has transformed sport as a form of popular culture, focusing on sport as a form of political ritual and sport as an arena in which representations of nation and nationhood are continually being worked through. 1. Introduction The theoretical basis of this work is Critical Discourse Analysis, with an emphasis on grammar and rhetoric, through the use of the concept of dialogism. 1 Starting from the assumption that language is never neutral, I will consider the point that language privileges certain realities and conceals others. With language we actively create our identities and our social worlds. 2 Sport is generally considered to be a scene where hegemony is fully represented. Masculinity is one of the figures well studied and documented (Miller 2001; McKay et al. 2000). I will describe this work, along with research on forms of discrimination. I will focus on another part of the identity: nationality and nationhood. This topic has also been documented (Bass 2005; Bishop / Jaworski, 2003; Wenner 1998; Blain et al. 1993; Chandler 1988). I would now like to offer another approach, thanks to the theoretical angle of dialogism. I will examine how television has transformed sport as a form of popular culture, focusing on sports as a form of ritual and sports as an arena in which representations of nation and nationhood are continually being worked out. One specific genre will be treated, namely television broadcast commentaries. One game, broadcast on a French national television channel, will be analyzed. 1 This study is part of a PhD thesis, started three years ago with Professor Claire Kramsch for the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor Paul Siblot of the University of Montpellier 3. I would also like to address special thanks to Professor Bres for his interesting comments on my research. 2 See Van Dijk 1992; Fairclough / Wodak 1997, Wodak / Meyer 2001 for examples. <?page no="197"?> 194 Fist of all, I will present briefly the data and methods that I have used for this research, then I will deal with the social considerations regarding sports and football in particular. I will emphasize the particularities of the linguistic elements in the genre of television commentaries. Finally, I will present an analysis in three stages: from the rhetorical account of the non-victory (not: defeat! ), to the more generalized assumption of dialogism with some markers (like aussi/ ’also’, for example) and then more precise expressions using double negation. 2. Data and method 2.1. Data May, 12 th , 1976, in Glasgow, nearly thirty years after the end of the Second World War, two of the most renowned soccer teams from France and Germany faced each other in the final of the European clubs championship. This game was a huge event all over France, covered extensively by the country’s media. After the game, despite the defeat, the French players were received in Paris like national heroes. They walked down the Champs Élysées in Paris, as the French military troops had done in 1944 (and as the national team were to do in 1998 after winning the World Cup). Those elements are important when we consider the symbolic impact of that game. So much material was analyzable, but I decided to focus on one aspect in particular, the event itself and the television live broadcast. Only a part of a single soccer game is the focus of this analysis here: one game, but an important one: the final of the European Championship. 3 One game, but between two famous clubs from two major European countries: Germany and France. The game was broadcast nationally in France, on the only national public channel (at the time). Commercials were not included in the live broadcast. Only few replays in slow motion were presented, probably because of the few video cameras and less advanced technology in general, compared to now. The recording of the game led to a complete transcript, but for my analysis, only the last ten minutes were chosen because of the degree of tension mounting towards the end. The only goal of the game had already been scored and the final outcome was slowly but surely emerging. Two journalists commentated on the game. Bernard Père (BP in the transcription) is the sports specialist, and Thierry Roland (TR in the transcription) is the prime commentator. Their roles are different. Père has more an analytic role; Roland is more descriptive and his duration of speaking is twice as long as his colleague’s. During his career Thierry Roland has been noted several times for making comments close to racism or discrimination in general. At the time of the game, he was at the beginning of his career and Père was his first fellow-commentator. 3 However, I was not interested in the analysis of the representations and interactions of different European stereotypes. <?page no="198"?> 195 2.2. Method A real mythology has sprung up around this game. This football game is perhaps the one in France that has been the most widely discussed in history. VHS recorders were barely appearing on the market, so relatively few recorded copies of the match were available. Surprisingly, a recording of this final has never been commercialized in France, probably because of the defeat and the grief felt by most of Saint-Étienne’s supporters. The first approach was a purely quantitative one. I registered the names of each player and team, and counted the number of mentions for each. Then, the naming of each participant was documented. After that came the transcription of the game. Looking carefully at all these discursive elements, I finally picked those that seemed relevant and original for this study. 3. Soccer and TV comments 3.1. Soccer and its social implications International sports events provide interesting examples of the way any culture frames its view of other nationalities. If the expression ‘opium of the masses’ has been applied to sports and football in particular, it’s because it can reveal unconscious dimensions of identity. Sadly, football has also been a field of violence. It has sparked off tragic events sometimes not really covered by the media. For example, in 1969, after a football game between the two national teams of EL Salvador and Honduras, a real war spread from the pitch between players to the rest of the stadium and then to the armies and the whole countries. Issues of past and present identities between France and Germany can be illustrated through this analysis. Attention is paid to whether national stereotyping, I/ we images, established/ outsider identities/ relations and national codes of social conduct were evident in the live broadcast of this football game. 4 Drawing attention to stereotypes on a national basis as a result of the description of a single player also draws attention to general stereotypes and considerations of the country itself. It reflects the relations and possible tensions between two parts: the commentators and what is described. 3.2. Televised comments as a genre We invariably speak in a specific genre. Each linguistic product belongs at least to one genre. We speak only in definite speech genres […] We are given these speech genres in almost the same way that we are given our native language, which we master fluently long before we begin to study grammar […] The forms of language and the typical forms of utterances, that is, speech genres, enter our experience and our consciousness together, and in close connection with one another. (Bakhtine 1986: 78) 4 See Bruce 2004, for another complete analysis. <?page no="199"?> 196 The humanities and social sciences show an increasing interest in sports and the study of ‘sports announcer talk’ (Reaser 2003; Ferguson 1983). This research deals with sports announcer talk as a certain (sub)register or genre. Reaser makes a quantitative analysis of some of its specificities. Four different criteria are considered: (1) Subject simplification e.g.: [He] dribbles into the lane. (2) Copula absence e.g.: The rebound [is] pulled by Damian Wilkins. (3) Subject action inversion (3a) e.g.: Ball is knocked out-of-bounds by Anthony Grundy. (3b) to be compared with a non-inverted example e.g.: Anthony Grundy knocks the ball out-of-bounds. (4) Use of heavy modifiers e.g.: Tap is controlled by big jelly, Nigel Dixon. It seems also that a particular sport, through its specificities (its ‘rhythm’), can influence the genre. The matching of the speed of speech to the action is one of the elements. However, Reaser’s study remains focused on two combined approaches, i.e. rhetoric and grammar, whereas I shall take into account these specificities of the genre he points out, but will try to go beyond. 4. Rhetoric and grammar 4.1. Individualization of victory and sympathy in defeat On first looking at the material, it seems that a real dialectic is present. On the one hand, there is individualization of the victory (emphasis of the scorer for Bayern Munich, for example). On the other hand, there appears sympathy for the defeated team of AS Saint- Étienne. • Individualization of the victory The team of Bayern Munich won this game, but it never really just appeared as a simple victory. Precise details tend to illustrate this win by ‘diluting’ it: 5 1. [TR11] 6 Monsieur Palotai siffle la fin du match qui se termine j’ai envie de dire [ β ]contre le cours du jeu par [A] la victoire du Bayern mais que voulez-vous [ δ ] seul le résultat compte dans ces matchs de football et [ μ ] grâce à un but de Roth marqué sur coup franc à la 58ème minute [ Β ] le Bayern remporte sa 3ème coupe d’Europe et [ ω ] surtout l’autorisation de pouvoir la défendre l’an prochain alors que les Allemands ne seront sans doute pas champions de leur pays 5 Letters between square brackets are used to point at certain moments of the comment. 6 There are two commentators: BP is Bernard Père, TR is Thierry Roland. The numbers after these names refer chronologically to the turn in the overall commentary dialogue. <?page no="200"?> 197 = Mister Palotai whistles the end of the match that ends I would like to say [ β ] against the flow of the game [A] with Bayern’s victory but what do you expect [ δ ] only the result matters in such football games and [ μ ] thanks to a goal by Roth scored from a free-kick in the 58 th minute [ Β ] the Bayern wins its third European cup and [ ω ] above all the opportunity to defend it next year although the Germans will probably not be champions in their country According to Grice and the theory of maxims he developed, quantity is important. Having enough information is necessary, but not too much. The commentary picks up on who scored. But it also focuses on the exact nature of the action, the uniqueness of the free-kick, showing by extension the particularity of the goal. Bayern Munich won by the smallest difference possible and thanks to the individual skill of Roth. The precision of the exact timing of the goal is given, but there is no indication of the quality or excellence or the kick. This information needs to be added, for it is directly relevant. Instead of a positive comment on the German team or players, the two commentators focus on a negative aspect to undermine them. Their role as journalists is to give information, and they are supposed to be neutral. However, in an ‘international’ confrontation like this one, the presence of a French team leads them to show some preference. Sometimes the line between analysis and critical evaluation is thin, although they should balance this equally between the two teams. Critical evaluation needs to be justified and not always directed at a single team. At [ ω ], Thierry Roland emphasizes with surtout that ‘above all’ the German team has the right to compete in the tournament next year; as if the winning of the trophy was not the most important aspect at the time. Projecting the consequence of the win, he passes over the actual moment of victory. He seems to reject present reality as being perhaps too painful to realize. Looking at the phases of the commentary, there is clearly an alternation between negative and positive arguments: [ β , - ],[ A, + ], [ δ , - ], [ Β , + ],[ ω , - ] Moreover, the initial and final arguments both disfavour the German team. It’s not only the fact that a positive comment needs to be balanced with a negative one. Positive evaluation is hedged by two negative remarks. The ratio between positive and negative comments is unbalanced. In the same process of individualizing victory, another one is also at work: sympathy for the defeated team. • Sympathy for the defeated team 2. [BP1] alors que St-Étienne est mené par 1 but à 0 = while St-Étienne is down by 1 goal to 0 3. [BP2] et si les stéphanois sont éliminés ils auront beaucoup de regrets = and if the Stephanois are eliminated, they will have a lot to regret <?page no="201"?> 198 The French team (2 and 3) is placed in the passive in French. Bayern Munich is rarely the active subject. The commentators most of the time speak from the French team’s point of view. 4. [BP3] et là aussi on aura des regrets, on se dira et si Rocheteau avait joué la première mi-temps de ce match Saramagna à gauche qui faisait ce qu’il voulait enfin n‘ayons pas de regrets, ces stéphanois ont fait quoi qu’il arrive une très belle rencontre From 3 to 4, the commentator slides from ils (‘they’) to on (‘we’). In view of an impending defeat, he includes himself in the imaginary group of people who are going to have regrets. He adopts the attitude of a faithful fan. Rejecting the loser is less important than nationalistic identification. Boundaries are not fluid here. 5. [TR4] si on regarde le match que nous venons de vivre = if we look at the match we have just experienced In this final expression, there is clearly identification with the team. Here emotions are involved. The identification is, like the language, dynamic, while ‘ces stephanois’ (4) is a step back to the position of neutral commentator. Even so, some commentators become personally and even emotionally involved, letting ‘their heart speak’. 4.2. Dialogism: a victory in defeat Dialogism is a concept inherited from M. Bakhtine and his studies on literature in particular. This concept has been readapted by some linguists (Ducrot, Nølke, etc.), and has been renamed either polyphony or intertextuality. Each word presents a miniature arena where social accents possessing contradictory orientations meet and do battle. In the individual’s mouth, the word proves to be the product of the interaction between living social forces. (Bakhtine 1977 [1929]: 67) Three particularities, sometimes specific marks, will be discussed in this sub-section. The common interest remains to show in detail the importance of different linguistic elements. • Extraction The general definition of extraction in grammar is: “any syntactic process by which something is moved from within a clause or other unit to a position outside” (Matthews 1997: 124). In French this is realized through ‘stratégies de mise en relief’ (‘emphasizing strategies’) like c’est…qui/ que: 6. [TR12] ils ont manqué ce petit quelque chose pour faire la différence mais c’est cette réussite qu’il faut saluer les saluer = they missed this little something to make the difference but it is this success that has to be saluted <?page no="202"?> 199 Here the proposition c’est cette réussite qu’ is extracted for a specific reason. The speaker wants to emphasize the achievement but not the victory. To recognize the victory is to recognize a fact. He substitutes this fact for a more relative recognition. He highlights the difference by talking about ‘a little something’ that the French team ‘missed’. Moreover, he qualifies the outcome of the game as a ‘réussite’ (‘success’). But ‘réussite’ can also include the dimension of chance. Finally, St-Étienne did lose, but not for lack of trying. • Dialogism because of the negative particles 7. [ ∗ ] pas gagné ≠ perdu not won ≠ lost ‘Not won’ is not the same as ‘lost’. Anytime you deny something - put it in the negative form - you are presupposing that the corresponding affirmative has been considered or said before. It’s also a common expression of regret. Among Trujillo’s research, an interesting one is the one done on sports victory related to the American dream, taking as an example the American football team of the Dallas Cowboys. Vande Berg / Trujillo show how “[s]ports discourse can constrain and liberate readers by enriching or restricting interpretations of sports reality for readers” (1989: 219). Starting from one and the same reality, different words can shape our representations in totally different ways. One of the criteria of these conscious and unconscious choices when we speak is the criterion of listeners’ expectations, which are partly accommodated by the commentator. The notion of dialogism (an imaginary dialogue between speaker and listener) integrates this principle. 8. [TR12] finalement ils avaient fait tout ce qu’on attendait d’eux et même plus en venant ici en finale, ils n’ont pas gagné, là gagner ça aurait été le supplément = finally they had done all we expected them to do and even more coming here in final, they didn’t win, winning it would have been a supplement The expression of the unwanted anticipated loss is visible throughout the game. From the optimistic start to the positive descriptions at the end, the commentators are never criticising anything. The expectations have changed and ultimately just reaching the final was already a victory. The victory is characterized as a supplement, an extra, as if at the end it did not matter who has won… • A typical marker: aussi [= ‘also/ too’] The concept of dialogism has sometimes been criticized because of a lack of formal linguistic evidence. Some linguists (like Bres 1999) have tried to work upon markers, in order to show marks of dialogism in a text. Aussi [= ‘also/ too’] is one of these markers. One point here would be to distinguish anaphora from dialogism. Anaphora would be a reformulation of something which has already been said (where the initial speaker is still visible: Pierre m’a dit que X: Peter told me that X), while in dialogism, <?page no="203"?> 200 there is no trace left of this initial speaker, whose utterance is completely integrated into the new discourse (Pierre aussi est venu: Peter came too). Aussi can be related to the verb, but also to the noun. That means it can have different and complex relations with different parts of the sentence. Example 9 is a ‘typical’ one: 9. [BP11] les 25 000 spectateurs stéphanois qui sont ici crient « les Verts » car eux aussi ils ont le sentiment que les Stéphanois méritaient cette victoire = the 25 000 spectators from St. Étienne who are here are screaming “les Verts” because they too have the feeling that the Stéphanois (would have) deserved this victory 10. [BP11] d’accord le Bayern a gagné sur ce coup franc de Roth, ils méritent aussi peut-être aussi cette victoire mais les stéphanois ont fait un match en tous points remarquable = It’s true that Bayern has won on Roth’s free kick, they too deserve maybe this victory too but the Stéphanois have played a game which was in all points remarkable In (10), aussi is interestingly combined with peut-être (‘maybe’), which reduces the meaning admitted by aussi. ‘Maybe’ plays down the victory. The commentator mitigates his personal disappointment by sharing it with the audience. In this particular case, peut-être (‘maybe’) is surrounded by aussi (‘also/ too’) as if peut-être (‘maybe’) was too much agreement and recognition of this victory. 4.3. Double negation The last aspect analyzed in this paper is double negation. It was the first striking specificity in my data that inspired me to undertake the research. See the following two sentences from the same long comment: 11. [TR10] Ah ils ne sont pas malheureux ces joueurs du Bayern. = Ah they are not unhappy these Bayern players 12. [TR10] Monsieur Kitakian ne leur avait pas été défavorable… Mr. Kitakian had not been against them… In a literary analysis, this figure could be described as a litotes (see Matthews 1997): Term in rhetoric for understatement, especially by ‘ironic’ use of a negative, e.g. ‘That wasn’t at all a bad dinner’, meaning it was a good one. (Matthews 1997: 211) As the commentator is trying to reduce the impact of the German victory, the described process is fully relevant here. In a dynamic view of language production, I would even use the term ‘euphemistication’ to traduce the idea that discourse is created actively. While euphemism can be defined as a “word, etc., used in place of one avoided, e.g. ‘Girls’ for ‘Prostitutes’,” (Matthews 1997: 119), the concept of litotes refers more to a syntactic structure (negation), which is the case here. In the two examples, the structure is the same: negative particles (ne and pas) 7 + negative prefix on the adjective (maland dé-). The double negation in that case 7 It is well known that they always come in pairs in standard French. <?page no="204"?> 201 conveys overall a positive meaning. 8 Roland is not saying bluntly: ‘they are happy’ or ‘the referee is in their favour’ (which is a classic complaint in sport), but he is expressing quite the same with more sophisticated means. In examples 11 and 12, the positive equivalent (with the same subject) would convey a different evaluation. Doing as he does, the commentator denies something which, in fact, is highly improbable. The benefit is that there is no direct evaluation but an indirect one, like a rectification of something, as if someone had asserted ‘they are unhappy’ or ‘he was against them’. It’s a reactive utterance and not an evaluative one. This procedure can be classified as a linguistic ‘detour’ because it can be understood thanks to a fictive utterance (‘they are unhappy’ or ‘he was against them’), which it seems to react to. 5. Conclusion This is work in progress, and the same data (as well as some comparable ones) might be analysed from a different angle. One interesting theory to apply to them would be the notion of face developed by Goffman, for example. The commentators should have tacit neutrality, and have to keep a positive face. But their use of personal pronouns creates a totally different story: All discourse is heterogeneous, meaning it contains many references to other discourse, other subjects, other opinions, other social classes, and other languages. Each use of ‘I’ is haunted by the image and the discourse of ‘you’ and of ‘he/ she/ they’. (Bres 1988, cité dans Barbéris et al. 2003: 10) I would like to end with the assumption I presented in the introduction: language is never neutral. I hope this analysis has revealed the social meanings embedded in any kind of discourse, and especially in sports announcer talk. References Bakhtine, Mikhaïl (1977 [1929]): Le marxisme et la philosophie du langage. Paris: Minuit Bakhtine, Mikhaïl (1986): Speech genres and other late essays. Austin: University of Texas Press Barbéris, Jeanne-Marie (ed.) (1999): Le français parlé: variétés et discours. Montpellier III: Praxiling Barbéris, Jeanne-Marie / Bres, Jacques / Lafont, Robert / Siblot, Paul (2003): Theoretical frames in specific French sociolinguistic schools. Praxematics: a linguistics of the social production of meaning. In: International Journal of Sociolinguistics 160, 81-104 Bass, Amy (ed.) (2005): In the game. Race, identity, and sports in the twentieth century. New York: Palgrave MacMillan Bres, Jacques (1988): Bakhtine, une paternité rétrospective pour la praxématique? In: Cahiers de praxématique 10, 33-55 Bres, Jacques (1999): Textualité narrative orale, genres du discours et temps verbal. In: Barbéris, 107- 133 8 However, this is not always the case in French, see: il n’a jamais rien fait (‘he has never done anything’, literally: ‘he has never done nothing’), where the double negation remains negative semantically. (A special thank to Eva Lavric for her remarks that emphasize even more the complexity of negation itself.) <?page no="205"?> 202 Bishop, Hywel / Jaworski, Adam (2003): ‘We beat’em’: nationalism and the hegemony of homogeneity in the British press reportage of germany versus England during Euro 2000. In: Discourse & Society 14/ 3, 243-273 Blain, Neil / Boyle, Raymond / O’Donnell, Hugh (1993): Sport and national identity in the European media. Leicester: Leicester University Press Bruce, Toni (2004): Making the boundaries of the ‘normal’ in televised sports: The play-by-play of race. In: Media, Culture and Society 26/ 6, 861-879 Chandler, Joan M. (1988): Television and national sport. Urbana et al.: University of Illinois Press Fairclough, Norman / Wodak, Ruth (1997): Critical discourse analysis. In: van Dijk, 258-284 Ferguson, Charles A. (1983): Sports announcer talk. In: Language in Society 12/ 2, 153-172 Matthews, Peter H. (1997): Concise dictionary of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press McKay, Jim / Messner, Michael A. / Sabo, Don (eds.) (2000): Masculinities, gender relations and sport. Thousand Oaks: Sage Miller, Toby (2001): Sportsex. Philadelphia: Temple University Press Reaser, Jeffrey (2003): A quantitative approach to (sub)registers: The case of ‘sports announcer talk’. In: Discourse Studies 5/ 3, 303-321 Vande Berg, Leah R. / Trujillo, Nick (1989): The rhetoric of winning and losing: The American dream and America’s team. In: Wenner, 204-224 van Dijk, Teun A. (1992): Discourse and denial of racism. In: Discourse & Society 3/ 1, 87-118 van Dijk, Teun A. (1997): Discourse as Social Interaction, vol. 2. London: Sage Wenner, Lawrence A. (ed.) (1989): Media, sports & society, Newsbury Park et al.: Sage Wenner, Lawrence A. (ed.) (1998): MediaSport, London et al.: Routledge Wodak, Ruth / Meyer, Michael (2001): Methods of critical discourse analysis. London: Sage Arnaud RICHARD Département Sciences du Langage et Médiation Culturelle et Communication Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3, France 34 090 Montpellier e-mail: arnaud.richard@gmail.com http: / / www.praxiling.com <?page no="206"?> 203 JULIA KUHN GIANNI AGNELLI - ‘UN TIFOSO VERO’: THOUGHTS ON THE DISCOURSE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITIES IN ITALIAN PRINT MEDIA In the present study we consider an aspect of the discourse construction of identity in Italian print media. The (hyper-real) figure we focus on is Gianni Agnelli. The aspect of his represented identity we choose is his passion for football. We show that identities can be constructed by the use of nominations and other means. We illustrate that, for the discourse construction of Gianni Agnelli’s identity, his interest in football is not only a way to show his involvement in sport, but also a symbol of the solidarity and loyalty existing between the Agnelli family, the players of Juventus Turin and its fans, FIAT and its collaborators, as well as the city of Turin. 1. Introduction The theoretical framework of this study is critical discourse analysis (CDA), where the construction of identities in the media is based on works in the tradition of critical discourse analysis (van Leeuwen 2005, Fairclough 2003), as well as critical studies (CS) (Dyer 1998, Fiske 1996). The linguistic background is systemic functional linguistics (Halliday 1994). Discourse and discourse practice are considered to constitute society, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to be constituted by society (cf. Fairclough / Wodak 1997: 264f., Fairclough 1998, Fairclough 1995: 18). Discourse is considered to be a multimodal phenomenon in which verbal and semiotic modes (of realization) cooccur: A multimodal approach assumes that the message is ‘spread across’ all the modes of communication [...] each mode is a partial bearer of the overall meaning of the message. All modes, speech and writing included, are then seen as always partial bearers of meaning only. (Kress 2002: 6) Different concepts of identity 1 coexist: identity is, on the one hand, seen as a static, homogeneous, unchangeable concept (cf. Reisigl 2003: 31-48); on the other hand, it is seen as a changing phenomenon produced by discourse activity (Schmidt 2000: 113ff., Chouliaraki / Fairclough 1999: 96ff.) Schmidt (2000: 115) calls identity a communicative construction. In recent media-dominated societies, images are produced by semiotic and discourse means and aim at evoking “folgenreiche Aufmerksamkeit” (‘attention with due effect’) (Schmidt 2000: 235) for persons like Gianni Agnelli, 1 Constructions of identities in the media are based on texts, but since they have points of reference in extra-linguistic reality, they are hyperreal (cf. John Fiske (1996: 2, 68ff.: hyperreal figure)). Even if these hyperreal figures show traces of extralinguistic existence, they are independent. Fairclough illustrates the tendency to significations without reference: “There is no real object, only the constitution of an object in discourse.” Norman Fairclough (1998: 139) <?page no="207"?> 204 products or organizations (cf. Chouliaraki / Fairclough 1999: 96, Schmidt 2000: 235f., Fairclough 2002: 163f., Hellmann 2003, Hellmann 2005). 2. Nominations as a way to represent identities There are many ways of representing the construction of identities in media discourse. They can concern the unit of reference (the figure or the brand), like nomination, or go further and concern relations, actions or textual structures. Nomination is a special form of reference to an extra-linguistic entity, reflecting by connotation 2 or denotation the attitudes, values and perspectives of a language user towards an entity he refers to (Reisigl 2003 with Girnth 1993) 3 . 3. Nominations for Gianni Agnelli CDA approaches to the naming of social figures (cf. van Leeuwen 1996, Reisigl / Wodak 2001, Reisigl 2003, Wetschanow 2003) distinguish proper names (Gianni Agnelli) and classifications (faro della classe imprenditoriale (Z 218), padrone della Fiat (I 30), presidente della Juve (Z 349), tifoso vero (I 42)). Classification is the designation of an entity by an essential characteristic (like the external appearance of a person, his conviction, his social position, his functions, etc.). 4 Another area that can be a source of nomination is discourse representation or the construction of interpersonal relations: e.g. the family (Gianni Agnelli: padre (Z 207), capofamiglia (I 51), guida del gruppo di famiglia Z 202)), the isotopy of identity (Gianni Agnelli: uno di noi (Z 210)) or of difference (Gianni Agnelli: il vero re d’Italia (I 26)) (cf. Reisigl 2003; van Leeuwen 1996). The following list contains the nominations for Gianni Agnelli found in the newspaper ‘La Repubblica’ in the years 2003-2007 and shows how diverse these nominations are: Leader: capo (I 26), leader (I 38, Z 206), senatore a vita (I 30), uomo di stato (Z 215); Monarch: il re di Torino (Z 216), il vero delfino (I 30), il vero re d’italia (I 26), il re senza corona (Z 185), sovrano (I 30), sovrano costituzionale (Z 206), successore per autonomasia (Z 206), patriarca (I 2), principe (I 44), monarca in forza (I40); Industry: campione dell’impreditoria italiana (I 32), capitano d’industria (I 30), capo (I 26), il faro della classe imprenditoriale (Z 218), padrone della Fiat(I 30); Dandy: play boy (I 30), signore del mare (I 42), simbolo nel mondo (I 31), imprenditore cosmopolita (Z 210), gentiluomo (I 30); Political Figure: senatore a vita (I 30), uomo di stato (Z 215); Family: padre (Z 207), capofamiglia (nel senso più antico e più classico) (I 51), la guida del gruppo di famiglia (I 51), erede (I 25), ereditiere (I 30), il patriarca (I 2), anziano patriarca (Z 244), leggendario capo (I 26); 2 The basic concept of the constitution of signification is connotation (van Leeuwen 2005: 29-43), which can be understood with Roland Barthes (1967a, 1967b, 1977) as signification determined by social and cultural facts. 3 Nomination in the tradition of CDA is described by van Leeuwen 1996, Reisigl 2003, Wetschanow 2003, Wodak / Reisigl 2001. 4 Nomination and predication are linked cf. Reisigl 2003, van Leeuwen 1996, Halliday 1994. <?page no="208"?> 205 Hope: filo di speranza (I 27); Protagonist: figura centrale (I 27), personaggio leggendario (I 42), personaggio più coraggioso (I 51), grande protagonista della vita italiana (I 32), grande statista (Z 215), protagonista consapevole del secolo (I 46), rappresentante del secolo, rappresentante più conosciuto dell’italia industriale I 32); Myth: l’icona (I 31), mito (I 31); Solidarity: uno di noi; (Z 210) Italianità: Torinese DOC (I 37), il grande italiano (I 32), grande protagonista della vita italiana (I 32), un torinese melange (Z 214), il re di Torino (Z 216), rappresentante più conosciuto dell’Italia industriale (I 32), il vero re d’Italia (I 26); Honour: persona benemerita (I 41), pilastro fondamentale (I 37), vecchio saggio (Z 185); Functions: presidente onorario della Fiat (I 27, I 28), lavoratore instancabile (Z 349); Juventus: proprietario (I 42), presidente (Z 349), azionista (I 42), tifoso vero (I 42); Nome d’arte: Avvocato (I 30). The nominations proprietario (I 42), presidente (Z 349), azionista (I 42), tifoso vero (I 42) reflect Gianni Agnelli’s relation to the football club Juventus. Gianni Agnelli is owner, president, shareholder and true fan. If one looks at the whole citation, Gianni Agnelli is not only a true fan, but he also displays considerable competenza and intuito: La passione di Agnelli non era solo quella del proprietario, del presidente, dell’azionista, cariche che ha ricoperto nel corso della sua vita. Agnelli era un tifoso vero, attento e spesso con un intuito e una competenza che lasciava sbalorditi gli addetti ai lavori. (I 42). [Agnelli’s passion was not only the passion of owner, president, shareholder, functions he has fulfilled in the course of his life. Agnelli was a true fan, he was devoted and he possessed an intuition and competence that fascinated workers.] 4. Beyond nomination Agnelli’s fascination for football is one of many aspects that contribute to the construction of the media figure Gianni Agnelli. In general, the identity created by the media for the Agnelli family is sports. The clan is represented as a family interested in ‘la vela, lo sci’ (I 42) [‘sailing, skiing’] and ‘lo sport in generale’ [‘sport in general’] (I 42). An Agnelli „[ama] lo sport per tradizione familiare, ma solo quello divertente“ (Z 358) [‘An Agnelli loves sport by family tradition, but only the entertaining type’]. In media discourse, football and Juventus are represented as the family’s biggest passion, as shown in the previously mentioned quote from ‘La Repubblica’. Agnelli has the image of a tifoso [‘fan’] and a football expert. His presence at football games is represented as being appreciated. “Il suo arrivo al campo di allenamento [...], era sempre atteso - e desiderato - dai cronisti, sicuri di avere da lui battute destinate immancabilmente a fare titolo.”(I 42) [His arrival at the training field was always expected and appreciated by the reporters since they could be sure they would hear comments from Agnelli that could make a headline.] The image of a close relationship between the players of Juventus and the Agnelli family was defined by the presence of the family at important games. The image of the loyalty of the players towards the family and FIAT is established in a semiotic way: “I giocatori quando vanno all’allenamento possono entrare nel parcheggio solo con la macchina corporata della società, Fiat o Lancia, altrimenti entrano a piedi” (Z 288). [When the players come to practice, they are only <?page no="209"?> 206 allowed to enter into the stadium’s parking area if they drive a car of one of the firm’s own labels like FIAT or LANCIA ; otherwise they have to walk.] Also the former president of the football club, Umberto Agnelli, came in a “nuovissima Lancia Ypsilon grigia” [brand new grey Lancia Ypsilon] (Z 321) to address the players before an important match. The image of mutual support goes further. The football season begins with a friendly get-together of Juventus with the Agnellis at the family’s summer house in Villar Perosa. “E l’appuntamento di metà agosto a Villar Perosa, per la tradizionale amichevole in famiglia della Juventus nella Valle Chisone, era il prologo alla stagione calcistica”. (I 42) [The traditional friendly meeting of Juventus and the Agnelli Family in Valle Chisone was the prologue to the football season.] Success is celebrated together with the players’ families: “La Juve a un certo punto ha festeggiato il suo ultimo scudetto in maniera affettuosa, con mogli e bambini in campo”. (Z 288) [Juventus celebrated its last title in an endearing way with the players’ wives and children on the football field]. Players are given nicknames like members of a family: Alessandro del Piero is called Pinturrichio (I 37). The closeness is not limited to a representation of the Agnelli-Juventus relationship. An image of solidarity is also constructed for the players and the F IAT workers: “La maggior parte degli operai della Fiat sono nostri tifosi: anche per questo siamo vicini a loro e alle loro famiglie. In passato siamo riusciti a regalare loro molte soddisfazioni, e giochiamo anche per questo. Anche se mi rendo conto che non potrà essere un successo della Juve a risolvere i problemi.” (Z 198) [The majority of F IAT workers are our fans: this is another reason for our close feelings towards them and their families. In the past we were able to give them a lot of joy and this is one good reason for us to play. Even if I am aware of the fact that Juventus won’t be able to resolve all problems.] In addition to the multiple representations of close relationships, there is the discourse representation of conflict issues like the one of Juventus Turin vs. AC Milan or, in other words, of Gianni Agnelli vs. Silvio Berlusconi. “Diranno che la partita non è solo tra la Juve e Milan, ma tra l’Italia di Agnelli e quella di Berlusconi” (Z 288). [They will say that the match is not only the one of Juventus Turin vs. AC Milan, but between the Italy of Angelli and the Italy of Berlusconi.] This tension is also felt by the fans: for politicians to book a flight organized by a Milan club, they were forced to sign a form declaring that they were fans of AC Milan. For many Juventus Fans this was not acceptable. “Ma non tutti i parlamentari juventini hanno accettato di salire sul volo per un motivo di fede calcistica. ‘Per andare con loro (…) ci veniva chiesto di firmare un foglio in cui si dichiara di essere tifosi del Milan, essendo il volo organizzato da un Milan club.’” (Z 289) [But not all parliamentarians who were Juventus fans were prepared to take the flight out of their football conviction. ‘To be allowed to fly with them, we were asked to sign a form, in which one declares oneself to be a fan of Milan, since the flight was organized by a Milan club.’] In the struggle between Agnelli and Berlusconi, the quality of the respective football clubs is considered to be important. So the Agnellis buy expensive players with the aim of maintaining the status of Juventus. The glory of an excellent football club is meant to reflect on the image of the Agnelli family. <?page no="210"?> 207 The tension between the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi and the Italy of Gianni Agnelli went far beyond football. Berlusconi was blamed for not supporting Fiat in times of crisis and causing workers and their families to suffer more than necessary. The struggle between Gianni Agnelli and Silvio Berlusconi was ended by the death of Gianni Agnelli. Even the funeral of Gianni Agnelli was instrumentalized semiotically in the media. The relationship of the Juventus Fans to their former president Gianni Agnelli was represented as being very close. At Gianni Agnelli’s funeral, Juventus fans wore Tshirts and scarves in the colours of Juventus. “Molti i giovani che hanno partecipato al funerale dell’Avvocato indossando la maglia bianconera oppure sciarpe coi colori della Juve.” (Z 211) [Many young people came to the funeral of the ‘Avvocato’ wearing black and white T-shirts and scarves with the colours of Juventus.] As a reference to the deceased Gianni Agnelli, a Juventus shirt was laid on the seat that had remained empty. “Dieci come il numero della maglia che qualche attimo prima dell’inizio della partita il presidente della Juventus, l’avvocato Vittorio Chiusano, aveva depositato sulla potroncina 32 fila 7 della tribuna vip dello stadio delle Alpi.” (Z 212) [Ten, like the number on the shirt that the President of Juventus, the lawyer Vittorio Chiusano, had placed on seat 37 in row 7 of the VIP stand of the ‘Stadio delle Alpi’ shortly before the beginning of the game.] “Prima dell’inizio, era stato il presidente Chiusano, tra lo scrosciare delgi applausi, a deporre una maglia bianconera sul suo sedile rimasto vuoto.” (I 45) [Before the game started, the president, Chiusano, placed a black and white shirt on the seat that had remained empty.] The close relationship between Gianni Agnelli, FIAT and the city of Turin is represented verbally by stressing the difficult situation of Juventus after Gianni Agnelli’s death. “La Juve a un certo punto ha dovuto elaborare il lutto: fare senza Torino, fare senza la Fiat, fare senza l’Avvocato.” (Z 288) [Juventus from a certain point had to start mourning: to be able do without Turin, without Fiat and without the ‘Avvocato’.] 5. Conclusion It has been shown that the close relationship of Gianni Agnelli and Juventus Turin plays an important role in the construction of identity of the hyper-real figure Gianni Agnelli . His identity is reconstructed by names such as owner, president, shareholder and true fan. Furthermore, he is represented as a football expert who cares about loyalty, the close relationship of the Agnelli family, the players of Juventus, the Fiat workers, the fans. Gianni Agnelli is constructed as a medial figure interested in and an expert on football, devoted to Juventus, fighting against AC Milan and Berlusconi. Loyalty transcends his life; the fans continue to show their devotion even after his death. <?page no="211"?> 208 References Barthes, Roland (1967a): Elements of semiology. London: Cape Barthes, Roland (1967b): Système de la mode. Paris: Seuil Barthes, Roland (1977): Image, music, text. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath. 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Gli stadi ricordano l'Avvocato. <http: / / www.repubblica.it/ >, 26.01.2003 I 46: M AURO , Ezio: Il destino incompiuto. <http: / / www.repubblica.it/ >, 25.01.2003 I 51: T ROPPEA , Salvatore: Gianni, un fratello che tutti vorrebbero. <http: / / www.repubblica.it/ >, 11.03.2003 <?page no="213"?> 210 ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Julia Kuhn Institut für Romanische Sprachen Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien Nordbergstr. 15 A-1090 Wien e-mail: jkuhn@wu-wien.ac.at http: / / www2.wu-wien.ac.at/ roman/ index.php? category=Services&item=Personen&EmployeeID=67 <?page no="214"?> 211 RICHARD W. HALLETT AND JUDITH KAPLAN-WEINGER “THE PLACE EVERY FOOTBALL FAN WANTS TO VISIT”: A DISCURSIVE ANALYSIS OF FOOTBALL AND SOCCER HALLS OF FAME This paper looks at the role of two sports Halls of Fame in the US, the Pro Football Hall of Fame (www.profootballhof.com) and the National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum (www.soccerhall.org), in terms of organizational self-promotion and, in particular, at the multimodal semiotic of these halls’ respective websites in performing this function. The goal is to examine not only how these sites differ (or do not), but also how they incorporate linguistic and visual text in their discursive construction as ideological shrines of the physical places they represent. These sites can be seen in a critical discourse analytic perspective as enticing sports enthusiasts to undertake a pilgrimage to a holy memorial to the individuals, teams, and events they revere (see Kirshenbaum 1971, Redmond 1973, Snyder 1991, Gammon 2002, and Hinch / Higham 2003). Adopting the view that tourism websites serve as promoters of social action, this analysis focuses on the Web as an ideological mediator of tourism. Findings reveal that through the use of a multimodal array of lexical and visual texts, sports websites function to call sports fans to action, i.e. to demonstrate respect and devotion. 1. Introduction In the United States, football refers to a game - some might argue a religion (see Gammon 2004) - that involves helmets, ‘pigskin’, touchdowns, and - of course - the Super Bowl. What the rest of the world calls football is known in the US as soccer, an increasingly popular game that, despite the acquisition of David Beckham by the Los Angeles Galaxy, has still not reached the stratospheric level of popularity of other major American sports (nor ‘football’ in the rest of the world), especially not American football. Sports in the United States are more than a game; they are a business. Accordingly, ‘organized’ athletics in the United States adopt a sophisticated, systematic corporate structure. Aside from individual teams’ efforts to promote their respective sports’ ‘business’, major individual sports themselves must self-promote. This paper looks at the role of two sports Halls of Fame in the US, the Pro Football Hall of Fame (www.profootballhof.com) and the National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum (www.soccerhall.org), in this organizational self-promotion and, in particular, at the multimodal semiotic of these halls’ respective websites in performing this function. Our goal is to examine not only how these sites are constructed and what they include, but also how they incorporate linguistic and visual text in their discursive construction as ideological shrines of the sports they represent. In contrast to the website for the British National Football Museum (www.nationalfootballmuseum.com), these sites of homage to two American sports can be seen in a critical discourse analytic perspective as enticing sports enthusiasts to undertake a pilgrimage to a holy memorial, a shrine, honouring/ celebrating the individuals, teams, and events they revere (see Kirshenbaum 1971, Redmond 1973, Snyder 1991, Gammon 2002, John 2002, and Hinch / Higham 2003). <?page no="215"?> 212 Adopting the view that tourism websites serve as promoters of social action, this analysis focuses on the Web as an ideological mediator of tourism. As Robinson / Smith (2006a: 10) have noted, “Football, and sport generally, has the power to define new tourist opportunities”. Findings reveal that through the use of a multimodal array of lexical and visual texts, the American football and soccer websites function to call sports fans to action, i.e. to demonstrate respect and devotion. In so doing, fans also act as tourists, contributing to the economic maintenance and/ or improvement of the organization. 2. Halls of Fame Sports tourism researchers frequently note how much of an American tradition halls of fame, particularly sports halls of fame, are. For example, Redmond (1973: 42) claims, “the specialized sports hall of fame in the United States is a peculiarly modern concept and closely allied with the development of American sport”. At this point, we should also note that sports tourism researchers do not use the terms hall of fame and museum synonymously; while both are examples of nostalgia sports tourism (see Snyder 1991, Gibson 1998, and Standeven / De Knop 1999), halls of fame revere the players whereas museums commemorate the sport itself. As Gammon (2002: 65-66) aptly summarizes, Sports museums have a longer past than halls of fame and can be described as general celebrations of a particular sporting past (e.g. Lords Cricket Museum and Wimbledon Museum). They tend to not just honour the elite, but also proudly display any miscellaneous heritage connected to the sport […] In contrast, halls of fame are attractions, which specifically venerate the famous, the gifted or the exceptional. They are very elite clubs whose members consist of the dead[,] the retired and, in some cases, the still playing. Indeed, such is the profile of halls of fame, they have become important indicators of how successful, accomplished and popular a sports career has been. Over time and across the globe, these halls of fame and museums have become quite important in terms of tourism. Snyder (1991: 229) states, On the surface it appears that halls and museums attract people because of their fascination with sport, including idolized figures and memorabilia from the past. But this is only part of the explanation; the attraction may also be based on the contrasts in incongruity between past and present. This juxtaposition of the past with the present creates the context for feelings of nostalgia. Concurring with Snyder, Gammon (2002: 66) writes, They [i.e., sports halls of fame] act as provocative reminders and endorsers that sport is important in our lives by glorifying and ossifying a sporting heritage that feeds off both private and collective nostalgia. It involves more than just hero worship; for a visit can evoke deeply felt memories that take on an almost religious context […] It is this notion of a religious context that we will take up later in this paper. <?page no="216"?> 213 3. Pro Football Hall of Fame website As aforementioned, religious imagery and allusions abound in American sports halls of fame promotional materials. On the Pro Football website is also found the Hall of Fame’s mission statement. The ‘mission’ (not to read too much religious symbolism into the website) is in four parts: • To honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to professional football • To preserve professional football’s historic documents and artifacts • To educate the public regarding the origin, development and growth of professional football as an important part of American culture • To promote the positive values of the sport (http: / / www.profootballhof.com/ hall/ release.jsp? release_id=932, accessed 7/ 13/ 07, original emphasis) As a tourist destination, the hall is promoted as a “sparkling and modern” building that for football pilgrims “serves as a hallowed honoring spot for the greats of the professional world” and “represents its sport in a great many other colorful and entertaining ways.” The website explains that the renovated Hall of Fame Enshrinement Gallery “presents a dynamic new look […] using elegant and timeless forms and materials to create a space with a sense of wonderment and reverence for each of the Hall of Fame members”; renovation condensed “the previous twin corridor-like enshrinement halls into one large awe-inspiring gallery”. In addition to the Gallery and complementing its spiritual aura, “[t]he expanded Enshrinees Mementos Room dominates” one of the five buildings in the Hall of Fame complex. (http: / / www.profootballhof.com/ hall/ release.jsp? release_id=932&title=HOF+opened+o n+ Sept.+7,+1963, accessed 4/ 3/ 07) Testifying to the Hall of Fame members’ honored stature and the desire of pilgrims to express their admiration of them, members are addressed as enshrinees; they are enshrined for their contributions and they participate in an enshrinement attended by more than 20,000 fans in the summer of each year. Writing about religious imagery in sports halls of fame, Gammon (2004: 35) states, “Players take on the mantle of hero, super hero or ‘savior’, and are in some cases mythologized in order to protect a special moment or a special age”. Such is the case in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where “[E]ach Hall of Fame member is honored with his bronzed likeness” that hangs in the Hall to serve as an altar at which fans can gather, having paid the entrance fee of $16.00 per adult and $13.00 per child, for that opportunity. Sports Halls of Fame in the US capitalize on fans’ devotion. For example, the Pro Football Hall of Fame website encourages fans to join the Insider’s Club by stating, “The Insider’s Club is every football fan’s chance to become a part of the living history that is the Pro Football Hall of Fame. By joining the Insider’s Club, you are helping the Hall of Fame continue to operate as the place every football fan wants to visit and every pro football player wants to be remembered.” (http: / / www.profootballhof.com/ InsidersClub/ ) <?page no="217"?> 214 4. National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum website Similarly, the National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum website encourages soccer fans to donate to the Hall: “Imagine your name, your team’s name, a coach, or your favorite Soccer Mom’s name immortalized at the home ‘Where Soccer Legends Live’ [...] It’s inexpensive, and makes a great gift! Buy a commemorative brick, laser engraved with your name, placed in the Walk of Fame! Plus your name and brick will be on the ‘Walk of Fame’ web page for only $150.00.” (http: / / www.soccerhall.org/ walk_of_fame_Intro.htm) The Soccer Hall of Fame is promoted as “dedicated to Celebrating the History, Honoring the Heroes, Inspiring the Youth, and Preserving the Legacy of the sport of Soccer” (http: / / www.soccerhall.org/ MissionStatement.htm). This appeal to the past, present, and future is couched in the actions of celebrating, honoring, inspiring, and preserving, and the appeal to courage and innocent morality is couched in the semantic properties of the nominals history, heroes, youth, and legacy. Thus, the Hall is positioned as a place where those who have earned recognition can be memorialized. 5. Halls of Fame: Linguistic and visual analysis Members of the Football Hall are chosen by a Board of Selectors made up of sports writers and other representatives who, based on their own recommendations and the nomination of “any fan”, vote for the addition of a new member. Board members and Hall of Fame enshrinees are an elite group, but not one that ignores its popular masses. Rather than functioning in an ‘us’ and ‘them’ semantic with football fans, the Hall of Fame reaches out to them to create a unified, interacting community of practice. Evidence of this is visible in these website banners (1) which incorporate the tourist with the inclusive and possessive pronoun your and the imperative structure in inviting him/ her to purchase artifacts from the Hall of Fame’s online store. 1. Figure 1: Hall of Fame Banners (http: / / www.profootballhof.com/ multimedia/ PhotoGalleries.jsp) Think of the co-membership marked by the visual texts in these banners. Helmet icons, jersey colors and numbers, the reflection in the mirrored football - those who recognize the ‘meanings’ of these texts share in the identity of ‘football fan’ and decorate our living spaces with. Enshrinement activities are presented as an American tradition, but by association with the players who are present and the game that is played that weekend, <?page no="218"?> 215 this identity as an American tradition extends to the game of football itself. Clad in the American flag’s colors of red, white, and blue, the visual and linguistic texts that head the enshrinement page and populate other pages reinforce that football is not just a game; it is a part of America (see examples 2, 3, and 4, below). Quoted in the Our Flag publication of the 105 th session of the US Congress in 1997, President Wilson intoned, “This flag, which we honor and under which we serve, is the emblem of our unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation” (http: / / www.access.gpo.gov/ uscode/ uscmain.html). Such is the power of this symbol that its colors trigger, consciously and subconsciously, a recognition of membership in and identity with a nation and its people. 2. . Figure 2: Pro Football Hall of Fame Logo 3. Figure 3: NFL Logo (http: / / www.profootballhof.com/ history/ index.html) 4. Figure 4 : Pro Football Hall of Fame Logo (http: / / www.profootballhof.com) The Soccer Hall of Fame website greets viewers with the following banner: 5. Figure 5: Soccer Hall of Fame Banner (http: / / www.soccerhall.org/ index.htm) <?page no="219"?> 216 A prism of red, blue, and white engraved with upper case white letters and the Soccer Hall logo (also a mix of red, white, and blue with gold stars) acknowledges that the past and its legends can be forever preserved. This banner heads every Soccer Hall page. When accessed following the 2007 induction ceremonies, the Soccer Hall website recognizes the soccer fan’s roles in this preservation with its homepage headline just below the prismed banner above: 6. Thanks for Making Induction 2007 Great! Figure 6: Soccer Hall of Fame Statement (http: / / www.soccerhall.org/ ) The thanks are directed to the fan through linguistic ellipsis of the pronoun you as in “Thanks to you who are a soccer fan for making induction 2007 great! ” Below these words, viewers see a collage of induction events including induction speakers wearing red blazers, inductees (one in a red uniform, another in a blue uniform) playing in the Hall of Fame game, and posed shots of inductees and fans. Inductees wear medals at the end of red, white, and blue ribbons. The photos, in encompassing the words Induction 2007, convey the ‘world’ of activity that surrounded the Hall events, as they envelop the viewer in those activities: 7. Figure 7: Soccer Hall of Fame Induction Webpage <?page no="220"?> 217 A ‘Support the Hall’ link on the website invites visitors to contribute to the Hall as well as to the sport by buying commemorative bricks that will pave the ground of the Hall. These bricks will be engraved with “your name” or “names of your choice”, thus making that name a physical part of the Hall’s campus (http: / / www.soccerhall.org / Support_the_Hall.htm). Anticipating these contributions, the page ends with a photo, headlined “Thank you for your continued support”, of a brick-paved courtyard leading to a hugely-sized soccer ball bearing the Hall of Fame seal that appears to have been kicked into the side of the building that houses the Hall (see example 8, below). The courtyard that is foregrounded in this photo is paved with lightly stained red and gray bricks; darker red commemorative bricks are interspersed among those that lie waiting to be engraved with the name of a fan. The placement of these bricks symbolizes that these names and contributors are responsible for the Hall’s existence; eye movement is drawn from foreground to background, from the real (monetary contributions) to the ideal (a shrine to honor soccer’s greats) marked by an enlarged soccer ball, seemingly breaking through a wall. It is the fans who have provided the power that has put the soccer in the building - literally. The fans are the ones whose contributions assure that this building stands as the Soccer Hall of Fame. 8. Figure 8: Soccer Hall of Fame Link Of particular significance to the theme of Hall of Fame as sacred/ spiritual/ pilgrimage site are the many verbal and visual texts that unite fan to sport. Beside the words of thanks mentioned above, the site speaks to its fans including them in the patriotic spirit of the game. For example, at the ‘Monthly Column’ link, essays written by soccer enthusiasts may be found. The following column capitalizes on the metaphor of justice in America and the power-filled words of Martin Luther King and American forefathers in calling for equal opportunity among the ranks of soccer players: <?page no="221"?> 218 9. I say to you today, my soccer friends, so even though we face the difficulties and frustrations of today and tomorrow, I still have a soccer dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American soccer dream. I have a dream that one day this Soccer Community will rise up and live out the true meaning and purpose of its existence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all children are created equal and that all adults involved in the game must protect and secure their rights to development and enjoyment.” I have a dream that one day the sons of urban immigrants and the sons of current suburbanites will be able to play together on the pitch of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Florida, a sports crazy state, sweltering with the heat of ultracompetitive youth coaches, will be transformed into an oasis of rationality and sanity. I have a dream that my three children will one day engage in a soccer community where they will not be judged by the color of their uniform, but by the content of their character. I still have that dream today. (http: / / www.soccerhall.org/ Monthly%20Column/ MC.February.2005.htm). 6. Conclusion Hall of Fame websites offer fans the opportunity to view and learn about the sport, its players, and their successes and failures without having to engage in physical travel. Additionally, as portals into the halls, they function in absentia for the Halls themselves. Snyder (1991: 233) says of such Halls, “the halls of fame and museums are agencies of socialization wherein the memories symbolically transmit values and norms”. He adds, “The sport halls of fame and museums are secular temples dedicated to the sport muses - gods and goddesses and the spiritual world of sport. They are also archives of sport material culture from an earlier time. The preservation of historical objects allows the observer to cross the barrier of time” (Snyder 1991: 237). Halls of Fame sites offer the patriot/ pilgrim a chance to indulge in the spiritual - a chance to adore and revere. As research into pilgrimage and tourism illustrates, pilgrims are not tourists in the more common use of that term. Rudolph (2004: 34) explains, A pilgrim is not a tourist. You have a deeper experience because you are not an observer in the traditional sense of the word […] You are part of the cultural landscape, part of the original reason for being and the history of many of the towns through which you pass […] This is why the pilgrimage is not a tour, not a vacation, not at all a trip from point A to point B, but a journey that is both an experience and a metaphor rather than an event. The journey through sports Halls of Fame, then, is a journey not only through the respective games, but also through the legacies of their players in a way that can make the pilgrim at one with the player. References Beard, Adrian (1998): The language of sport. London: Routledge Gammon, Sean (2002): Fantasy, nostalgia and the pursuit of what never was. In: Gammon / Kurtzman, 61-71 Gammon, Sean (2004): Secular pilgrimage and sport tourism. In: Ritchie / Adair, 30-45 Gammon, Sean / Kurtzman, Joseph (eds.) (2002): Sport tourism: Principles and practice. Eastbourne: Leisure Studies Association <?page no="222"?> 219 Gibson, Heather J. (1998): Sport tourism: A critical analysis of research. In: Sport Management Review 1/ 1, 45-76 Hinch, Thomas / Higham, James (2003): Sport tourism development. Clevedon: Channel View John, Geraint (2002): Stadia and tourism. In: Gammon / Kurtzman, 53-59 Kirshenbaum, Jerry (1971): Bats and busts, size-15 sneakers and a dead bird. In: Sports Illustrated 34/ 26, 63-74 Redmond, Gerald (1973): A plethora of shrines: Sport in the museum and hall of fame. In: Quest 19, 41- 48 Ritchie, Brent W. / Adair, Daryl (eds.) (2004): Sport tourism: Interrelationships, impacts and issues. Clevedon: Channel View Robinson, Mike / Smith, Melanie (2006a): Politics, power and play: The shifting contexts of cultural tourism. In: Robinson / Smith b, 1-17 Robinson, Mike / Smith, Melanie (eds.) (2006b): Cultural tourism in a changing world: Politics, participation and (re)presentation. Clevedon: Channel View Rudolph, Conrad (2004): Pilgrimage to the end of the world: The road to Santiago de Compostela. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Snyder, Eldon E. (1991): Sociology of nostalgia: Sports halls of fame and museums in America. In: Sociology of Sport Journal 8, 228-238 Standeven, Joy / De Knop, Paul (1999): Sport tourism. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Websites http: / / www.access.gpo.gov/ uscode/ uscmain.html (2001), 10/ 10/ 2007 http: / / www.nationalfootballmuseum.com (n.d.), 10/ 10/ 2007 http: / / www.profootballhof.com (2007), 13/ 7/ 2007 http: / / soccerhall.org (n.d.), 3/ 4/ 2007 Dr. Richard W. Hallett and Dr. Judith Kaplan-Weinger Department of Linguistics Northeastern Illinois University 5500 North St. Louis Avenue Chicago, IL 60625-4699 USA e-mail: R-Hallett@neiu.edu J-Kaplan1@neiu.edu <?page no="224"?> 221 RENÉ SCHIERING REGIONAL IDENTITY IN SCHALKE FOOTBALL CHANTS 1 The football rite is structured by a strict succession of ritualized, verbal and non-verbal practices, such as football cheers and chants. Collective fan utterances fulfill the same function as other forms of ritual communication: they establish and strengthen a bond of unity within a group. Due to the organizational format of football from local leagues to world championships, the negotiation of regional identity is a salient ingredient of this process. This paper presents a first ethnolinguistic analysis of how regional identity is expressed in Schalke football cheers and chants. Essentially, the group defines itself by referring to romanticized concepts of the industrial area of the Ruhr. Although the regional substandard Ruhrdeutsch provides a linguistic means to demonstrate one’s own regional background, the fans’ cheers and chants exhibit only very few substandard features. The complementary distribution of ritual communication and substandard usage can be explained with reference to the sociolinguistic status of the variety. On the one hand, patterns of situative variation disfavour substandard usage in public domains, such as a football arena. On the other hand, the short history of the variety, which until lately has been highly stigmatized, did not allow it to be promoted as an appropriate register for song. 1. Introduction Football shows the typical structure of a rite and is thus comparable to other forms of ritual behaviour, such as, for example, a church service. First, a football match takes place in the particular spatial configuration of urban stadiums or arenas. Secondly, the distribution of spectators within the stadium follows fixed hierarchies which are related to social classes (e.g. VIP guests), the football world itself (e.g. league representatives) or differences within the fan community (e.g. Ultras). Thirdly, football is characterized by temporal and rhythmic affinities, such that matches are scheduled according to a regular and cyclical calendar. Fourthly, the spectacle rests on a number of different roles, e.g. the fans who codify their support in action, dress and accessories. Fifth, football has its own organization, ranging from local clubs to FIFA, and its own working principles. Sixth, the sequential framework of the match structures the event, for instance marking its beginning and end by proper opening and closing ceremonies. Finally, during the football match ordinary hierarchies are loosened and a bond of unity is created between the supporters of a team irrespective of, for example, differences in social status (Bromberger 1995; see also Scheidhammer 2006 for parallels between football and religion). 1 The research for this paper was carried out at the University of Konstanz and the University of Leipzig as part of the SFB 471 ‘Variation and Evolution in the Lexicon’ and the project ‘Typology and Theories of the Word’, respectively, both supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG). For support during field work, general suggestions and comments on earlier versions of this paper, I am grateful to Balthasar Bickel, Markus Denkler, Ralf Dreischer, Tatsiana Mayorava, Sebastian Ritsch, Gunter Senft, Fritz Serzisko, Katrin Sump and Frank Zimmerer. I am also indebted to Manuel Schwiertz, who supplied the music notations included in this paper, and Kristine A. Hildebrandt, who proof-read the manuscript. <?page no="225"?> 222 If football shows prototypical ritual structure, it is worth analyzing its constituting communicative practices in the context of ethnolinguistic theories about the social function of ritual communication. One of the most important functions of rituals lies in establishing and strengthening a bond of unity among the members of a community (Eibl-Eibesfeldt / Senft 1987: 75). In this sense, the rituals of football fans define the group of supporters and distinguish these fans from fans of opposing teams or other spectators. Due to the organizational format of football from local leagues to world championships, the negotiation of regional identity is an essential part of this process. The fans’ ritualized, verbal and non-verbal behaviour thus does not only delimit the group of supporters, but also locates the group within a region, which is not necessarily coextensive with political or administrational borders. This paper discusses how regional identity is constructed by means of ritual communication in the football arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. As will be detailed in Section 2, the geographic location of Gelsenkirchen offers a number of identification options. Section 3 will analyze the opening ritual in order to demonstrate that Schalke fans identify with a romanticized concept of the Ruhr area as an industrial centre. Section 4 surveys first observations on the ritual language. Although the regional substandard Ruhrdeutsch provides a means to express one’s own regional background, it is rarely used by Schalke fans in ritual communication. Section 5 closes the paper by offering explanations for the complementary distribution of ritual communication and substandard usage in terms of the sociolinguistic status of the variety. 2. The Ruhr area 2.1. Political and administrational facts Gelsenkirchen is located in Germany’s westernmost federal state, North Rhine- Westphalia, which borders the Netherlands and Belgium in the west. This state encompasses the geographical areas of North Rhine and Westphalia and is further subdivided into five administrative districts: Arnsberg, Detmold, Düsseldorf, Köln and Münster. The latter also hosts the city of Gelsenkirchen. The football club ‘FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04 e.V.’, which is of focal interest for the present study, is named after one of Gelsenkirchen’s districts, i.e. Schalke. From a purely political perspective, Schalke fans are thus North Rhine-Westphalians, or, going down the administrational hierarchy, Westphalians proper or even Münsterländers. However, in constructing one’s regional identity, the political borders are less relevant than the comparably recent concept of the Ruhr area. This term refers to a conglomerate of towns and cities close to the river Ruhr which are perceived as sharing a number of salient features. In particular, cities in the region stretching from Duisburg in the west to Hamm in the east and from the river Ruhr in the south to the river Lippe in the north all participated in the 19 th century industrialization. As a result, most of the cities in question were dependent on coalmining and steel manufacturing until the end of the 20 th century. Note that the Ruhr area, which by now has a semi-official status due to the regional umbrella organization ‘Regionalverband Ruhr’ (‘Regional Association of the Ruhr’), cross-cuts the borders of the administrative districts Arnsberg, Düsseldorf <?page no="226"?> 223 and Münster. Gelsenkirchen is thus located in the very centre of this recent regional construct (see Becker 2003: 3-21 for the numinosum of the Ruhr area). Gelsenkirchen’s location in the centre of North Rhine Westfalia and the Ruhr area thus provides Schalke fans with a number of clues for the construction of regional identity. They may either define their group with reference to the traditional concept of Westphalia, which forms the basis for the present administrational borders, or with reference to the recent socio-psychological construct of the Ruhr area. 2.2. The linguistic situation In terms of German dialect geography, the Ruhr area is north of the maken-machen ‘do’ isogloss and thus on Low German territory. Right in the centre of the area, the drinketdrinken ‘drink’ isogloss, which approximately forms a north-to-south axis, divides the Low Franconian dialects in the west from the Westphalian dialects in the east. The original dialect of Gelsenkirchen belongs to the Westphalian branch of Low German. However, the old dialects in the Ruhr area are by now highly endangered or even moribund, i.e. if, at all, fluent speakers of Low German dialects can only be found in older generations (see also Wirrer 1998 for the present status of Low German). Starting with the end of the 19 th century, varieties of Standard German have gradually replaced the old Low German dialects of the area. In the course of this development, a regional variety evolved, which, on the one hand, shares the majority of linguistic features with Standard German, but, on the other, is also characterized by a bundle of substandard features, which in part can be attributed to Low German substrata (Menge 1977, Mihm 1982). The features which are bundled in this recent regional variety Ruhrdeutsch are spread over all levels of linguistic description. In phonology, unshifted consonants, e.g. in dat vs. das ‘the/ that’ and wat vs. was ‘what’, are typical of a colloquial variety on Low German territory. In morphology, case assignment often adheres to principles different from that of Standard German, e.g. aus dat Bett vs. aus dem Bett ‘out of bed’. The divergent use of prepositions constitutes one example of syntactic substandard features, e.g. na’m Arzt vs. zum Arzt gehen ‘to the doctor’. Finally, a number of lexemes seem to be restricted to the Ruhr area, such as the Polish loans Mattka ‘(pejorative) old woman’ and Mottek ‘hammer’ (see Mihm 1997 for an exhaustive list). A further complication of the linguistic situation in the Ruhr area stems from the various parameters of variation which affect the realization of substandard features (Harden 1981, Scholten 1988, Salewski 1998). First, in continuation of the Rhenish Fan, the occurrence of unshifted consonants decreases in the eastern parts of the region. Secondly, the usage of Ruhrdeutsch diastratically correlates to some extent with social variables such as school education. Thirdly, in certain text genres, e.g. technical descriptions, fewer features are realized than in everyday conversation. Finally, the nature of the communicative situation imposes restrictions on substandard usage, for instance in public situations. The social function of Ruhrdeutsch usage is adequately described with reference to its general connotation of warmth and social proximity. It signifies group membership and is perceived differently than Standard German, which is often taken to be formal and highbred (Mihm 1997: 31). Ruhrdeutsch thus defines a regionally and socially delimited group and distinguishes it from others. In this sense, substandard <?page no="227"?> 224 usage fulfills the same function as ritual communication and provides Schalke fans with a linguistic means to articulate their regional identity. 3. Regional identity in ritual communication 3.1. Ritual communication in the football arena Within the subculture of fan groups, a football event is considerably longer than the 90 minutes of the actual match. On the day of a home match, Schalke fans meet as early as 11 o’clock and travel to the arena in small groups by public transportation. When the match starts at 15: 30, they have already spent some two hours in the arena. After the final whistle at 17: 15, they typically do not leave the arena immediately, but collectively reflect on the past match. A football fan’s home match day usually ends late at night, for instance in a pub, in which the successful or unsuccessful day is celebrated or mourned with a circle of choice friends. For each phase of this day, ritualized forms of verbal and non-verbal behaviour structure the overall ritual (see also Rühlemann 1996 for a survey). Most prominently, a rich repertoire of cheers and chants is available for the journey to the arena, during the strict succession of events in the arena and in the final journey from the arena to the local pub. The expression of regional identity is a recurring topic which is distributed evenly across the opening ritual, during match-accompanying rituals including ritualized support and insults, and in the closing ritual. 3.2. Regional identity in the opening ritual The clearest case of ritual communication expressing regional identity in the context of Schalke football fans can be found in the opening ritual. This ceremony is especially striking, even for outsiders, because it is institutionalized to such an extent that it is conducted by the stadium announcer, and the collective singing is supported by a playback sounding from the stadium loudspeakers. The opening ritual begins roughly 15 minutes before the football match starts. The first step in this ritual consists of the collective singing of the club anthem Blau und Weiß, wie lieb’ ich dich (see Song 1). While singing this song, all fans in the arena stand up, even if they have purchased more expensive tickets for seats, and hold their fan scarves stretched out between their hands above their foreheads. The first three stanzas of the song each praise the team’s colours blue and white from different perspectives. The last stanza, which is musically emphasized by a sudden key change from B to C, refers to the industrial heritage of the region and stresses the original link between the football club and the local industry in Gelsenkirchen. The first line of this fourth stanza, 1.000 Feuer in der Nacht (‘1,000 fires burning in the night’), captures the overall perception of the Ruhr area at the beginning of the 20 th century as being dominated by coalmining and steel manufacturing. Industrialization is conceived of as a fortunate development in the second line of the song, haben uns das große Glück gebracht (‘they brought us great fortune’). In a parallel construction, the bond of unity among the club’s members is celebrated as a guarantee for the club’s survival in the third and fourth line of the stanza: 1.000 Freunde, die zusammen steh’n / dann wird der <?page no="228"?> 225 FC Schalke niemals untergeh’n (‘1,000 friends who stick together / so that the FC Schalke will never perish’). Song 1: Blau und Weiß, wie lieb’ ich Dich (Hans J. König 1959) <?page no="229"?> 226 The second song which is collectively sung in the course of the opening ritual is the traditional coalminers’ song Glück auf, der Steiger kommt (see Song 2). While singing this song, the still-standing fans wave their fan scarves in circles above their heads. Alternatively, other accessories which carry the team’s colours, e.g. banners, are presented during the ritual. Song 2: Glück auf, der Steiger kommt as sung by Schalke fans on 5/ 13/ 2006 The Steigerlied is first documented around 1700 in the Bergliederbüchlein, which contains coalminers’ songs from the Ore Mountains in Eastern Germany. The song is thus an import from a distant region which has a longer coalmining tradition than the Ruhr area and is not part of the genuine Westphalian song tradition. The song’s first stanza, which is sung before every home match, describes how the ‘overman’ arrives with his light, which will guide the coalminers into the coalmine. The playback which underlies the collective singing of the song is a recording of a performance of the choir of the local coalmining society Ruhrkohle AG, i.e. Schalke fans literally team up with coalminers during the opening ritual. In the course of this ritual, the players of the teams begin with their entrance into the arena. Due to the parallel timing of these two events, a complex metaphor is realized in this ritual practice: Schalke fans identify themselves as coalminers while granting the team’s players ‘overman’ status. The second stanza of the song, which continues this theme, is only sung at special occasions, e.g. the final match of the season in the version given above. Although the entering of the teams is staged in a further institutionalized step in which Status Quo’s Whatever you want resounds through the stadium loudspeakers, the fans’ behaviour at this stage is less rigorously dictated by the ritual. Usually the scarf is still waved above the head as a non-verbal concomitant of this phase, and the verbal behaviour consists of less ritualized primary reactions and chants. Depending on the occasion, the ritualized chant Wer nicht hüpft, der is’ Borusse (‘He who doesn’t hop, is <?page no="230"?> 227 Borusse [i.e. a supporter of the local rival Borussia Dortmund]’) is sung while hopping up and down. 3.3. Fan identity and the present situation in the Ruhr area The evidence from the opening ritual clearly shows how Schalke football fans negotiate regional identity in their chants and songs. Ignoring their cultural heritage as Westphalians, they see themselves as part of the recent regional concept of the Ruhr area. By appealing to the general perception of the region as an industrial centre, they commit themselves to the coalmining tradition of Gelsenkirchen. In the course of their ritual practices, Schalke fans actively construct their identity as that of coalminers, which is taken to be prototypical of the region in general and of Gelsenkirchen in particular. Although this finding seems to follow naturally from the history of the region as outlined in 2.1., it is at odds with the present socio-cultural situation. In the last few decades, the Ruhr area has undergone major changes which have been initiated by the successive closing of coalmines in the region since the late 1950s. As a reaction to the decrease of industry, a number of cities in the Ruhr area have sought other economic options in a process of deliberate structural change. In this context, the re-definition of the region as a cultural area, which boasts a number of theatres, operas, museums and the like, has taken a leading role in the process. These more recent developments are suppressed in the Schalke fans’ construction of regional identity. Accordingly, their identification with coalminers bemoans the loss of coalmining as a stable economic base and mystifies a glorified past in which the coal and steel industry guaranteed a bond among members of the working class. 4. Substandard usage in the football arena 4.1. Types of communication in the football arena The communicative situation in the AufSchalke football arena is highly complex since more than 60,000 people participate in the event of a home match, with several subevents. Fans in the fan block constantly engage in conversations with their immediate neighbours. Apart from such spontaneous exchanges, several types of fan utterances can be distinguished, which differ in structural complexity and their degree of ritualization. The simplest fan utterances can be grouped under the umbrella term ‘primary reactions’. These include noises, whistles, one-word utterances and shorter yells. Rhythmic reactions, such as rhythmic clapping and rhythmic yells, are more complex and less spontaneous, since their rhythmic structure has to be learnt and their performance is conducted by the fans. The category of chants includes sung yells, i.e. rhythmic yells, which come with a fixed melody, and short songs, which often consist of several lines of lyrics and have a more complex rhythmic and melodic structure. Songs with fixed rhythmic and melodic structure and several stanzas of lyrics form the most elaborate type of collective fan utterance (Kopiez / Brink 1998). The two songs of the opening ritual discussed in 3.2. are prototypical examples of a fan composition and a traditional song. <?page no="231"?> 228 4.2. Substandard features across communicative events Although the audio recordings which form the basis for the present observations are not yet transcribed in their entirety, the available material exhibits substandard features across the various types of communicative events in the fan block. The following preliminary conclusions are based on qualitative analyses and will be backed up by quantitative analysis in due course. Spontaneous conversations which football fans engage in while watching the match are characterized by a high density of substandard features. Consider the brief exchange in (1). 1. A: Ah! Ich krich eine Gänsepelle nache andern. B: Geil! A: Is dat geil! B: Viel zu lange Pause, ne? A: Mann, do! Among the various substandard features which are evidenced in these data, we note in particular the regional variant krich (1st. sg. present tense) of the verb kriegen ‘to get’, the typical contraction of preposition and definite article in nache ‘after the’, the loss of the final dental / t/ in is ‘is’, the unshifted consonant in dat ‘the/ that’, the tag ne? ‘right? ’ and the special vocalism in do ‘you’. Further evidence of substandard usage is given in (2). 2. A: Hinein! Hinein! Hinein! B: Ja, wo rein? A: Ja im Tor! B: Ja dat musse auch dabei sag’n. In this exchange, the contracted form of the preposition in and the definite article differ from what one would expect in Standard German (Schiering 2005). Apart from the unshifted consonant in dat that was already discussed above, the contraction of musst ‘must’ and du ‘you’ also points to the regional background of the speaker, as well as the specific use of the preposition bei, ‘by’. In the context of primary reactions and rhythmic yells, there is still considerable colouring through the regional variety. The following examples illustrate this point with substandard features related to the vocalism (3a), the consonantism (3b), non-standard case assignment (3c) and the phonetic realization of high vowels (3d). 3. a. Mann, do! b. Dat Runde muss in dat Eckige! c. Frank, bleib auf deine Linie! d. Lutscher, Lutscher, Lutscher! Less spontaneous and more complex chants and songs show considerably fewer substandard features. Most dramatically, none of the typical Ruhrdeutsch features which have been discussed so far can be found in these types of fan utterances. If at all, very <?page no="232"?> 229 specific lexical items point to the regional origin of the speakers. For instance, the lexeme Bude, which in the Ruhr area is not only used to denote a small house or a kiosk, but also the goal, surfaces prominently in a chant that is occasionally sung over the melody of Whatever you want during the opening ritual (4). 4. Die Bude brennt! A significant exception to the overall lack of substandard features in chants and songs concerns the lexicalized expression auf Schalke gehen ‘to go to Schalke’, in which the preposition auf ‘on’ is used in a highly marked way (Wagener 1999a). This use of the preposition is only possible with the place name Schalke if it refers to the football arena and not the district of Gelsenkirchen. Since this expression is so obviously a specialty of the local language, it is used as a means to express regional identity in songs. Example (5) gives the chorus of one such song. 5. Ob ich verroste und verkalke, ich gehe immer noch auf Schalke! Ob ich erlahme und ergrau, ich liebe Königsblau! In one fan composition, the directional use of auf is even overgeneralized and used in the context of the spatial adverbial überall, ‘everywhere’. The lines of the song in example (6) are sung to the melody of Rod Stewart’s I am sailing. The collective singing of this song constitutes one ritual accompanying the journey to away matches. 6. Wir sind Schalker und wir folgen, uns’rem Team auf überall! 4.3. Substandard use and ritual communication Although the observations made above still need to be backed up with quantitative analyses, the overall impression of substandard language use in the football arena AufSchalke is clear enough. Whereas Ruhrdeutsch provides the primary linguistic means to communicate with one’s neighbour in the fan block in the course of spontaneous conversations, the substandard is clearly disfavoured in less spontaneous and structurally complex fan utterances. In other words: the more ritualized communication gets in the football arena, the less the substandard is used by Schalke fans. In the light of the fans’ striving for a regional identity which rests on the coalmining heritage, this finding comes as a surprise if one considers the stigmatization of the variety as working class language. This case study on regional identity and ritual communication in the football arena can be summarized as follows. Ritual communication and substandard use in principle fulfill the same social function in establishing and strengthening a bond of unity within a group. The rituals of football fans are framed in a regional organizational format and thus allow the negotiation of regional identity. In a similar way, the regional substandard offers rich opportunities to demonstrate one’s own regional background. Nevertheless, in the AufSchalke football arena, ritual communication and substandard use are in complementary distribution. <?page no="233"?> 230 5. Towards an explanation 5.1. Situative distribution of the substandard The need for explaining the observations made in the context of Schalke football chanting becomes even more urgent if we compare them to ritual practices in football stadiums of other geographical areas in Germany. In Cologne, which is located in Middle German territory, carnival songs sung in the local dialect form an essential ingredient of Cologne football chanting. The same situation is found with traditional teams in Southern Germany, for instance in Freiburg, where a significant proportion of the football chant repertoire contains dialect lyrics. The most promising route, arguably, towards explaining the verbal behaviour of Schalke fans makes reference to the sociolinguistic status of the regional variety in the Ruhr area. As noted in 2.2., among other various parameters, the communicative situation has a strong impact on the realization of substandard features. In the football arena, the situation is complicated by simultaneous communicative sub-events. The spontaneous conversation can be classified as normal or even relaxed because the interlocutors consider themselves to belong to the same group and to share the same set of beliefs and attitudes. In such situations, the occurrence of substandard features can be expected to multiply, following the overall situative variation which characterizes the substandard. Collective singing, on the other hand, addresses a wider audience which not only includes less vociferous Schalke fans outside the fan block but also the opposing team’s fans. Accordingly, the communicative situation exhibits higher degrees of interpersonal distance and can be considered public. In such formal situations, substandard use is, in general, disfavoured. 5.2. Appropriate registers for song Another possibility for explaining the Schalke case starts with the question as to which language registers are considered appropriate for singing. In his seminal analysis of the Beatles’ songs, Trudgill 1983 notes that the group mimicked the American English variety of their idols in the earlier years of the band’s history and that they did not consider their local Liverpool dialect appropriate for performing pop songs. Ruhrdeutsch has a very short history, spanning approximately 120 years. During this time, the variety could not develop its own song tradition. In sharp contrast, the lack of substandard features encountered in the context of fan chanting carries over to other song genres as well. The only exceptions to this general incompatibility of Ruhrdeutsch and song are found in German-style punk bands (e.g. Lokalmatadore, Borussia Pillemann), which consciously break this rule for a subversive effect, or in comedy acts (e.g. Missfits, Herbert Knebel), which aim at a comic effect by singing Ruhrdeutsch (see also Becker 2003 for the vis comica of Ruhrdeutsch). In this sense, football fans follow a general pattern in the use of their regional substandard when they switch to Standard German in performing their chants and songs. It can be assumed that the Ruhr area is special in lacking by and large regional traditions of song which could be recruited in order to construct regional identity in ritual practices in the football arena. This process is arguably fed by the gradual extinction of the older dialects, which originally had a stronger sociolinguistic status.. <?page no="234"?> 231 However, given the fact that Schalke fans deliberately use stereotypical substandard features in the context of away match chants hints at a growing awareness of the potential of the regional substandard in construction regional identity in the Ruhr area. References Becker, Anne Katrin (2003): Ruhrdeutsch: Die Sprache des Ruhrgebiets in einer umfassenden Analyse. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Freiburg Bromberger, Christian (1995): Football as world-view and as ritual. In: French Cultural Studies 6, 293- 311 Ehlich, Konrad / Elmer, Wilhelm / Noltenius, Rainer (eds.) (1997): Sprache und Literatur an der Ruhr. Essen: Klartext Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Irenaus / Senft, Gunter (1987): Studienbrief Rituelle Kommunikation. Hagen: Fernuniversität-Gesamthochschule Harden, Theo (1981): Untersuchungen zur R-Realisation im Ruhrgebiet: Analyse einer diatopischdiastratischen Variation und ihrer Bewertung. Wiesbaden: Steiner Kopiez, Reinhard / Brink, Guido (1998): Fußball-Fangesänge: Eine Fanomenologie. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann Menge, Heinz H. (1977): Regionalsprache Ruhr: Grammatische Variation ist niederdeutsches Substrat. Eine forschungsleitende Hypothese. In: Korrespondenzblatt des Vereins für niederdeutsche Sprachforschung 84, 48-59 Mihm, Arend (1982): Zur Entstehung neuer Sprachvarietäten: Ruhrdeutscher Kasusgebrauch und seine Erklärung. In: Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 10, 263-294 Mihm, Arend ( 2 1997): Die Realität des Ruhrdeutschen - soziale Funktion und sozialer Ort einer Gebietssprache. In: Ehlich et al., 19-38 Rühlemann, Thorsten (1996): Die Fans im Stadion: Die kleinen Rituale des Alltags im Verhalten von Fußballfans. In: Rheinisch-westfälische Zeitschrift für Volkskunde 41, 143-163 Salewski, Kerstin (1998): Zur Homogenität des Substandards älterer Bergleute im Ruhrgebiet. Stuttgart: Steiner Scheidhammer, Franz-Josef (2006): Kicker, Kutten und Choräle: Fußball und Religion - eine Projektmappe. Mülheim an der Ruhr: Verlag an der Ruhr Schiering, René (2005): Flektierte Präpositionen im Deutschen? Neue Evidenz aus dem Ruhrgebiet. In: Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 72, 52-79 Scholten, Beate (1988): Standard und städtischer Substandard bei Heranwachsenden im Ruhrgebiet. Tübingen: Niemeyer Trudgill, Peter (1983): On dialect: Social and geographical perspectives. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Wagener, Peter (1999a): Auf Schalke! Auf als lokative Präposition ohne Artikel im Ruhrdeutschen. In: Wagener b, 243-251 Wagener, Peter (ed.) (1999b): Sprachformen: Deutsch und Niederdeutsch in europäischen Bezügen. Festschrift für Dieter Stellmacher zum 60. Geburtstag. Stuttgart: Steiner Wirrer, Jan (1998): Zum Status des Niederdeutschen. In: Zeitschrift für Germanistische Linguistik 26, 308-340 René Schiering Institut für Linguistik Universität Leipzig Beethovenstr. 15 D-04107 Leipzig e-mail: schiering@uni-leipzig.de http: / / www.uni-leipzig.de/ ~schier/ <?page no="236"?> 233 JOANNE LUHRS FOOTBALL CHANTS AND ‘BLASON POPULAIRE’: THE CONSTRUCTION OF LOCAL AND REGIONAL STEREOTYPES Football chants have been identified as a crucial vehicle in keeping the little-known traditional linguistic genre of ‘blason populaire’ alive in England today. In brief, ‘blason populaire’ can be described as: An expression of one’s group outlook and self-image, often involving the implied simultaneous detraction and/ or detriment of another (rival) group. (Green / Widdowson 2003: 9) As such, the genre is vital in maintaining and contesting identities and rivalries at all levels, with football chants playing a key role in its continuity. In this paper, I focus on the use of local and regional stereotypes in football chants and how they portray these identities and rivalries, which are integral components of ‘blason populaire’. From ‘Dee-das’ to ‘Dingles’ and ‘Scrubbers’ to ‘Scabs’, I illustrate how the same themes that were used in the older village rhymes and sayings of the past, such as economic status, lifestyle, cleanliness, sexuality and promiscuity, form the basis of the insults that are traded between rival sets of football fans today. 1. Introduction In research conducted in England in 2003 assessing the continuity and change of traditional English language genres, it was established that football chants were the main vehicle for keeping the little-known linguistic genre of ‘blason populaire’ alive in England today (Green / Widdowson 2003). I will provide an overview of ‘blason populaire’, describing its main forms, functions and themes, before moving on to discuss how the football chants of today remain true to the genre by relying on the same popular themes of the expressions of the past. I will use data collected through participant observation at English football matches during the 2002/ 03 and 2003/ 04 football seasons. 2. An introduction to ‘blason populaire’ 2.1. What is ‘blason populaire’? ‘Blason populaire’ is a folkloric term apparently coined by Frenchman Auguste Canel in the 19 th century. However, despite holding an important place in English folklore and playing an integral role in the portrayal of local, regional and national rivalries, there is no English equivalent of the term. Alan Dundes (1965: 43) has suggested that the sense of the term in English is “roughly ‘ethnic slur’”, although such a definition is highly problematic for reasons that will be discussed shortly. In our recent study on the <?page no="237"?> 234 continuity and change of traditional language genres, John Widdowson and I applied the more useful and accommodating definition: An expression of one’s group outlook and self-image, often involving the implied simultaneous detraction and/ or detriment of another (rival) group. (Green / Widdowson 2003: 9) 1 To help in understanding how the term has been derived, it is useful to consider several definitions of the word ‘blazon’ taken from the OED. As a noun, it is defined as “a shield in heraldry; armorial bearings, coat of arms; a banner bearing the arms”. As a verb, it is “to publish vauntingly or boastfully, boast of” and “to proclaim, make public; ‘trumpet.’’ Taking into account these dictionary definitions, together with the definition of the genre, it becomes apparent how ‘blason populaire’ emerged as a description of a linguistic genre focussing on the traditional expressions of identities and rivalries referring to particular communities, groups or places. When using an expression of ‘blason populaire’, taking into account the application of the noun ‘blazon’, the speaker is in essence using a verbal coat of arms to display his or her allegiances. Similarly, when considering the application of ‘blazon’ as a verb, the speaker is boasting of his/ her identity, often at the expense of another rival group. 2 ‘Blason populaire’ is a term that has so far received little attention from scholars. Apart from a small number of articles and a scattering of student projects and theses, only a handful of complete volumes are dedicated to the genre, the majority of which concern French examples. At present, there exists no comprehensive work dedicated solely to the genre in England. It is surprising that it has not yet been subjected to more detailed and up-to-date, in-depth investigation as it is a genre that can provide a wealth of information in relation to identities and rivalries on a number of levels. Widdowson, one of the few scholars who has given ‘blason populaire’ the attention it deserves, highlights this gap in academic literature available on the genre, suggesting that it is worthy of more serious examination: It is clear that the forms and functions of ‘blason populaire’ merit comprehensive and systematic study. In common with other traditional verbal genres, the references are scattered and inconclusive, and few such forms have been studied in the full context of living speech. (Widdowson 1981: 44) It is one of the aims of my current research to fill this gap. 2.2. The functions of ‘blason populaire’ As already mentioned, Alan Dundes has suggested that the English sense of ‘blason populaire’ translates as “roughly ‘ethnic slur’” (Dundes 1965: 43). However, this is too simplistic a definition. Generally, when a piece of ‘blason populaire’ is used, a value judgement is made, frequently stereotypical and often disparaging about the referents or 1 Green is in fact one and the same person as the author of the present contribution, namely Joanne Luhrs. 2 To avoid confusion, it is necessary to point out that ‘blason’ is the French form of ‘blazon’; hence I have used the latter in the discussion of definitions of the word, but still continue to refer to the genre as ‘blason populaire’, which has no English equivalent. <?page no="238"?> 235 the referent community, but this is by no means a pre-requisite, as Dundes’ use of the word “slur” would seem to imply. The genre can function other than as an insult to an outsider group as a display of rivalry. When used by insiders within a group about their own group, it can function as a unifying force, an expression of partisanship, and ultimately a marker of a shared identity. Widdowson provides a useful framework, illustrating how the positive and negative attributes operate on opposing levels for the group who use the expressions and the group at which they are aimed. He writes of ‘blason populaire’: Its principal function is to present a stereotype of a particular group or region. It therefore serves the dual function of presenting a specific group or region in a favourable light, and in doing so implies or intends a slight upon other groups. The first of these functions is integrative while the second is divisive and calculated to initiate or maintain conflict, at the verbal level at least, between the groups concerned. (Widdowson 1981: 36) This framework demonstrates how the functions are often implicitly reversed for the outsider group from the insider group who uses them. It will be adopted in the forthcoming discussion of football chants. 2.3. The forms of ‘blason populaire’ ‘Blason populaire’ can be expressed in a variety of forms. As Dundes has highlighted: Names, phrases, rhymes, songs and jokes which one group uses to characterize specific peoples and places fall under a general category which folklorists call ’blason populaire’. (Dundes 1965: 43) All of these forms can be classified as traditional linguistic genres in themselves, but when concerned with issues of identities and rivalries, frequently in relation to location, they also fall under the genre of ‘blason populaire’. For example, “from Hell, Hull and Halifax . . the good Lord deliver us” indisputably falls within the genre of traditional sayings and expressions. However, its focus on location and its derogatory content about the three places stated also mark it as an item of ‘blason populaire’. To avoid confusion in the coming pages, I will refer to the forms of ‘blason populaire’ as subgenres. While it is true that all of the sub-genres can be treated as linguistic genres in their own right, in the context of my investigation their belonging to the genre of ‘blason populaire’ is of primary importance, and their forming a smaller unit within that. There appear to be six main sub-genres, namely: nicknames; proverbial usage; traditional sayings and expressions; jokes; rhymes; and football chants. 2.4. The themes of ‘blason populaire’ Any subject matter can be used in expressions of ‘blason populaire’. However, some themes are more common than others. Looking firstly at integrative expressions of the genre, it is not unusual for the alleged attractiveness of females to serve as a reflection of all that is positive about a particular group, community or place. For example, there is the expression “Lancashire Fair women” that operates in this way. Sometimes, a place may be famed for its food produce, and this may serve as a signifier of all that is good <?page no="239"?> 236 about the community in general, as in the old expression “Buckinghamshire beef and bread”. As these few examples show, any product or character trait that a place or group is famous for can be used as a cause for celebration, and ultimately a display of superiority, in integrative examples of ‘blason populaire’. In contrast to integrative expressions, divisive statements contain any elements that can serve to belittle a rival group, with the ultimate aim of making one’s own group appear superior. While any putdown or abusive term can be used to achieve this, we still tend to find the same themes recurring again and again. Scott has suggested that the subject matter of old divisive village rhymes can be split into two distinct groups: those that are about lifestyle and those that concern character traits: There are two basic categories of derision which appear in the rhymes: the first deals with the way of life or style of living in a town; and the second comments on the character of the people in that town. The elements of lifestyle which appear often in ‘blason populaire’ are poverty, dirt, cleanliness and workmanship. Intelligence, morality and pride are the elements of character which most often receive comment in rhyme. (Scott 1975: 15) However, while the two categories may be sufficient for a discussion of one form of the genre, the older village rhyme, they are not comprehensive enough for broader discussions of ‘blason populaire’ more generally, and further themes have been identified. Widdowson, for example, has provided a more inclusive listing of the common themes for divisive expressions: 1. Comparative geographical isolation often with the added suggestion of hereditary defects among the inhabitants, especially slow-wittedness and foolishness, due to inbreeding. 2. The size, architectural features and furbishing of the local church. 3. The poverty, pride, dirtiness, foolishness, wickedness or other supposed reprehensible characteristics of the inhabitants. (Widdowson 1981: 42) Whilst some of the themes listed by Widdowson above may have become less popular now, such as church features, his list is more satisfactory than Scott’s in providing an overview of typical subject matter for divisive expressions. For example, it also accounts for those that are not only about the inhabitants or members of a group, but also those offering direct comment on a place. 2.5. Football chants as ‘blason populaire’ One of the key findings of our research conducted into the continuity and change of traditional language genres between 1950 and 2000 was that dramatic changes had occurred to the forms of ‘blason populaire’ (Green / Widdowson 2003). In particular, the research suggested a widespread decline in the knowledge and use of county nicknames (for example, nicknames such as “Essex Calves”, “Buckinghamshire Beef and Bread”, “Hertfordshire Hedgehogs” and “Wiltshire Moonrakers”) and rhymes and sayings (for example, “From Berwick to Dover, three hundred miles over” and “Fast and true like Coventry blue”) about inter-village rivalry which had been popular during the nineteenth century. However, the findings also confirmed a much more positive change in that football chants were emerging as a modern form of the genre: <?page no="240"?> 237 [T]he analysis identified a recent and radical change in the genre, in this case a development which bids fair to sustain such usages in the future. This is the establishment and dramatic rise in popularity of chants and songs exchanged by rival fans attending football matches and other sports events […] they appear to be taking over the role of old expressions of inter-community rivalry, breathing new life into a genre which otherwise appeared to be potentially under threat. (Green / Widdowson 2003: 514) Others have noted the importance of football chants as a continuation of older forms of ‘blason populaire’. For example, Snell, in his discussion of local xenophobia, states that football chants are a modern type of older village rivalries: ‘Oi can’t read and oi can’t write, but I can drive a trac-tor’ chant the Chelsea football fans to infuriate their rival Ipswich supporters - a modern urban equivalent of a kind of inter-village rivalry and abuse that ran rampant in the past. (Snell 2003: 9) 3 However, ours was the first study to examine the role of football chants in any detail, and my current PhD research extends this finding further by looking more closely at how football chants function as ‘blason populaire’ in England today. For the remainder of the paper, I will concentrate on the divisive chants, in particular those aimed at rival fans, and how their use relies on the staple themes of ‘blason populaire’ of the past, including economic status, (lack of) cleanliness, (lack of) intelligence, and sexual behaviour, to bring the genre into the twenty-first century. 3. Football chants and local and regional stereotypes 3.1. Economic factors Firstly, I will consider those chants that are based on insults about economic status. The economic standing of a community, or the people from that community, has always proved to be a common factor on which to base slights about a rival group. This has been noted by Scott, who has stated that the theme is the most prevalent: The elements of character which receive scrutiny in ‘blason populaire’ - intelligence, modesty, honesty and morality - are not as universal in their degree as are the economic elements. It is interesting, for example, that most of the exchanges of insults are based on economic rather than moral evidence or inherent stupidity. (Scott 1975: 17) In some village rhymes that are rarely, if ever, used now, the theme recurs again and again. One popular rhyme of this type is the following, of which there are many variants: 1. A wooden church, a wooden steeple, Rascally church, rascally people. Market Weighton, Robert Leighton, A brick church, a wooden steeple, A drunken priest and a wicked people. (Green / Widdowson 2003: 350) 3 ‘Local xenophobia’ can be seen as encompassing those expressions that resemble the divisive elements of ‘blason populaire’. <?page no="241"?> 238 2. Proud Preston, poor people, High church, no steeple. (Green / Widdowson 2003: 350) These examples (and their variants) were very popular in the nineteenth century and illustrate the tendency of people of that time to judge the economic and moral status of a village primarily on the size and grandeur of its church. Numerous variants abound about different places. However, the rhymes are practically obsolescent in England today, no doubt a result of the church no longer holding the pivotal place in the community that it once did, with people relying on other groups and affiliations, such as football teams, to provide that community feel. However, other motifs have been introduced to keep the economic theme alive in other forms. For example, in the football chants of the twenty-first century, it is not unusual for a set of fans to be derided because they are from a traditional working-class town with above average unemployment rates. The following two chants are examples of this, both of which are frequently aimed at clubs in and around Liverpool, as well as other towns and cities perceived to be in economic decline: 3. Get to work, Get to work, Get to work you lazy twats, Get to work you lazy twats (Sung to the tune of “Bread of Heaven”) 4. Sign on, sign on, With pen in your hand, Cos you’ll never get a job, You’ll never get a job (Sung to the tune of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”) Example three was aimed at Everton fans by Manchester City fans, suggesting that people from Liverpool are unemployed and cannot be bothered to find jobs. The second example was once sung by Manchester United fans to Liverpool fans and once by Brighton fans to Barnsley fans, Barnsley in South Yorkshire also being a town not known for its prosperity. Example four is a parody of Liverpool’s anthem, the normal words of it being: 5. Walk on, walk on, With hope in your heart, Cos you’ll never walk alone, You’ll never walk alone. (Sung to the tune of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”) This in no doubt strengthens the force of the insult as Manchester United fans have taken Liverpool’s beloved anthem and twisted the words to make it not a song of uniting, but of criticism and ridicule. 3.2. Lack of cleanliness Both Scott (1975) and Widdowson (1981) have noted how cleanliness, or rather lack of it, is a also a key theme in divisive ‘blason populaire’ . This remains true of the insults <?page no="242"?> 239 traded through football chants today. The theme is closely connected to the previous one of economic status, with elements of dirtiness being inevitably linked to poverty. However, the chants presented under this heading are blatant statements of hygiene rather than embroiled within those primarily about the poor: 6. Town full of scrubbers, You’re just a town full of scrubbers (Sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”) 7. Have you ever, Have you ever, Have you ever had a wash? Have you ever had a wash? (Sung to the tune of “Bread of Heaven”) In each case, the chants were aimed at Barnsley fans by their local rivals Sheffield Wednesday, implying that they are dirty. Example six uses the nickname scrubber. We will see it again when discussing the theme of promiscuity, as its primary meaning is a prostitute or a promiscuous woman. However, in Barnsley it can also be used to describe someone who is dirty; this is why it has also been included in this section. Example seven again stereotypes Barnsley inhabitants as having a lack of personal hygiene. 3.3. Lack of intelligence Suggesting that a rival group has less intelligence than one’s own is another successful way to promote one’s own superiority. We have already seen an example of a football chant which does this in Snell’s earlier quote, aimed at Ipswich fans by their Chelsea counterparts. I will repeat it here: “Oi can’t read and oi can’t write but I can drive a trac-tor” (Snell 2003: 9). Here, Ipswich fans are mocked through the suggestion that they are illiterate, as well as through the exaggerated mimicry of their accent to make them sound unintelligent. Another way to imply simplicity is through the use of localised nicknames. For example, dingle is frequently used by fans of both Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday to deride their Barnsley rivals. The nickname can be used as either a stand-alone phrase or incorporated into longer chants and songs: 8. Dingles, dingles, dingles 9. Town full of dingles, You’re just a town full of dingles (Sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”) Before proceeding further, it is necessary to define what exactly a dingle is. It is used derogatively to describe people who are allegedly simple and lacking in intelligence, making comparisons with the infamous Dingle family in the Yorkshire soap opera ‘Emmerdale’, who are stereotyped as country yokels. On each occasion that the chant was heard in the present research, it was aimed at Barnsley fans by Sheffield Wednesday fans. However, its use is not restricted as an insult term for Barnsley inhabitants only. It is sung frequently by the Lancashire teams of Blackburn, Burnley and Preston, as well as the Cheshire team of Stockport, about each other. Teams in the <?page no="243"?> 240 West Midlands, including Walsall, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers, also use the song. Like many divisive football chants, its use tends to occur between fierce local rivals from neighbouring towns and cities. Widdowson has stated this tendency for ‘blason populaire’ to be strongest under such circumstances and it is fitting that it continues to be so in modern forms of the genre: The usages are employed mainly within a comparatively small radius of the community concerned. Their immediate relevance and the strong cutting edge of their derision obviously decrease with distance. Within the circumscribed area, however, the sayings are used with maximal impact, the names and characteristics of each local community being familiar to both speakers and hearers who themselves owe allegiance, however slight, to the place in which they live. (Widdowson 1981: 37) Further chants about simplicity are evident through references to incest and inbreeding; these will be discussed in the next section, which deals with sexual behaviour. 3.4. Sexual behaviour The perceived sexual morals of a particular group have always served as a reflection of the group overall in ‘blason populaire’, particularly the behaviour of women. For example, consider the following old rhymes in which places are compared in terms of the characteristics of their female inhabitants: 10. Rudgwick for riches, Green for poors, Bilinghurst for pretty girls, Horsham for whores (Simpson 1973: 153) 11. Halifax is made of wax, And Heptonstall of stone; In Halifax there’s many a pretty girl, In Heptonstall there’s none (Thiselton-Dyer 1991: 128) In the case of football chants, this trend continues, with certain places being associated with loose women, whether such an allegation is accurate or not. This is evident in the following chants: 12. Town full of scrubbers, You’re just a town full of scrubbers, Town full of scrubbers, You’re just a town full of scrubbers (Sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”) 13. Town full of slappers, You’re just a town full of slappers, Town full of slappers, You’re just a town full of slappers (Sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”) We have already seen the dual function of the word scrubber, most commonly used to describe a prostitute, although sometimes used to describe someone as unclean in Barnsley. In these divisive chants, both of which share the same formula, and others like <?page no="244"?> 241 them, the referent community is considered in a negative light because of the apparent behaviour of its women. However, it is ironic that in many integrative football chants, i.e. those that operate by creating a bond between the in-group, a heterosexual masculine identity is celebrated through chants which depict women as no more than sexual objects. This is highlighted in the following integrative chants: 14. Oh Manchester is wonderful, Oh Manchester is wonderful, It’s full of tits, fanny and City, Oh Manchester is wonderful (Sung to the tune of “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In”) 15. Get your tits out, Get your tits out, Get your tits out for the lads, Get your tits out for the lads (Sung to the tune of “Bread of Heaven”) Thus, we are faced with the paradox that the sexual promiscuity of women can be seen as a negative trait to be derided in divisive chants or, alternatively, as a cause for celebration when used to express in-group solidarity. As well as promiscuity, charges of incest are also aimed at opposing fans. Two chants blatantly state charges of incest in order to mark the opposition as sexually deviant: 16. Home to shag your mother, You’re going home to shag your mother, Home to shag your mother, You’re going home to shag your mother (Sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”) 17. Na na na na - inbreds, Na na na na - inbreds, Na na na na, na na na na, Na na na na - inbreds Your sister is your mother, Your uncle is your brother, You only shag each other, The Barnsley family (Sung to the tune of “The Addams Family”) The first of these aims for ultimate effect, if not potency, by also aiming the insult at the mothers of the fans as well. Indeed, in many cultures, insults against one’s mother are insults of the highest order, as Romaine has illustrated: Insults against mothers are highly shocking because they heap abuse on one of the roles for which women are otherwise revered in many cultures. (Romaine 1999: 99) Thus, implicating the mother into the sexual deviancy adds extra force to the insult, as this is often worse than throwing insults only about the targets at which they are aimed. The second chant carries on the theme of incest, but does not limit it to the relationship only between the fan and his/ her mother, but to other members of the supposed family <?page no="245"?> 242 as well. The charge of incestuous relationships and inbreeding also suggest that the group at which they are aimed are simple, or lacking in intelligence. Both of the examples of this chant that were collected in the current research were aimed at Barnsley fans, once by Sheffield Wednesday fans and once by Bristol City fans. It is a common one and can be aimed at any group of fans. However, it is often used between fans of clubs with strong local rivalries. This is evident in the Sheffield Wednesday version aimed at Barnsley fans in the present data, and it is also used between local rivals Southampton and Portsmouth; Fulham and Chelsea; York and Scarborough; Queens Park Rangers and Chelsea; and Derby and Nottingham Forest, to name but a few. This is further evidence of the trend for ‘blason populaire’ to be strongest between the closest neighbours. Staying with the theme of sexual behaviour, homosexuality is sometimes used as the basis for insults in football chants, as in the following example: 18. Town full of queers, You’re just a town full of queers, Town full of queers, You’re just a town full of queers (Sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”) This variant was collected only once in the present data and was applied by Barnsley fans to Brighton fans during a match at Oakwell. In this particular instance, it draws on Brighton’s reputations as the gay capital of England, and uses this to make the generalisation that all Brighton residents are homosexual. By describing the opposition as queers, the Barnsley fans are implicitly stating that they themselves are superior in comparison by adhering to a heterosexual norm. In the present data, only this one homophobic chant was collected. However, this does not reflect the frequency of homophobic chanting at English football grounds, where such abuse has become an increasing problem in recent years. For example, Brighton fans have regularly been subjected to homophobic chanting, as a result of the stereotypical image of their town, and chants such as “you’re going down with your boyfriend”, “does your boyfriend know you’re here? ” and “we can see you holding hands” are not uncommon (Bremner 2004: 58). As the examples suggest, homophobic chanting is a problem at English football grounds, so much so that in 2007 the Football Association introduced legislation against it. Only time will tell how successful this move will be. However, that it still persists at the present time should not surprise us, considering the strength of the masculine, heterosexual norms that are endemic at all levels of the game. 3.5. Miscellaneous insults Some of the stereotypes expressed in divisive football chants cannot be categorised under any of the traditional themes of ‘blason populaire’, but are centred on other topics. The first of these mocks the speech of a particular community in order to create a stereotypical image. We have already seen an occurrence of this in the “oi can’t read and oi can’t write” example aimed at Ipswich fans by Chelsea fans, with the dialect of the former forming the basis of the ridicule, as well as the supposed slowness of the inhabitants. The second example of this is evident in the nickname applied to fans of the Sheffield clubs, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday: <?page no="246"?> 243 19. Dee das This is used to mock their pronunciation of the dialectal terms thee and tha. On all of the occasions that this chant was collected, it was used by the neighbouring clubs of Barnsley and Chesterfield to Sheffield Wednesday fans. The remaining group of chants playing on local and regional stereotypes are those that are used between former mining communities in reference to the 1984-85 national miners’ strike. Scab is a term used to describe strike-breakers and is still frequently exchanged in football chants when matches take place between the opposite factions involved in the strike. For example, South Yorkshire was a region deeply committed to strike action whereas Nottinghamshire coalfields were not as involved, with many miners returning to work. Even over twenty years after the strike, animosity still exists between the two communities, and it continues to be played out through football chants. This is reflected in the chants that were collected in the present data during a game between Notts County and Barnsley in January 2004, Notts County being a Nottinghamshire club and Barnsley from South Yorkshire: 20. Scabs until you die, You’re scabs until you die, We know you are, we’re sure you are, You’re scabs until you die (Sung to the tune of “HAPPY”) 21. Twenty years and you’re still a scab (Sung to the tune of “Go West”) 22. Town full of scabs, You’re just a town full of scabs (Sung to the tune of “Guantanamera”) 23. Where were you in, where were you in, Where were you in ’84? Where were you in ’84? (Sung to the tune of “Bread of Heaven”) All of these chants were aimed by Barnsley fans at Notts County fans in reference to a rivalry between the two communities that goes back over two decades, which has led to all Nottinghamshire inhabitants still being stereotyped as scabs. 4 This section illustrates that, although the same themes may occur again and again, they are not exclusive. Ultimately, any topic can provide ammunition with which to insult the rival out-group. 4. Summary This paper has illustrated how football chants keep ‘blason poplaire’ alive in England today through the adoption of the same themes that were evident in expressions of the past. They draw on popular topics such as economic status, sexuality and cleanliness to pour scorn on rival groups. In doing this, the chants help to create the local and regional 4 For further details of the use of “scab chants”, see Luhrs 2007. <?page no="247"?> 244 stereotypes so important in the maintenance of inter-group rivalries and identities. The themes discussed here are not exclusive, which is illustrated by the miscellaneous chants in the last section. Rather, any perceived weakness, whether real or imagined, can be chosen in order to deride and stereotype the rival group. It matters little whether there is any truth in the accusations that are levelled. Ultimately the only thing that is of concern is that verbal supremacy is achieved and that a rival group is depicted in a derogatory and inferior light, thus sustaining the in-group’s notion of superiority. References Bremner, Jack (2004): Shit Ground No Fans: it’s by far the greatest football songbook the world has ever seen. London: Bantam Dundes, Alan (ed.) (1965): The study of folklore. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall Green, A.E. / Widdowson, John (eds.) (1981): Language, culture and tradition. Leeds: The Institute of Dialect and Folklife Studies, School of English, University of Leeds Green, Joanne / Widdowson, John (2003): Traditional English language genres: Continuity and change, 1950-2000. Sheffield: NATCECT Occasional Publications No. 9 Luhrs, Joanne (2007): Football chants: a living legacy of the 1984-85 miners’ strike. In: The International Journal of Regional and Local Studies 3/ 1, 94-120 Romaine, Suzanne (1999): Communicating gender. Mahwah: Erlbaum Simpson, Jacqueline (1973): The folklore of Sussex. London: Batsford Snell, KDM (2003): The culture of local xenophobia. In: Social History 28/ 1, 1-30 Thiselton-Dyer, Thomas (1991): Folk-lore of women: as illustrated by legendary and traditionary tales, folk rhymes, proverbial sayings, superstitions, etc. Thornhill: Tynron Widdowson, John (1981): Language, Tradition and Regional Identity: ’blason populaire’ and social control. In: Green / Widdowson, 33-46 Joanne Luhrs National Centre for English Cultural Tradition University of Sheffield Sheffield S10 2TD UK e-mail: j.luhrs@sheffield.ac.uk <?page no="248"?> 245 HENRYK DUDA THE WORDS ‘KIBIC’ (SPORTS FAN) AND ‘PSEUDOKIBIC’ (HOOLIGAN) IN POLISH. REMARKS ON NAMES OF SPORTS ENTHUSIASTS USED DURING SPORTING EVENTS In Polish, a person who attends a sporting event to support his/ her team is referred to by means of the word kibic, a borrowing from German. Apart from that, Polish offers a series of lexemes, usually slang expressions, falling within the same denotational field, often with emphatic or emotive character (e.g. kibol, with the depreciating suffix -ol, as in Polish g upi ‘stupid’ - g upol ‘blockhead’, or szalikowiec - a football fan with a scarf showing the colours of his favourite sports club, etc.). Of special interest is the word pseudokibic, which denotes a hooligan, frequently and deliberately involved in fan rage and violent acts of vandalism. This term is most often used by sports commentators. The author of the paper sees this expression as a case of manipulating language: on the one hand, it serves to marginalize the aggravating problem of violence during sporting events (in Poland it only concerns football); on the other hand, the expression in question tends to suggest that there are ‘true’ sports fans present at the events, in contrast to the quasior pseudo-fans. 1. Introduction Changes in our life bring about changes in our language. It comes as no surprise that the rise of mass sports, like football, has its influence on language. This influence is most clearly noticeable in the lexical field. A lot of lexical items in the domain of sports have been imported into Polish predominantly from English (Du Feu 1959, O d y ski 1970: 18 - 35). There are certain neologisms in Polish that have been coined so as to avoid borrowing. Handball, for instance, has its native Polish name: szczypiorniak, and a handball player is often called szczypiornista (a woman player is szczypiornistka). The Poles were taught the game by the Germans, when they were kept as prisoners of war in the German camp of Szczypiorno near Kalisz during World War I. Mass sports mean, on the one hand, players, clubs, leagues and cups and, on the other hand, live and TV audiences, sports fans and supporters of local or national teams. The last category is referred to as kibice (nom. sg. kibic) [‘sports-fan’]. The period after World War II and particularly the 1980s witnessed a rise and a considerable growth of the phenomenon of sports hooliganism. In the last decade hooligans have been active especially in the new EU member states. This state of affairs is mostly due to political factors: social discipline and rigorous authority, typical of Communist regimes, are no longer there to prevent acts of vandalism. Economic factors have also played a role: sporting facilities in post-Communist countries failed to accommodate crowds of fans and provide them with a safe environment for participating in sporting events. These issues have already been discussed in a number of publications in the field of sociology, political sciences or sports studies (see, for example, Beyer 2004, Carnibella et al. 1996, Smolik 2004, Sahaj 2002, 2004). Polish authors often make mention of the so-called ‘ultras subculture’ (Polish: subkultura szalikowców [‘the Ultras wearing scarves’]), and <?page no="249"?> 246 of the hooligans, or pseudo-fans (Polish: pseudokibice). In this paper I focus specifically on this last group. 2. Kibic - a neutral name for a sports fan In Polish, a person who participates in a sporting event as a viewer and supporter of their team is called kibic. This noun constitutes a derivational base for the verb kibicowa , that is ‘to participate in a sporting event as a sports fan’. The word kibic is relatively new in the Polish lexicon. The data gathered in the 11-volume Dictionary of the Polish Language by W. Doroszewski (1959-1969), the prime source in lexicographical studies of Polish, suggest that the word was first used in the first half of the 20 th century. Although it was noted in the so-called Warsaw Dictionary (Kar owicz et al. 1952; the first edition of this work dates back to 1900), the authors defined the main meaning of the word as that of ‘a fashionable man, a guy.’ Later on, the word was also used with the meaning of ‘a frequent customer at bars or saloons’. Third on the list was the meaning ‘one who observes others playing cards, chess or billiards’. No mention of football was made. “The use of the word becomes frequent in the second half of the 20 th century, in its new, sports-related meaning, that is ‘a sporting event spectator’ (it mirrors a new meaning of the word in German)” (Ba kowski 2000: 660). Older speakers of Polish sometimes reject the word kibic as a borrowing from German, and they prefer the native Polish term widz [‘spectator’] (Miodek 2002: 303). Lexicologically, kibic is an isolated item, unknown to the Slavic languages (see, for instance, Russian { ¤‹<^, Ukrainian ¥‚ ¤><^, Czech fanoušek, or Slovak fanúšik). Etymological dictionaries of Polish all concur that the word is of German origin. It comes from the German word Kiebitz, which was borrowed into Polish in its metaphorical sense (literally: ‘a lapwing’) as kibic (Brückner 1989: 226, Ba kowski 2000: 660, BoryÅ 2005: 228). German sources accept this etymological explanation. 1 The semantic development of the word kibic is easier to explain if we accept that the word was borrowed into Polish from Yiddish (or from German through Yiddish). Of some help, though indirectly, may be the equivalent borrowing into English, used especially in North America. Its meaning is defined in two ways: 1. ‘to overlook and interfere with someone’s game, especially a game of cards’; 2. ‘to chatter, to gossip’. The English word kibitz became widely used in the 1920s. The Oxford Dictionary of English points to Yiddish as the source of the borrowing (Soanes / Stevenson 2003). Unfortunately, the dictionaries of Polish which I have access to do not allow to either confirm or refute the Yiddish origin of the Polish kibic. 2 The Polish word kibic is semantically neutral. Through metonymy or metaphor the word and its derivates may also be used in domains other than sports. For example: 1 „Im Polnischen wird als kibic ein Fan einer Sportart, eines Sportklubs oder im Allgemeinen ein Zuschauer einer Sportveranstaltung bezeichnet”. (http: / / de.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Kiebitz_%28Spielbeobachter%29, 18/ 02/ 2008). 2 I wish to express my gratitude to the workshop of “Language and Football” at the Austrian Conference of Linguists (ÖLT), Innsbruck, 26-28. X. 2007. I am particularly thankful to Gerhard Pisek from the Department of English, University of Innsbruck, for his remarks on Yiddish as a potential source of the Polish kibic. <?page no="250"?> 247 1. W wyborach prezydenckich kibicuj Nicolasowi Sarkozy'emu. (Jaros aw Kaczy ski, premier RP, 24 April 2007) [In the presidential election I am a supporter of Nicolas Sarkozy. (Jaros aw Kaczy ski, Polish Prime Minister, 24 April 2007)] This is one example of sports vocabulary being used in general language (Podracki 1978, Zieli ski 2002), which cannot be seen as an exclusively Polish phenomenon. 3 3. Expressive names for sports fans Sports fans, especially football fans, gather in groups, which develop strong emotional bonds with their teams. The group members often act in socially unacceptable ways. This is why they are often referred to by emotionally coloured, expressive nouns. The most important examples include: szalikowiec [‘a member of an Ultra group’] - a noun derived from the noun szalik [‘scarf’], by means of the suffix -owiec, since it designates ‘a fan who wears a football team scarf’. The Polish version of Wikipedia states that: Szalikowcy is a term used for the Ultras, the radical, fanatical members of football clubs. The term “szalikowiec” pertains to the colourful football club scarves worn by football fans during the matches. These “scarf fans” were pioneers of football fans’ movements in the 1980s. 4 The noun szalikowiec occurs most frequently in newspaper sports articles, where it is used derogatorily in relation to aberrations that characterise Polish sport. This is illustrated by the following two examples: 2. Biuletyny kiboli, opowiada sta y czytelnik, jeden z s dziów pi karskich, delikatnie mówi&c, tchn& %&dz& mordu, zapachu krwi, petard i Ÿwiec dymnych. Szalikowcy KS obiecuj& te wszystkie atrakcje Widzewowi, Polonia - Legii, dru%yny Ÿl&skie - dru%ynom Ÿl&skim. (Przekrój 18/ 03/ 2001) [The Ultras’ leaflets - as reported by its reader, a referee - are full of violence and blood, fire and flares. In §ód¨ the Ultras from KS promise all these attractions to the other club in the city, “Widzew”. In Warsaw “Polonia” does the same to “Legia”, and the Silesian Ultras to the other Silesian Ultras.] 3. Tymczasem „szalikowcy”, m odzie%, a w ko'cu m odzie% nie tylko ze S upska nie chcia a czeka na ustalenia Ÿledztwa, nie wierzy a s&dowi ani prokuraturze. (Tygodnik Powszechny 1998/ 5) [The Ultras and other young people in S upsk, but also in Poland in general, refused to wait for the results of the investigation. They distrusted the court and the prosecution.] The word szalikowiec is among the newest lexemes in Polish. The quotation marks in the last example (only in the Polish version) prove that the author does not regard this word as standard in the lexical stock of Polish. 3 See, for instance, the use of such expressions as Schlag unter die Gürtellinie a hit below the belt’, Kopf-an-Kopf-Rennen keep up with the others’, auf Zeit spielen play for time’ by German politicians. For more examples, see Zieli ski (2003). 4 http: / / pl.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Szalikowcy, 11/ 02/ 2008. <?page no="251"?> 248 Lexemes ending in -owiec are quite frequent in contemporary Polish, but most of them carry a derogatory meaning. One should also keep in mind that the semantic range of nouns to which -owiec is attached is wide, as illustrated by the following examples: dzia kowiec [‘a person cultivating a tiny allotment, for pleasure rather than for crop’], fachowiec [‘specialist’], handlowiec [‘salesperson’], pechowiec [‘unlucky person’], ormowiec [‘member of voluntary Communist militia’], zomowiec [‘member of the mechanised infantry of Communist militia’ - the most brutal forces used against antiregime demonstrations in Communist Poland]. Among these, there is also sportowiec [‘sportsman’]. “Lately a derogatory term for a sports fan has been coined: kibol - a hooligan. It is a strongly pejorative term for violent Ultras, vandals and hooligans.” (Miodek 2005: 3003). 4. Lekarz z krakowskiego pogotowia opowiada, %e próbowa wielekro rozmawia z poharatanymi kibolami o pi ce. Ich znajomoŸ klubu, z którym si uto%samiaj& oraz w którego imi bij&, pal& i rabuj&, jest z regu y zerowa. Niewa%na. Niepotrzebna. G upia. Wa%ni s& ONI. Ci w innych szalikach […] (Przekrój 18/ 03/ 2001). [A doctor from the Cracow emergency service reports trying to talk about football to seriously injured hooligans who ended up in hospital. Their acquaintance with the club they claim to represent, in the name of which they violently attack others, is next to none. But this knowledge is irrelevant, unimportant and stupid. THEY are important: THE OTHERS wearing scarves [...]. ] Kibol is derived by means of the suffix -ol, which tends to be weakly productive in Polish. However, the forms it gives rise to carry a strong emotional load. For example, the adjective g upi [‘foolish’] gave rise to the noun g upol [‘fool’]. The best-known example of the formations with -ol is robol, which designates ‘someone who works, does his job’. Nonetheless, this term for a worker suggests a negative attitude on the part of the speaker, since robol is someone who does the worst kind of jobs, the most poorly paid ones, requiring no intellectual involvement. (“Robol” [a digger] is to do his job, smart guys will do the thinking - a passage from rock lyrics, quoted in Zgó kowa 2002). The above remarks are valid for the standard variety of Polish. Substandard varieties, particularly the sociolect of sports-fans, use a vast range of vocabulary denoting participants of sporting events. The reader is referred to Ko odziejek (2006), the exemplary work on this topic. This also concerns the word pseudokibic, discussed above. We are only interested in how this word functions in texts composed for a wider group of readers than in specialist journalism, which is usually of limited dissemination. 4. Pseudokibic (hooligan, pseudo-fan) The most frequent name for hooligans used in Polish media is pseudokibic. This is illustrated in a set of examples below: 5. W 65. minucie meczu szczeci'skiej Pogoni ze ©l&skiem na stadionie we Wroc awiu „Krzysztof Zdunek musia przerwa spotkanie, bo na boisko wtargn li pseudokibice” i zacz a si „regularna wojna z policj&, która trwa a 25 minut”. (Rzeczpospolita 27 X 2001) [In the 65 th minute of the match between “Pogo'” Szczecin and “©l&sk” Wroc aw “the referee <?page no="252"?> 249 Kszysztof Zdunek was forced to cancel the contest, as the pitch was flooded with hooligans” who went in for “an open conflict with the police. This outpouring of aggression lasted 25 minutes.”] 6. Kilkudziesi ciu agresywnych i zamaskowanych pseudokibiców pi karskiego klubu Stal Rzeszów wszcz o w nocy uliczn& awantur . (Wprost 6 VI 2004) [Dozens of aggressive hooligans from “Stal” Rzeszów provoked severe civil disorder and engaged in an open fight in one of the city’s streets in the middle of the night.] 7. Gorzowski s&d aresztowa na miesi&c 22-letniego pseudokibica Stali, który bra udzia w zadymie po niedzielnych derbach %u%lowych. (Gazeta Wyborcza 31 VIII 2006) [The court of justice of the town of Gorzów arrested a 22-year-old hooligan from “Stal”, who participated in the fights following the speedway derby contest on Sunday.] The noun pseudokibic was the base for the adjective pseudokibicowski [‘brutal, typical of a hooligan’]: 8. Jednak na razie trzeba wskaza sfrustrowanym ludziom alternatywne dla pseudokibicowskich burd zaj cia - uwa%a Dariusz Król. (Gazeta Polska 38/ 2005) [For the time being, frustrated audiences must be provided with an alternative to the turbulent hooligan ordeals - says Dariusz Król.] A similar name for hooligans is used in Russia. Russian uses the term { ¤‹<^ for a sports fan, while a hooligan is named €†{‚ { ¤‹<^. Thus both Polish and Russian use the particle pseudo-. 9. ª ‹{† ‚ ” < . ‚ ‚`{~@ €`<‡ @ > † < >, †< @ < {” >  ^ >Œ , >{„ ‚<†<~ ` ‚>@ <\`- †‚ { ^ ~ > - < †{ > . €`<‡ @ > † < > € † ‚ ¤†@. Š „< ¤ € † < > † €<‚ ~ — <€ , ~- ^` -{ < ‚†{ ^ {. ® € { >< >{ †~ `@ . ¯ ~  € ^< ” „ \ {\ ^ > ><@…(http: / / mxf.livejournal.com/ 32015.html, 11/ 02/ 2008). [There are sports fans and pseudo-fans. Fans are those who come to support their team irrespective of whether their team is doing well or not, regardless of the score. Pseudo-fans come to the stadium to linger about. They walk around the place with cheap beer in their hands. They are not interested in the sporting event, and they leave the place long before the end of the game.] 10. « \` „< 10 { ”`¤~-», - † ‹< ‚ ‚ †^`{†{>¤{ > †€{Œ< ¤> † „‚ >>  €`{††-^ > {`{>Œ<< ‚ ° `ˆ ‚{ \ ‚>- ^ ~{> > € <Œ<< — `{^ ±{>¤^ ‚†^<. (http: / / www.polit.ru/ news/ 2006/ 05/ 14/ warshava_lads.html, 11/ 02/ 2008) 5 [Pseudo-fans may be sentenced to 10 years - announced the Head Officer of the Polish Police at a conference held on Sunday in Warsaw focussing on the problems of hooliganism.] The word pseudokibic has attracted the attention of linguists and political analysts. The former question the correctness of the word’s morphological structure (Jakubowski 2007). The suffix pseudonegates the main sense of the word to which it is attached. And in the case of pseudokibic: The prefix pseudodoes not undermine the sense of the word kibic, since the meaning of this word does not pertain directly to how spectators behave during sporting events. The word only refers to the presence of such a person at the event. 5 In this example €†{‚ { ¤‹<^ may be a calque from Polish, since the quoted passage comes from a news item from Poland. <?page no="253"?> 250 So the word kibic can be used for both urbane and well-behaved sports fans as well as for the violent Ultras, ready to wage war against their opponents. (Jakubowski 2007: 225) Jakubowski (2007: 226) doubts that there is any “plausible justification for this use of the suffix pseudo-”. In his opinion, the word pseudokibic is an error, but its use is conscious and purposeful, “in accordance with the canon of political correctness in language, which consists in blurring contrasts and avoiding bluntness”. The purpose that this word serves is to signal that, if someone misbehaves at a sporting event, they cannot be named a real sports fan. In a note to the paper by Jakubowski, migrodzki (2007) supports the view that pseudokibic is structurally distinct from other formations with pseudo-. On the other hand, he observes that the word has already been institutionalized in Polish, including its presence in dictionaries. This is why “we have to accept the fact that pseudokibic has gained a considerable popularity with the speakers of Polish. Dictionary entries prove this beyond doubt” ( migrodzki 2007: 227). In my view, migrodzki (2007) is mistaken, since he ignores the fact that the word pseudokibic has a limited range of usage, reduced to the language of the massmedia. In everyday speech an average Pole is not likely to use the term pseudokibic with reference to hooligans. The debate between the two authors must be seen in the context of language prescriptivism - a strong, traditional trend among Polish researchers in contemporary studies of the Polish language. Jakubowski’s (2007) negative evaluation of the word pseudokibic stems from his adoption of the systemic criterion of language correctness (for a process to be positive, it must be fully compliant with the language system). migrodzki (2007), on the other hand, makes reference to the criterion of language use (well-educated people use the word pseudokibic, and it is recorded by dictionaries, so its status in language is indisputable). Both these viewpoints, however, ignore even more important issues, such as the pragmatic aspect of a speech act. Political analysts are more radical in their views. They demonstrate that the main problem with the word pseudokibic is not that of a language norm, but that of linguistic manipulation. Some opinions illustrating this point are quoted below: 11. ©rodowiska pi karskie - dzia acze, dziennikarze - próbuj& na u%ytek szerszej opinii publicznej rozerwa zwi&zek przyczynowo-skutkowy pomi dzy futbolem a towarzysz&cymi mu patologiami. W j zyku polskim ukuto nawet w tym celu specjalne s owo: pseudokibic. (Piotr Bratkowski, publicysta dziennika „Rzeczpospolita”, jednego z wa niejszych polskich dzienników) [The world of football - activists, journalists, etc. - try their best to convince the public that there is no direct cause-and-effect relationship between hooliganism and football. For this purpose the word pseudokibic has been coined in Polish. (P. Bratkowski, Rzeczpospolita - a leading, opinionforming daily in Poland)] 12. Nie bardzo rozumiem, dlaczego od lat wszyscy sportowi komentatorzy niczym mantr powtarzaj& s owo „pseudokibice”, zamiast mówi otwarcie o hordach zdemoralizowanych i pijanych m odych obuzów. (Stanis aw Tym, komentator lewicowego, lecz wp ywowego tygodnika „Polityka”, nr 28/ 2007.) [I am not sure why sports commentators keep using the term “pseudokibice”, instead of talking explicitly about crowds of demoralized and drunken adolescent vandals and hooligans. (Stanis aw Tym, commentator for the Polish leftist, opinion-forming weekly Polityka.)] <?page no="254"?> 251 13. Pi ki no%nej jeszcze wtedy [tj. w staro ytnym Rzymie] nie znano, ale stronnictwa cyrkowe toczy y walki podobne do tych, jakie dziŸ prowadz& mi dzy sob& sympatycy sportowych klubów, zwani przez podlizuj&cych si policji gryzipiórków „pseudokibicami”. (Stanis aw Michalkiewicz, komentator prawicowej „Gazety Polskiej”, nr 19/ 2007.) [Football was not known at that time [i.e. Ancient Rome - H.D.], but the circus groups waged wars similar to those we can observe today between the Ultras from opposing sports clubs, who are called pseudo-fans by those who are too afraid to admit that the police constantly fails to put the violence down. (S. Michalkiewicz, commentator for the rightist weekly “Gazeta Polska”)] My stance in the debate is closer to that of Jakubowski (2007), but not in the sense of his prescriptive evaluation of the word pseudokibic. I am more in favour of his opinion about political correctness as the reason for the use of the word. I find convincing Jakubowski’s point that the use of the word resembles a well-known Communist propaganda strategy, by means of which one social group was divided into the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ ones, the ‘true’ and the ‘untrue’. I lived a significant part of my adult life under the Communist regime in Poland, and I experienced myself Communist talk about the true workers, true patriots and true Poles. 6 Nowadays, this technique is often exploited by politicians, and it is also clearly visible in the pair kibic - pseudokibic [‘(sports) fan’ - ‘pseudo-fan’]. In this propaganda context, kibic is the ‘true sports fan’. For the reasons discussed above, I find it difficult to accept the view that the word pseudokibic is lexicalized in Polish, and that analyses of text corpora prove that its meaning is fixed. This approach ignores the pragmatic context of speech, which obliges me to say that the word is used in order to convince people that “there is no direct cause-and-effect relationship between hooliganism and football.” (Bratkowski, quoted above). References Ba kowski, Andrzej (2000): S ownik etymologiczny j zyka polskiego. Vol. 1 (A-K). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN Beyer, Dušan (2004): Fotbaloví chuligáni v Polsku. In: Éthum. Bulletin pro sociální prevenci, pomoc a intervenci 43, 88-94 BoryÅ, W adys aw (2005): S ownik etymologiczny j zyka polskiego. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie Brückner, Aleksander ( 5 1989): S ownik etymologiczny j zyka polskiego. Warszawa: Ksi ka i Wiedza Carnibella, Giovanni / Fox, Anne / Fox Kate / McCann, Joe / Marsh, James / Marsh Peter (1996): Football violence in Europe. A report to the Amsterdam Group. Oxford: The Social Issues Research Centre, http: / / www.sirc.org/ publik/ football_violence.html Doroszewski, Witold (ed.) (1959-1969): S ownik j zyka polskiego. Vol. 1-11. Warszawa: Pa stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy Du Feu, V. M. (1959): English sport terms in Polish. In: Canadian Slavonic Papers 4, 155-159 G owi ski, Micha (1993): Peereliada. Komentarze do s ów 1976-1981. Warszawa: Pa stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy Jakubowski, Bronis aw (2007): Pseudopodia a pseudokibice. In: J zyk Polski 87, 224-226 Kar owicz, Jan / Kry ski, Antoni / Nied wiedzki, W adys aw (red.) ( 2 1952): S ownik j zyka polskiego. Vol. 2. Warszawa: Pa stwowy Instytut Wydawniczy Ko odziejek, Ewa (2006): My chcemy gola! O komunikacji j zykowej w subkulturze kibiców pi karskich. In: Marcjanik (ed.) 332-351 6 For the discussion and illustration of how Communist propaganda exploited the adjective true, see, for example, G owi ski (1993: 86, 171). <?page no="255"?> 252 Marcjanik, Ma gorzata (ed.) (2006): Retoryka codziennoÅci. Zwyczaje j zykowe wspó czesnych Polaków. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Trio Miodek, Jan (2002): S ownik ojczyzny polszczyzny. Wroc aw: Wydawnictwo Europa Opoka, Joanna / Oskiera, Agnieszka (eds.) (2003): J zyk. Literatura. Dydaktyka. Vol. 1. ód : Wydawnictwo Wy szej Szko y Humanistyczno-Ekonomicznej w odzi O d y ski, Jan (1970): Polskie wspó czesne s ownictwo sportowe. Wroc aw: Ossolineum Podracki, J (1978): Wp yw j zyka sportowego na inne odmiany polszczyzny. In: Kultura Fizyczna 6, 265-269 Sahaj, Tomasz (2002): Kibice i pseudokibice. Analiza zjawiska chuliga stwa stadionowego. In: Sport Wyczynowy 7-8, 71-81, http: / / www.cos.pl/ sw/ 78_02/ 71.pdf, 11/ 02/ 2008 Sahaj Tomasz (2004): Kibice, pseudokibice, chuligani stadionowi i pozastadionowi. In: Sport Wyczynowy 5-6, 76-85, http: / / www.cos.pl/ sw/ 56_04/ 76.pdf, 11/ 02/ 2008 Smolik, Josef (2004): Football Hooliganism from the Standpoint of Extremism. In: St edoevropské Politické Studie 6, http: / / www.cepsr.com/ clanek.php? ID=212, 11/ 02/ 2008 Soanes Catherine / Stevenson Angus (eds.) (2003): Oxford Dictionary of English. Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press Szpila, Grzegorz (ed.) (2002): J zyk trzeciego tysi clecia II. Vol. 1: Nowe oblicza komunikacji we wspó czesnej polszczy nie. Kraków: Krakowskie Towarzystwo Popularyzacji Wiedzy o Komunikacji J zykowej Zgó kowa, Halina (2002): Praktyczny s ownik wspó czesnej polszczyzny. Vol. 36. Pozna : Wydawnictwo „Kurpisz” Zieli ski, Lech (2002): Wp yw s ownictwa sportowego na j zyk polityki. In: Szpila, 259-272 Zieli ski, Lech (2003): Nowe znaczenia leksyki sportowej a leksykografia na przyk adzie j zyka polskiego i niemieckiego. In: Opoka/ Oskiera, 63-76 migrodzki, Piotr (2007): Dopisek do artyku u Bronis awa Jakubowskiego Pseudopodia a pseudokibice. In: J zyk Polski 87, 226 Assistant Professor Dr Henryk Duda Chair of the Polish Language John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin Al Rac awickie 14 PL 20-950 Lublin e-mail: issunboushi@autograf.pl <?page no="256"?> 4. FOOTBALL AND MEDIA <?page no="258"?> 255 JAN CHOVANEC ENACTING AN IMAGINARY COMMUNITY: INFOTAINMENT IN ON-LINE MINUTE-BY-MINUTE SPORTS COMMENTARIES The article analyses the characteristic features of online minute-by-minute sports commentaries, mainly in view of the mutual interdependence of the ideational and the interpersonal functions. This is shown by a textual practice in which the provision of information about the game and its development is complemented and even supplanted by an effort to relate to the anonymous audience in as close a manner as possible. On the level of representation, the resulting text thus has a factual as well as a social orientation. On the level of presentation, i.e. with respect to the linguistic forms and strategies in which such a combination of functions is realized, this results, above all, in an increased involvement on the part of discourse participants in the commentary, a high degree of contextualization and communication along several thematic threads. This article documents the way an imaginary community of football fans is constructed by means of three general strategies: synthetic personalisation combined with features of orality and spokenness, the mixing of various accessed voices in the text of the commentary, and the use of several rhetorical tropes. Together, these strategies are characterised by an entertaining form of presentation and a strong orientation towards interpersonal interaction. 1. Introduction On-line minute-by-minute sports commentaries form a distinct kind of communicative event. They are characterised by the strong mutual dependence of ideational and interpersonal functions. The provision of information in such on-line commentaries is complemented by the need to relate to an anonymous audience. The commentaries analysed are complex speech events in which a verbal commentary by the author is complemented with reported verbal commentaries by (and between) other commentators, as well as quotes from personal communications of individual readers sent by email to the commentator. The heteroglossic mixing of voices in the actual on-line commentary makes it possible for the author to assume a particular persona that can react to the other voices, have them express strong opinions, and occasionally engage in a kind of a verbal contest with such accessed voices. As a result, the commentary becomes a highly personalized form of self-expression by the commentator, far removed from merely describing the events in the football game. The genre of such opinion-oriented commentaries, often highly critical (to the point of irony and irreverence), yet funny and relying on verbal wit, is interpreted as a verbal spectacle staged for the entertainment of the audience or viewers. Socially, the genre serves the purpose of bonding between typically male viewers who possess significant insider knowledge not only about the game itself, but also about its cultural history and the wider cultural and social context of the (British) speech community. In this sense, the devices identified and described actually serve to assert in-group <?page no="259"?> 256 membership and thus reflect the participation of both the commentator and the audience in a simulated community of practice. The analysis is based on a set of on-line minute-by-minute commentaries from the Guardian Unlimited website, with the illustrative material drawn from the final match of the 2006 World Cup in Germany between Italy and France. 2. Theoretical background Since they exist as a distinctive type of communicative event, sports commentaries constitute an independent genre. In terms of Swales’ definition of genre, they reflect a central purpose, prototypical content and form, and are recognised as such by the discourse community of which they are a part (Swales 1990). As such, they have been subject to traditional stylistic analysis within the tradition of functional linguistics as particular instances of registers, both in their spoken (Crystal / Davy 1969) and written form (Ghadessy 1988a). The genre of the written sports commentary is a particular text type exhibiting certain conventional formal as well as functional features. It is a situationally defined variety which may be suitably described in terms of the three components of register: field, tenor and mode (Halliday 1994). An analysis should, therefore, involve the study of representations (the ideational component), the relationship between the discourse participants, their identities and social relations (the interpersonal component), and the patterns of textual organisation such as cohesion and coherence (the textual component). Language data come as concrete manifestations of these components, i.e. formal realisations of meaning potentials through choices on the lexico-grammatical level and the level of discourse organisation (cf. Hoey 1991, 2000). Within genre theory, the insufficiency of traditional stylistic analysis without wider social and pragmatic considerations is noted by, for instance, Bhatia (1993: 18), who states that “[…] text by itself is not a complete object possessing meaning on its own; it is to be regarded as an ongoing process of negotiation in the context of issues like social roles, group purposes, professional and organizational preferences and prerequisites, and even cultural constraints.” Similarly, critical linguistics calls for a detailed study of the social contexts of text production and consumption, stipulating that textual analysis should be followed by an explanation of the social significance of their use in terms of discursive practices and, eventually, the wider socio-cultural practices within which language use is embedded (Fairclough 1989, Richardson 2007). On-line minute-by-minute sports commentary is a particular subgenre of written sports reporting which is characterised by certain specific text-forming strategies - tactical choices made by the writer in order to make the text more effective (cf. Bhatia 1993: 19). An analysis of a set of on-line minute-by-minute match reports (MBMs) on the Guardian Unlimited website has indicated that there are several such broad strategies at work. First, the nature of MBMs consists of modifying the traditional roles of producer and consumer(s) of text, with increased attention to the interpersonal level of communication. Second, the formation of an imaginary community, e.g. of football fans, is connected with a high degree of contextualisation concerning the game, teams, players, football history, national cultural icons, etc. Third, the communicative event progresses according to the course of the ongoing game (i.e. the primary thematic line) <?page no="260"?> 257 but, simultaneously, it develops along several parallel thematic lines which highlight the interpersonal nature of the communication. This article concentrates primarily on the first of these three strategies: the altered balance of the traditional roles of participants in a mass-medial speech event - although it does make reference to contextualisation and multiple thematic threads. In this context, three more specific areas are identified: first, the means of achieving informality and spokenness through devices of synthetic personalisation; second, the mixing of voices and the functions of the resulting heteroglossic structures; and third, rhetorical strategies connected with wordplay, similes and hyperbole. All of these strategies involve mutual interplay and operate as devices for highlighting the interpersonal level of communication. MBMs do not, by any means, serve only for the transmission of information about a football game. On the contrary, such ideational function-oriented communication is, at times, even backgrounded. MBMs provide a venue for the linguistic formation of an imagined community. The linguistic forms and strategies indicate that MBMs function to cement quasi-personal informal social relations and strengthen the sense of belonging to such imaginary communities. Occasionally, the function of social bonding is performed even when the voices involved engage in a kind of verbal contest, typical of male bravado within their social groups. On a more general level of mass media communication, the features of synthetic personalisation, the mixing of voices and the rhetorical strategies focussing more on form share the underlying element of an entertaining way of presentation. This is evidence of the modern trend towards infotainment (Macdonald 2003): the mixing of information and entertainment. In the case of MBMs, however, the content sometimes becomes backgrounded and the entertaining style takes over, regardless of the ideational context of the communicative event. 3. Means of constructing a community 3.1 Informality and spokenness Since the overarching aim of communication in MBMs is, as argued in this paper, social rather than referential, it is no wonder that the interpersonal dimension plays a crucial role in this type of discourse. The contact between the writer and his audience/ viewers needs to be firmly established and tends to be explicitly articulated by means of certain lexico-grammatical features. These include, among others, personal and possessive pronouns, imperatives, questions, greetings, etc., as in the following examples: 1. 66 mins Italy have apparently gone 4-5-1 - I’m too busy looking at emails and wondering why my vision is so blurred […] (WCF, 66 mins) 2. Thanks heaps for all your emails, both to me and the other GU goons… See you back here in four years - Rob. (WCF - end of commentary) 3. It’s penalties. Just like it was in 1994, and sorry for not looking at all your emails in the last few minutes - me and my bleary, blurry eyes are still reeling from Zidane’s red card. It’s hard to do justice to just how horrible that butt was - you instinctively recoil like you’re the victim; your eyelids instinctively magnetising with every replay. You can feel the teeth grinding and fists clenching as he rams into Materazzi […] (WCF - penalties) <?page no="261"?> 258 Such direct forms of address, references and appeals to the audience are indications of synthetic personalisation (Fairclough 1989, Talbot 1995). Its function is to create a simulated atmosphere of friendship and constitute an imaginary community between the (often anonymous and institutional) writer and (often anonymous and mass) audience in split communicative contexts. In other words, these forms contribute towards the establishment of contact between the producer and consumers of the text, evidencing a strong phatic function. In addition, they highlight the interactive potential of the text, adding an illusion of intimacy, informality, spontaneity and emotiveness. A significant role in the establishment of contact between the commentator and the audience is played by informal, colloquial and spoken language, which serves as a bridge spanning the discursive gap between the anonymous mass communication event and the need to relate to the audience on a more personal level (cf. Fowler 1991). This function is performed by the following formal features (often occurring in sequences rather than independently of each other): • informal vocabulary, e.g. hilarious buggerlugsed penalty ( WCF 40 min), How they can leave Michael Silvestre on the bench, I will never, ever know.* *This is a big, fat, sweaty, stinking, goddamn lie, (WCF 45 mins+1) • familiar forms of address and nicknames, e.g. […] we have the most romantic imaginable farewell for Zizou (WCF, introduction), See you back here in four years - Rob (WCF, ending); […] a smart save from Coco The Clown, low to his left (WCF, 73 mins) • features of orality and spokenness, e.g tags, discourse markers, incomplete sentences, such as: That’s Star Trek, right? (WCF 17 mins), Materazzi used to play for Everton, you know. (WCF, 19 mins), I don’t think he was offside you know, (WCF 62 mins), […] he has been immaculate tonight, picking pockets and passes in equal measure. Always is. (WCF, 101 mins); Pirlo flashes the free-kick just - just - wide of the near post, but I think Barthes had it covered. Just. (WCF, 77 mins) • interpolations (i.e. transpositions of one’s own statements with an explanatory insertion), e.g. […] and his cutback is whipped - well, bludgeoned - off Zidane’s toe by Materazzi, (WCF 85 mins) • rhyming slang, e.g. “These are critical moments,” says Clive Tyldesley, showing the insight for which he trousers a hell of a lot more bunse than me. (WCF, 86 mins - Note: ‘Bunse’ is an abbreviated form of ‘Bunsen Burner’, rhyming slang for ‘nice little earner’, i.e. a convenient and easy way of making money, or, in this context, ‘easy money’) • expletives, e.g. 0.00 […] he looks like he’s concussed. … Blimey, this could be a big problem. How cruel would this be on Henry? (WCF, 1 min), What on earth did Materazzi say to provoke that? (WCF, 109 mins), This is a big, fat, sweaty, stinking, goddamn lie. (WCF, 45+1 mins) • hesitation sounds, fillers, repetitions, e.g. That really, erm, put the ‘no! ’ in ‘dénouement’, WCF , 120 mins - penalties), Diarra is booked for, erm, he’s booked for, erm, very little in fact. (WCF, 76 mins) • vagueness, e.g. […] just one minute of added time, despite two minutes used for the Zidane thing. (WCF, 119 mins) <?page no="262"?> 259 • written representation of paralinguistic phenomena - pauses, segmented pronunciation of words for emphasis, etc., e.g. It’s Wiltord… and he scores immaculately, to Buffon’s left as Italy’s Alice-band-loving keeper dived the other way. (WCF, penalties), It certainly wasn’t a dive, and I reckon it was a penalty. Albeit soft. Ish. (WCF, half time) GOAL! France 1 Italy 0 (Zidane 7 pen) Oh. My. God. (WCF, 7 min) • interjections and verbal representations of sounds, e.g. At the other end, seconds later, Toni’s shot is blocked by Gallas. Ding. Dong. Ding. Dong. (WCF, 63 mins), What’s worse than Turner’s mobile going off during the World Cup final? Turner’s mobile going off during the World Cup final with a Keane ringtone. Is it any wonder I feel uptight? Honk. (WCF, 92 mins) These informal lexical items, colloquial forms and features of spoken language tend to co-construct a familiar verbal context in which the readers can feel at ease. The immediacy connected with oral features seems to be particularly strong at crucial moments in the game - when goals are scored or disallowed, or when key players are injured on the field. It is at these moments that the written on-line MBMs come closest to resembling running spoken commentaries on the radio and on TV. Compare the following commentaries with exclamatives and heavily evaluative and subjective language: 4. GOAL! France 1 Italy 0 (Zidane 7 pen). Oh. My. God. I’m sorry but you just can’t take a penalty like this in a World Cup final. That was unbelievable! […] and what a game we have now. And what a goal! (WCF, 7 min) 5. 109 mins ZIDANE SENT OFF FOR STICKING THE HEED (sic) ON MATERAZZI! Oh. My. God. […] He has always had a nasty streak - this is his 14 th red card - but this was just ridiculous. What on earth did Materazzi say to provoke that? Either way, it was a disgusting, nasty, blackly comic chestbutt, delivered with a Hitchcockian suddenness, and it’s an unbelievable ending to Zidane’s lustrous career. It was a JFK moment and a GBH moment rolled into one oh-my-giddyaunt moment. And he could still end up lifting the World Cup! (WCF, 109 mins) 3.2. Voicing and heteroglossia While other genres also make relatively common use of informality and orality, deploying them strategically in order to establish a simulated context of friendship and mutual trust, there is, however, another device that on-line MBMs in the Guardian use systematically: heteroglossia, or the mixing of various voices in the text of the commentary. This is the result of an intentional strategy of the commentator to include voices other than his own. The traditional pattern of one-to-many communication in the media is thus challenged (cf. Lewis 2003: 95) and replaced by a more complex configuration of participants involved in the communicative event. The presence or absence of other voices in the text is closely linked to power: the commentator is still in full charge of his text and determines who gets access to the text. By allowing access to other voices, the commentator performs a dual function. First, as it is entirely up to him to decide which voices to include/ exclude, there is the traditional gate-keeping role (cf. McQuail 1994). Second, there is the agenda-setting role: the commentator decides which topics to introduce, and often does so through the <?page no="263"?> 260 voices of others. This allows him to subsequently comment on those topics and introduce a dialogic perspective on the text (cf. Fowler 1996). Owing to the close connection between the gate-keeping and the agenda-setting functions, however, a topic introduced through some other voice, e.g. that of some other commentator or an email writer, is only seemingly authentic, since the commentator is in full charge of such a textual insertion. The other voices are quoted and the otherinitiated subjects are introduced at the discretion of the commentator. Being in charge of the entire communicative event, he may then comment on such accessed voices without giving any chance to the other voices to reciprocate. The channel is thus not fully opened. Other discourse participants may (and clearly sometimes do) react by sending in follow-up comments, but it is again the commentator who, in using his gate-keeping role, decides whether to include such feedback-providing voices or not. As the analysis of the topics discussed in MBMs indicates, this may result in the development of parallel lines of unrelated topics and even quasi-dialogical exchanges, which may not be immediately intelligible to outsiders. This is the case in the following example, which constitutes a complete and self-sustained thematic side-line embedded within the main topic line of the football commentary: 6. 20 mins “Do you do shoot-outs,” Says Tim Horsburgh. NO. (WCF, 20 mins) 7. 59 mins […] Here’s Tim Horsburgh again. “Since you went against your cruel decision to mock me rather than say a shout-out to my wife, I’ve taken my (admittedly futile) revenge by opening a beer for myself as I prepare to watch the second half. Did you get one? ” HELLO MRS HORSBURGH! (WCF, 59 mins) Such dialogicity can also involve a mediated discussion on third parties, as in the following case, where the former football player and ITV commentator David Pleat (who was also involved in commentating the 2006 World Cup) is discussed. Both the person and the topic are, however, included entirely out of context: these topics are not pursued along any of the parallel thematic lines anywhere in this particular MBM (save for a sideline discussion of women’s faces and make-up in minutes 41 and 43 of the commentary, motivated by a TV camera cut to a French woman in the crowd). 8. 68 mins “Do you think David Pleat describes everyone the same way? ” says Graham Allsop. “’And the wife has brought the dinner, the middle-aged grey-haired old woman’.” I guess all the women he’s met in his life aren’t middle-aged and grey-haired. (WCF, 68 mins) The frequency with which commentators provide access to other voices is striking: in the 120 minutes of the on-line MBM report on the final match of the 2006 World Cup, for instance, the commentator Rob Smyth accessed other voices 34 times. In other words, on average there is approximately one quote from an external source every four minutes. The quotes seem to be applied so regularly that they are almost stereotypical and may - after a repeated exposure to the genre of on-line MBMs - feel like clichés. Not surprisingly, they typically occur during dull moments of the game, when insertions of entertaining comments by outsiders provide a welcome opportunity to engage in informal, colloquial ‘natter’ with the accessed voices. <?page no="264"?> 261 As regards the voices themselves, they are, on the one hand, typically direct quotes from emails sent to the commentator by readers and, on the other, snippets of conversation between the commentator’s colleagues. There is usually no way, however, of telling these two kinds of voices apart, except for occasional clues given by the commentator himself (such as references to emails, the choice of speech act verbs of ‘writing’ rather than ‘saying’, notes concerning the extralinguistic behaviour of his colleagues, vague mentions of his colleagues’ affiliations, etc.). The identity of some of the voices may be retrieved from the cultural context shared by the readers (e.g. the background knowledge of Clive Tyldesley and David Pleat as famous British sports commentators). By being quoted, select readers actually co-construct the text of the commentary through their voice. This may, in fact, come as a result of an implicit contest between them to ‘get quoted’, i.e. to send a unique contribution that is deemed worthy of inclusion by the commentator. This, obviously, will have an effect on the content of their messages, favouring the comical, the unexpected and the bizarre. They may also be chosen with a view to their potential for witty repartee by the commentator in his subsequent move (see below). In this sense, their value is similar to that of some stories in tabloids chosen for their ‘photo opportunity’ potential (cf. Harcup / O’Neill 2001). The accessed voices in the MBMs analysed seem to belong mostly to British readers - as appears from the frequent references to shared cultural contexts and by nonidentification of their origin by the commentator. Britishness is thus taken as the default expectation. There are, however, also contributors from other countries. Non-British readers are identified as foreign nationals in attributions (formally consisting of reporting clauses and similar structures with an identical function), as in the following modally-hedged and speculative example: 9. 27 mins It’s all gone quiet over there. Miguel Batista, who may or may not be from Portugal, notes with frustration that Zidane has already dived thrice tonight and nobody has said a word. […] (WCF, 27 mins) Attributions contain full names, even when one and the same person is given voice repeatedly. On one occasion, the commentator turns the attribution - or rather the pretence of non-disclosure of the contributor’s identity - into a joke. In his reaction, he is being ironic about himself and goes on to develop the joke contributed by the reader: 10. 32 mins Italy are better, more vibrant, but it’s as we expected it would be now, only with a goal extra each on the scoreboard. “It’s a good job Barthes isn’t a soldier, he’d always be in no man’s land! ” chuckles Rino, I’m not going to finger Rich Tucker in Arkansas as the perpetrator of that awful joke. I’m not that cruel. Also, I didn’t realize no man’s land was the sort of place you could visit again and again, like Butlin’s. (WCF, 32 mins) The quote above is illustrative of a textual strategy common to many of these instances of accessed voices: they function as a kind of verbal duel between the commentator and the accessed voice (cf. Chovanec 2006). The direct quotes are typically, as in the example above, followed by the commentator’s comment - either a direct evaluative statement on the contribution made by the accessed voice, or the addition of some information turning the initial contribution into parody. <?page no="265"?> 262 Many of these relatively self-contained mini-texts accompanying particular minutes of the game actually display a structure consisting of three (and possibly four) moves. First, there is an optional informative comment on what is happening on the pitch voiced by the commentator himself (cf. the example above: Italy are better, more vibrant, but it’s as we expected it would be now, only with a goal each on the scoreboard). This may be either relatively factual or evaluative. Alternately, an evaluation may be added by the commentator after a factual report of the goings-on. Second, there is a direct/ indirect quote of an accessed voice (cf. the example above: “It’s a good job Barthes isn’t a soldier, he’d always be in no man’s land! ” chuckles Ri- […] Rich Tucker). This move may function as an external commentary - direct or indirect - on the factual report in the previous move or, even, the progress of the whole game. It may also serve to evaluate the players and teams in general, and even contain references to football history, for example, thereby serving to establish and reinforce shared context between the imaginary community of football fans - readers of online MBMs. The second move may also introduce totally unrelated information, and thus potentially start another thematic thread in the commentary, as well as react to a previous comment by some other reader, i.e. developing a parallel thematic line. The third move is the reaction of the commentator to the voice accessed (cf. the example above: I’m not going to finger Rich Tucker in Arkansas as the perpetrator of that awful joke. I’m not that cruel. Also, I didn’t realize no man’s land was the sort of place you could visit again and again, like Butlin’s.). Typically, this takes the form of topping the quote or turning it into a joke - this is what might be considered the ‘art of repartee’. Since the second and the third moves are often contrasted and exist in mutual tension, they may be viewed as a kind of verbal contest staged for the benefit of the audience - the other ‘readers’. In this contest, the commentator manifests both his discursive superiority and verbal wit by engaging in a repeated exchange of one-liners, humorous statements, bizarre similes, colloquialisms, references to shared knowledge, negative evaluations of the accessed voice, and even self-deprecating and humiliating comments. The idea of a verbal contest with an exchange of jokes seems to be confirmed by several metadiscursive statements in the commentary, pointing out the functional classification of both the commentator’s observations and the contributions by the other people quoted. The 2006 World Cup Final contains two such explicit mentions: […] says Luciano Howard, as I shamelessly add a gag after the game […] (WCF, 84 mins), […] “We now have a new definition of redundancy,” chuckles William Billyboy of his own joke. […] (WCF, 95 mins). A third mention takes the shape of a full joke quoted and then topped by the commentator. 11. 105 mins “You heard about the big break-in at the Canadian Soccer Association headquarters? ” says Stephen LaRose. “Thieves broke into the trophy room and took everything of value. So if you’re in Toronto and see someone with a nice new carpet, call the police.” The first ever Canadian football joke, ladies and gentlemen. And the last. (WCF, 105 mins) As regards the classification of the voices accessed, the genre of on-line MBMs also draws on another kind of contributor of verbal wit: other commentators and journalists. <?page no="266"?> 263 In this sense, the discourse feeds off other discourses performed simultaneously with the production of the online MBM match commentary. In the data from the 2006 World Cup Final, there is only one accessed voice that can be unequivocally identified as belonging to another sports commentator: that of Clive Tyldesley of ITV. The whole commentary echoes his commentary five times, which is a clear indication that Rob Smyth’s MBM commentary on the Guardian Unlimited website is actually based on a TV broadcast, as also evidenced by a verbal jab at ITV for its technical problems at the very beginning of the match (these turned into an insider joke in the next minute, which starts 0: 00 rather than the expected 2 mins): 12. 1 min Horacio Elizondo blows his whistle and Italy, in blue, kick off from left to right. France are in white. Good start for ITV, meanwhile: their clock is stuck on 0: 00. (WCF, 1 min) 13. 0: 00 Henry, looking the other way, runs right into […] (WCF, 2 mins) The potentially ‘parasitic’ character of the MBM report with respect to the televised match raises an intriguing analytical question: namely whether and to what degree the MBM relies on the ITV commentary, i.e. how much of the ITV report is needed for a proper contextualisation of the MBM. Although a comparison of the reports in the two media and their mutual (or rather one-way) dependence is not the focus of this analysis, a discussion of heteroglossia in online minute-by-minute reports might require a closer look at the nature of some of the verbal reflections of the televised commentary in the material. Quotes of the commentator follow the same pattern as identified above: they are a part of a verbal contest between the commentator and the voice he gives access to. In the case of quoting another commentator, professional competitiveness may be involved, especially when Smyth systematically marks himself off against Tyldesley. Thus, for instance, in the following commentary, Smyth engages in a quasi-dialogue with the other commentator by rhetorically addressing him in a direct way and using a familiar form of address, obviously disagreeing strongly with the quoted statement. 14. 41 mins Camera cuts to a fairly beautiful French lady in the crowd. As various single men cry inside at what become [sic] of their lives, Clive Tyldesley announces: “some need make-up more than others”. Say what you see, Clive. (WCF, 41 mins) The verbal contest with the other commentator takes the form of more or less explicit criticism of the manner of reporting. Tyldesley is reproached, first, for stating the obvious and telling banalities and, second, for using clichés and unoriginal language. Smyth’s humorous attitude is revealed by an interplay of factors: his evaluative comment includes informal vocabulary (cf. the verb trouser converted from a noun, with the added benefit of easy visualisation of such an action), unusual lexis (bunse - rhyming slang), an expletive with an intensifying function (a hell of a lot more), a mild taboo (bloody), an original creation to describe a fictional object (Bloody Big Book of Player-Related Clichés) and a metalinguistic contrast (lion-hearted challenge vs. routine interception), which, in addition, draws on an anticipated shared knowledge of Darren Fletcher, a Scottish football player in the Premier League (for whom the comparison is, needless to say, humiliating): <?page no="267"?> 264 15. 86 mins “These are critical moments,” says Clive Tyldesley, showing the insight for which he trousers a hell of a lot more bunse than me. (WCF, 86 mins) 16. 30 mins “Lion-hearted challenge from Gattuso,” says Clive Tyldesley, delving into his Bloody Big Book of Player-Related Clichés to describe a routine interception that even Darren Fletcher could have made. (WCF, 30 mins) In his own commentary, however, Rob Smyth also slips into using clichés. For instance, he uses the obviously trite and pre-fabricated phrase “the improbably handsome Pirlo” three times. After the initial mention of what might seem an original phrase in the 14th minute, the same phrase is recycled in the 19th and the 120th minutes, when, at tense moments of the game (the scoring of an equalizer by Italy and the successfully taken penalty by Pirlo himself), the commentator reverts to habitualized language rather than being creative and innovative. Last but not least, Smyth also uses a quote by the TV commentator Tyldesley as a springboard for making a joke, drawing on the commonly shared cultural stereotype of ‘the dissatisfied pensioner’. Particular poignancy is added by the fact that he chooses his own grandmother as the representative of all TV viewers dissatisfied by the delay to the start of the following programme caused by the extended length of the match: 17. 118 mins “Those of you tuning in for Poirot, it will of course follow the World Cup final,” says Clive Tyldesley, as Granny Smyth cancels her TV licence direct debit in a huff. (WCF, 118 mins) All these examples illustrate that what underlies both the content of accessed voices and the uses to which the commentator puts their quotes is a common striving for entertainment. The ever-present urge for an entertaining style of presentation may even result in a situation in which a voice is paradoxically given to an inanimate object. This is documented in the following example, where inverted commas indicate fake direct speech of the net mocking its opponents: 18. 55 mins France are all over Italy at the moment, and Malouda’s low cross is just behind Ribery, six yards out and with an open net shouting ‘welt one at me, sugar, hard as ya like’. (WCF, 55 mins) The text of the on-line minute-by-minute match commentary thus results in a symphony of voices, in which the commentator verbally interacts with quotes from readers, commentaries of other commentators and imaginary words of inanimate things. The various viewpoints and subjectivities can be contrasted with one another, and the inevitable variety of topics introduced into the commentary allows it to progress along several topic lines. Consequently, the resulting commentary sports the air of an informal conversation between football fans, where a light-hearted attitude, playfulness of language and the utilisation of shared knowledge have the role of cementing social cohesion and enforcing the sense of belonging to an imaginary group. <?page no="268"?> 265 3.3. Rhetorical devices and entertainment While heteroglossia constitutes the nature of verbal interaction in on-line MBMs, and informal and colloquial language forms operate as a means of establishing contact and creating an impression of orality, this genre also uses various rhetorical devices, thanks to which it can perform its function of entertaining the audience more effectively. These devices include, among others, puns, similes and hyperbole. Such figures of speech, sometimes highly creative and drawing on the unexpected, share a common element: they provide an increased focus on the form. Wordplay may thus constitute a poetic device (cf. Chovanec 2005a, 2005b) with an essentially interpersonal orientation because it relies on its recognition and appreciation by the audience - even though the appreciation actually may, as in the case of clichéd wordplay or allusion, be negative by provoking a grunt response (cf. Lennon 2004). Puns, as specific instances of the more general category of wordplay, constitute a reader/ hearer-oriented interpersonal device in that they exist in a text as a certain meaning potential that needs to be realized, i.e. identified and potentially appreciated by the readers. In the following example, a situation on the pitch invites a one-sentence comment from one of the commentator’s colleagues. This is quoted as direct speech, in which the pun is present as an allusion to the set phrase ‘highway robbery’. Significantly, however, the commentator distances himself from the pun by making a metalinguistic comment on its quality. In this way, the commentator both manages to include the pun and disassociate himself from it in case it provokes a grunt response by readers. In addition, by commenting on the pun negatively, the commentator manifests his superiority over the voice which was quoted, which appears to be a stock strategy in this type of MBM (as noted above): 19. 52 mins Wonderful move from France, and they might have had a penalty at the end of it. It starts with Henry’s touch down the line to Ribery, who hurries it infield to Zidane. […] (WCF, 52 mins) 20. 53 mins “So, if France somehow pull this one out, will the Italians claim that penalty was highway Ribery? ” says Mark Ridermacher, deplorably ignoring Ribery’s non-involvement in the aforementioned incident in the name of a not-that-good pun. (WCF, 53 mins) Some puns achieve their humorous effect on account of mixing registers: they apply the vocabulary of football to non-football situations, as in the commentator Rob Smyth’s half-time comment Time to score some Lucozade (i.e. a well-known energy sports drink). Play on words involves innovation, as in the following remark, where the trademark for a toilet bowl is turned into a proper name: As TV’s James Richardson does a quick scamper to have a meeting with Mr Armitage Shanks (WCF, half-time in extra-time). Owing to humorous and innovative formulations, even utter banalities without any real informational value can thus qualify for inclusion in the commentary on the most important football match of all - the World Cup final. Similes used in the MBMs typically border on parody and sometimes slide into irreverence or even vulgarity. Again, it is their novelty that is to be appreciated, often the unusual comparison or juxtaposition of concepts that would not normally be considered comparable: <?page no="269"?> 266 21. […] Of course, I deserve castigation as I really went out on a limb by opining that a team [France] who looked like they couldn’t overcome a bottle of Chimay might not win the grand prize. (WCF, preamble) The simile is based on what seems like a contradiction: the alleged inability of the French team to finish a bottle of Belgian beer. In the following example, the point of the joke relies on the readers knowing the name of the commentator - Rob Smyth - and appreciating the fact that he made a parodying reference to himself: 22. The stretcher’s on, and he looks like he’s concussed. In fact, he looks like a boxer who’s gone 12 rounds with Smyth. (WCF, 1 min) Formally, a simile may be located in a prepositional phrase expressing a comparison, as in the following quote: 23. At first he was in doubt, and Zidane celebrated sheepishly, looking over at the linesman with the nervous expression of a train-fare-dodger checking down the carriage for the ticket inspector, but it was definitely over the line. (WCF, 7 min) These similes obviously strive to achieve a comical effect on the reader: they are calculated to invoke a humorous response. In this sense, they form an inseparable part of the overall purpose of the genre, i.e. to entertain the audience by means of verbal stimuli. The same function is performed by exaggeration present in hyperbolic statements, which cannot leave any reader in doubt as to whether the statements are meant seriously or not. Once again, this exaggeration - an obvious violation of the Gricean principle of quality - is proof that referential content in such hyperbole is backgrounded (though not absent! ) at the expense of the interpersonal level of communication, which relies on the appreciation of the hyperbole: 24. 16 mins The intrepid Grosso gets into a nice position wide on the left… and shanks his cross into Austria. (WCF, 16 mins, Note: the match was played in Germany) 25. 43 mins […] A split-second later he’s surrounded by 194 Italian defenders, and away it goes. (WCF, 43 mins) 26. 87 mins […] So Italy have used all three substitutions; France, perversely looking the fresher side despite their average age of 87, still have two to play (WCF, 87 mins) 27. Shambling predictions […] the heartwarming tale of a crop of ageing players who were ridiculed by every single person on the planet except the wise Alvin Williams […] (WCF, introduction) Wordplay, similes, hyperbolic exaggerations and irony are typical of the language of humour, being meant to provoke some comical effect. They are thus primarily oriented towards the recipient of the message. In discourse, they often operate as a strategy of encouraging friendship, and are typical of, for instance, male bonding. Such poetics in public language can, as noted by Conboy (2003: 46), serve as an enactor of community: “[…] wordplay draws the individual reader into an enjoyment of language as part of a larger community of readership.” <?page no="270"?> 267 4. Conclusion The analysis of selected discursive strategies in on-line minute-by-minute sports commentaries reveals that this genre significantly complements its function of providing information about the game with the social function of engaging in an informal and humorous form of communication. The light-hearted approach is manifested by the use of various rhetorical devices, e.g. wordplay, punning, similes, hyperbole, as well as discursive strategies, most notably the inclusion of jokes, irrelevant thematic sidelines, and the presence of detectable elements of a verbal contest between the commentator and his readers. MBMs constitute a form of infotainment that, at times, almost borders on a comedy show staged by the commentator for the amusement of his audience. This verbal show is characterised by mixing: the mixing of modes (written vs. spoken), the mixing of voices (heteroglossia), and the mixing of functions (ideational and interpersonal, i.e. providing information and entertaining the audience). In this sense, MBMs constitute a hybrid text type (cf. Fairclough 1992, Ungerer 2004, Urbanová 2006), not unlike other forms of computer-mediated interaction (Baron 2003). These characteristics of MBMs are functional in that they contribute towards the ultimate purpose of this text type: to constitute an imaginary group of readers and make them feel at ease while ‘consuming’ the text. The role of social bonding is performed thanks to the frequent evocation of shared knowledge and contexts, the application of humour and the assumption that readers will appreciate the verbal contests, language creativity and jokes. 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Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. Department of English and American Studies Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University Arna Nováka 1 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: chovanec@phil.muni.cz <?page no="272"?> 269 TORSTEN MÜLLER “HE HELD HIS HEAD IN HIS HANDS AS IT FLASHED PAST THE POST”: HOW GRAMMAR AND FOOTBALL INTERACT This article presents a new methodology for the study of spoken language in which the immediate extralinguistic context is systematically integrated into the analysis. The text type chosen for this analysis is radio football commentary, which has been edited very precisely on to the corresponding TV pictures of the same games. This allows the identification of the extra-linguistic events which led to what is described in the commentary. Radio commentary was chosen because it consists far more of the commentator having to describe rather than being able to rely on the TV pictures. It can be shown that the type of event described and the timing chosen to describe it (coinciding with the event, with a slight delay, or even anticipating the event) will have important consequences for the verbal output in terms of syntactic complexity, choice of past time marker, preference for certain lexical items, word order, choice of pronoun, fundamental frequency and speech rate, to name but those areas which have so far been investigated. 1. Introduction The English language sometimes uses the term Colemanball to refer to verbal blunders of sports commentators. It was invented by the British satirical magazine Private Eye in direct reference to English sports commentator David Coleman. A good example, in fact by Coleman, is (1), which must have originated from a moment of utter confusion. (2) is usually attributed to Alan Brazil, ex-footballer and now commentator and presenter for a private radio station in the UK. 1 1. And here's Moses Kiptanui the 19-year-old Kenyan, who turned 20 a few weeks ago. 2. He held his head in his hands as it flashed past the post. (1) is odd because of the unusual juxtaposition of the lexical items 19-year-old and turned 20 a few weeks ago. The ambiguity of (2) rests upon the interpretation of it, and hence is to do with grammar, in this case reference. In English commentaries it frequently refers to the ball, even if the ball was not introduced into the discourse via the lexical item the ball immediately before. What causes problems in (2) is the availability of another referent in the immediate context, namely head. It is this conflict which can give (2) an odd interpretation where we could visualise a head flying past the post, whereas he (i.e. a player) was holding it in his hands. Visualising what is described by language can be taken as the linguistic representation of an extra-linguistic situation or event. 2 In fact, this is what is normally done - at least to a large extent - in football 1 Example (1) was found on http: / / www.siliconglen.com/ jokes/ colemanballs.html, accessed 05/ 11/ 2007. (2) is from http: / / www.itsafog.com/ pundits.html, accessed 05/ 11/ 2007. 2 Müller 2007a distinguishes between situations and events. This distinction is not crucial here. <?page no="273"?> 270 commentary, or more precisely in radio football commentary. This article is about the representation of the extra-linguistic situation in radio football commentary and the impact it has on language output, especially on grammar. It is hence about how language represents ‘real’ events, i.e. events happening while a speaker witnesses them, and not so much about their misrepresentation, which can result in imagining events although they never happened that way, as in the case of (2). This article will attempt to illustrate how aspects of grammar, such as syntactic complexity, speech rate, tense and aspect forms, word order, and the choice of pronouns, may be influenced by this extralinguistic situation. 2. Language and video material Over the last thirty years a number of researchers have used video material to investigate language structures. Probably the best-known research of this kind was the Pear Stories project led by Wallace Chafe (Chafe 1980), where subjects from a wide range of countries were asked to describe what happened in a silent film. Russell Tomlin also worked with video material of various sorts. Tomlin 1983 investigates the connection between topic, theme and grammatical subject in English, using as its basis video recordings of North American ice hockey games and the corresponding TV commentary. He uses experimental settings in later work (e.g. Tomlin 1986 and 1995) and, instead of analysing natural discourse, he reverts to isolated utterances. Subjects are asked to describe what they see when in an animated film two fish swim towards each other and then one fish swallows the other (the socalled “Fish Film”, in which Tomlin attempts to investigate the influence of focal attention on the choice of active vs. passive voice). Other research which uses video material and the narration of its content includes Pu / Prideaux 1994, who attempt to show that subjects narrating what they see in a film use marked syntactic structures when referring to the beginning of new episodes. But these studies appear to be relatively isolated pieces of research and most other linguists have tended to stay within the limitations of text when analysing the context of an utterance. There has rarely been a systematic integration of the extralinguistic situation into linguistic analysis. It appears, however, that this is changing. Discourse Analysis has moved towards integrating video material; cf., for example, Schmitt 2006 and Schütte / Spranz-Fogasy 2006. 3. The material used in this study Following Chafe 1980 and Tomlin, especially Tomlin 1983, this study uses video material, combining it with the insights from Jürgens 1999 and ultimately Klix 1984a. Jürgens also analyses football commentary. He does not make any systematic use of video material but, on the basis of the commentaries themselves, he identifies several “Geschehenstypen” in football (i.e. stereotypical event types, such as passes, challenges, etc.) and then investigates how these event types are verbalised. In Müller 2007a these event types are identified in the video material. This allows us to observe how event types are verbalised without reverting to language internal factors. From a <?page no="274"?> 271 methodological point of view this is clearly preferable to the identification of event types through language alone. But video material has a further advantage: the video material can also help determine the timing when an utterance is made in relation to when it actually happened. This may have an important effect on how complex an utterance is going to be because, as a general tendency, it can be said that utterances made virtually simultaneously to the occurrence of the event itself tend to be syntactically less complex than utterances made with a slight or even with a longer delay (see Müller 2007a). But, instead of opting for the analysis of games on TV and the corresponding TV commentary, Müller opts for the analysis of TV pictures in conjunction with the corresponding radio commentaries of the same games. Choosing radio commentary has the advantage that radio commentators have to talk far more because they have no visual support. This, in turn, means that they have to describe more, rather than simply provide additional remarks which only serve to support what viewers can see anyway. By carefully editing video material and radio commentary, it is therefore possible to evaluate much better what the commentator was witnessing when commentating. The TV pictures are by no means identical with what the commentators were seeing when providing their commentary. They can certainly not recreate the communicative situation in which the commentators’ utterances were made, but they can provide a better understanding of the communicative situation than text on its own (see also Tomlin 1983: 419). 4. Editing video and audio material Careful editing of the video and audio material resulted in the two running in synchronisation, with the commentary and pictures never more than nine frames adrift. In fact, it was ensured that, if audio and video sources were not in absolute synchronisation, it was the sound that was lagging behind rather than the pictures. For a full discussion of the entire editing process, see Müller 2007a: 160ff. 5. Theoretical framework Most studies on football commentary recognise at least two different levels of information: the description of the game and background information on the game (cf., for example, Rosenbaum 1969). Even if some authors distinguish more than two levels, one of them will always be the level of description (e.g. Delin 2000). Accordingly, we distinguish here between two levels of information: ‘description’ and ‘elaboration’. But description and elaboration are again defined with respect to the video material. For a detailed discussion of these issues, see Müller 2007a. Description includes all utterances which refer to the individual events of a football game as they happen on the pitch. But these events must be identifiable in the video material. Hence description is a category that is established largely independently of language itself. There may well be utterances in the radio commentary which potentially may also refer to events on the pitch, but which cannot be identified independently in the video material. So, although they may also be cases of description, <?page no="275"?> 272 the inability to verify this independently of language means that they can only be classified as ‘unclear’ and must be excluded from the category ‘description’. All cases which do not refer to any events on the pitch, be it as part of description or as part of the ‘unclear’ category, will then count as ‘elaboration’, i.e. as additional or background information. Since it can be argued that an important function of radio commentary is telling the listeners what is happening on the pitch, it could be claimed that description is perhaps the more vital level of information in comparison to elaboration. It is probably justified to label description ‘primary information’ and elaboration ‘secondary information’. 3 But there is more to this. It has already been suggested that the language output (e.g. its complexity) may vary depending on the exact moment when an utterance is made. This means that we must also distinguish between descriptions which are made virtually at the same time as the event they refer to is happening, those with a slight or even longer delay, or those which may be made before the event has even begun. Accordingly, utterances made simultaneously to the corresponding event are called ‘online references’, those with some delay are labelled ‘off-line references’, and cases where the utterance is made before the event are called ‘anticipation’. Following Müller / Mayr 2007, elaboration and the three subtypes of description are subsumed under the cover term ‘deictic context’. It is probably feasible from a methodological point of view to decide on an a priori margin which can plausibly count as ‘on-line’. Müller 2007a chooses one second and arrives at it in the following way (for a fuller discussion of this issue, see Müller 2007a: 170ff.). Every utterance which is begun within 18 frames or 0.72 seconds of the end of the event it refers to is labelled an on-line reference. Tomlin (1997: 172ff.) also sees the beginning of an utterance as crucial in his experiments. This time span is long enough to accommodate for reaction time (150 milliseconds, see again Tomlin 1997: 172ff.) and also for margins of error which may have been caused by the complicated editing process (but not exceeding nine frames). In order to accommodate for potential margins of error, it was also decided to include the 7 frames preceding the beginning of an event in the on-line reference category so that it ends up being composed of a time frame of exactly one second or 25 frames of film. This figure is certainly plausible and, although it may also seem somewhat arbitrary, it is derived from incorporating potential margins of error and human reaction time. Hence, from a methodological point of view, this figure seems justified, but it may well be the case that, by varying it, further research may be able to refine the definition of on-line reference. It follows that off-line reference is any reference to an event on the pitch that can be identified independently in the video material and which is made more than 18 frames or 0.72 seconds after the end of the event it refers to. Anticipation is any reference to an event which can be identified in the video material if it is begun more than seven frames before the beginning of the event it refers to. Note that this also means that different event types may have different inherent durations. A long pass 3 Of course, it can be argued that commentators do more than just describe. It is interesting to note, though, that especially those from the radio, if asked about their primary function, will invariably say that they must first of all tell the listeners where the ball is. This is what emerged from a number of interviews with British and German radio and TV commentators, which I performed together with Ben Dunnell, a London-based journalist. <?page no="276"?> 273 upfield, where the ball travels through the air for several seconds, has quite naturally a longer duration than the handling of the ball, which may happen in only a split second. Hence on-line reference is more easily achievable for long passes upfield than for somebody handling the ball. Finally, we need to distinguish between the very first reference to any given event (called the ‘first verbalisation’), one or several references to this same event immediately after this first reference (‘repeated verbalisation’), and those references to an event which are made half a minute, a minute or even half an hour after the event occurred (‘verbal action replay’). First verbalisations are typically made on-line, but they may well also be anticipations or off-line references. Repeated verbalisations could technically also occur on-line if they are a reference to an event with a sufficiently long inherent duration (theoretically also anticipation, but this is very unlikely), but they will usually occur off-line. Verbal action replays must by definition occur off-line, and they are the ones with the longest gap between event and event reference. 6. Intonation units Most researchers these days reject the sentence as a useful concept for the analysis of spoken language and see the clause as the basic syntactic unit of spoken language. Alternatively, spoken language can be seen as being segmented by intonation. Hence a number of studies recognise the existence of so-called ‘intonation units’ or ‘intonationgroups’ (see Chafe 1994 or Cruttenden 2 1997). Müller 2007a follows this practice and performs a syntactic analysis of the intonation units he identifies for radio football commentary. This concept is also employed here. 7. Advantage and scope of video analysis From a methodological point of view it is certainly an advantage to be able to identify the extra-linguistic events and situations that prompted a particular utterance. This clearly represents a new and more reliable way of performing form-function analyses in linguistics. This methodology can be applied to quite a number of linguistic areas, such as tense and aspect, syntactic complexity, word order, the choice of pronouns (relative vs. demonstrative vs. personal), fundamental frequency or even speech rate. An overview of some of the studies using this methodology will be presented below. 8. Studies using this new methodology The methodology presented here has already been successfully used in a number of studies, some of which are presented here. The framework is developed in detail in Müller 2007a. The games which were analysed are listed in Table 1. <?page no="277"?> 274 Game Radio commentators Radio station Manchester United vs. Juventus Turin (Champions League semifinal, 1st leg, 1999) Alan Parry (commentator), Andy Gray (expert summariser) Talk Radio (today: Talksport) Germany vs. Romania (Group game, Euro 2000) Armin Lehmann and Kai Dittmann ARD, HR1 plus (today: HR Info) 4 England vs. Argentina (Group game, World Cup 2002) Alan Green and Mike Ingham (commentators), Terry Butcher (expert summariser) BBC Radio 5 Live Scotland vs. Germany (Euro 2004 qualifying game, played in 2003) Rolf Rainer Gecks and Jens Jörg Rieck ARD, B5 aktuell 5 Table 1: The games and their commentators Müller 2007a analyses the internal syntax of intonation units, showing that in both English and German radio football commentary on-line reference is syntactically less complex than off-line reference. Hence in on-line reference, despite much variation, intonation units most commonly correspond with units below the clause, e.g. prepositional phrases or verb-based units below the clause commonly lacking a subject, as in (3) and (4). Off-line reference tends to be made by relying more on clausal structures. An example is presented in (5). 3. now to sorin+ (..) (ON) 6 4. passt hinaus+ (ON) ‘passes wide’ 5. er rather it was zanetti with a shot+ (OFF) The percentage of individual events verbalised by the commentators (out of all identifiable events during their turns) varies. Alan Green and Mike Ingham have very high rates (58.9 and 56.6 per cent, respectively). Armin Lehmann and Kai Dittmann for Germany vs. Rumania verbalise 45.0 and 43.3 per cent, respectively. The remaining three commentators have very low verbalisation rates of under 40 per cent. In all three cases, this may have been caused by quite astonishing reasons. The only English commentator 7 of this group is Alan Parry (36.9 per cent). What is noticeable about him is that he has a tendency to go off-line more frequently than the other two English commentators. This results in more complex syntax, in other words in clauses rather than phrases. As a result, his verbalisation rate is much lower than that of 4 Broadcast nationwide on ARD radio stations, e.g. HR Info or B5 aktuell. 5 See footnote 4. 6 Conventions of transcription: + indicates the end of an intonation unit. The labels in bracket identify the deictic context where (ON) means on-line, (OFF) off-line, (ELAB) elaboration and (UNCLEAR) signals that the deictic context for this unit cannot be established. (DEAD BALL) indicates a build-up to a free kick, corner etc., see Müller 2007a for details. (.) indicates a micropause, (..) a pause with a duration of up to 0.8 seconds. “Stage directions” indicate how an utterance was produced, e.g. <cres> stands for a gradual increase in loudness, pitch and tempo or a combination of two or all three of the features, <decrs> for a gradual decrease. […] indicate beginning and end of such a special “speech style”. 7 English here is shorthand for English language. Alan Green is from Northern Ireland. <?page no="278"?> 275 Green and Ingham. When verbalising the event type ‘Pass’, a very common and frequently verbalised event type, Parry has a particular verbal structure which he prefers: A plays the ball (it) to B. It should be noted that this structure is longer than Ingham’s preferred structure (A) finds B which, although sometimes clausal but frequently without an expressed subject, is shorter and can dispense with the reference to the ball and the preposition to. Alan Green’s preferred structure is phrasal, hence short, and involves a preposition, e.g. A to B. Two of the German commentators, Jens Jörg Rieck and Rolf Rainer Gecks, use more clausal structures on-line and phrasal ones off-line, and hence verbalise fewer individual events than most of the others (37.5 and 33.8 per cent, respectively). Their use of longer clausal units on-line means that they have difficulty in providing the same number of events as the other commentators while at the same time they compound this tendency off-line by highlighting detailed aspects of individual events rather than giving a summary of entire event sequences, cf. Rieck’s account of a save by Scottish goalkeeper Douglas in (6) with Ingham’s concise event summary in (7). Rieck tends to dwell on a single verbalised event. The event is first introduced by a clause; the highlighting employs units below the clause. 6. [<excited> mit einer hand+ (.) (ON) gehalten+ (..) (OFF) gehalten+ (..) (OFF) was für ein riese im schottischen tor+ (..) (OFF) robert douglas+ (..) (OFF) und mit einer hand+] (..) (OFF) [<decres> torwarthöhe wars auch gewesen+ (OFF) so richtig schöne flugshow+ (..) (OFF) die (.) schottische flugente hinein in die linke ecke+] (..) (OFF) ‘with one hand+ saved+ saved+ what a giant in the Scottish goal+ Robert Douglas+ and with one hand+ it was a comfortable height for the goalkeeper+ a right show+ the flying Scottish duck into the left corner+’ 7. [<excited, shouts> batistuta+] (..) (ON) [<decres> with a point blank header+ (..) (OFF) he got away from ferdinand and campbell+ (..) (UNCLEAR) seaman makes the save+] (.) (OFF) Müller / Mayr 2007 analyse speech rate in two of the games used in Müller 2007a (England v Argentina, commentators: Alan Green and Mike Ingham; Scotland v Germany, commentators: Jens Jörg Rieck and Rolf Rainer Gecks). They measure speech rate in syllables per minute and find that the English commentators speak faster then the German ones. The surprising result, however, is that the deictic context has an influence on the speech rate. In the German examples, on-line commentary has the highest speech rate, elaboration the lowest. In the English examples this situation is reversed. Now, it is of importance to note that Rieck and Gecks were precisely those commentators who preferred clausal, i.e. more complex, on-line structures in their commentaries, which resulted in a low verbalisation rate. Green and Ingham, on the other hand, were the ones who had a clear tendency to use phrasal units on-line. They managed to verbalise more events than any of the other commentators. Hence Müller / Mayr reason that the high on-line speech rate of the German commentators is a direct consequence of them having to speak faster because they use more complicated syntax, <?page no="279"?> 276 whereas the English commentators can afford to speak more slowly as their simpler syntax does not put them under same time pressure. It is also interesting that in absolute terms both German and English on-line commentary is delivered at about the same pace. But where the Germans slow down for elaboration (where there is less time pressure), this is where the English commentators speak faster. Müller 2007b is another study which is concerned with football commentary. This time all four games from Table 1 were analysed and Müller asks the question whether temporal proximity or distance have an influence on the choice of past time markers in English and German commentaries. He concentrates on past tense and present perfect for English and Präteritum and Perfekt for German. Past tense and present perfect are often said to differ from each other because the past tense refers to an event or state which ended in the past whereas the present perfect refers to states, “indefinite events” or “recurring events” in the past which lead up to the present moment (Quirk et al. 1985: 192). For German (see Durell 4 2002: 295ff.), Perfekt and Präteritum in the written language may be said to differ in that the Perfekt focuses on a past action whose effect is relevant or apparent at the moment of speaking; the Präteritum is more likely to refer to a state, habitual or repeated action. In spoken German, however, there seems to be very little difference between the two forms and the Perfekt seems to be the preferred form, whereas the Präteritum only occurs with a set of about 25 frequently occurring verbs, such as sein ‘be’, haben ‘have’ and modal verbs (see Sieberg 1984). Hence, if temporal proximity and distance have an influence on one of the two pairs, then clearly it should be on past tense vs. present perfect, since there is a clear functional difference between the two which is even to do with temporal proximity. But this is not what happens. Tables 2 and 3 show the figures for different types of off-line reference, i.e. the type of deictic context where past time markers are likely to occur. The past tense is clearly the dominating past time reference form in English, whether we deal with on-line reference, off-line first verbalisations or repeated verbalisations and verbal action replays. Temporal proximity and distance do not seem to have any influence. In fact, the English commentators use the present perfect to reflect three different extra-linguistic situations: when there is a change in possession, when the ball goes out of bounds or when the two coincide, e.g. but it's been given away to Zidane (change of possession) or and it’s been (...) a bit of pushing I think (...) Collinja has spotted (change in possession and ball out of bounds). In German, the Perfekt is more frequent than the Präteritum for off-line first verbalisations, but the picture is reversed for repeated verbalisations and verbal action replays, i.e. for those contexts where event and event reference are farthest apart. This means that temporal proximity has an impact on the choice of German past time marking, but not on English. There is more, though. The Perfekt is much more frequent than the English present perfect. In fact, the Perfekt is normally used within an event sequence to signal the completion of an individual event or to signal that successful completion of an event is guaranteed. This means that the German Perfekt can be used to narrate event sequences, and this is a function that is excluded for the present perfect (e.g. the Perfekt ‘hat rausgepasst’, lit.: ‘has passed towards the sideline’ in vierzig meter vor dem deutschen tor gheorghe hagi+ hat rausgepasst+ ‘40 metres away from the German goal Gheorghe Hagi+ passed it towards the sideline’). <?page no="280"?> 277 Alan Green Mike Ingham Alan Parry Armin Lehmann Kai Dittmann Jens Jörg Rieck Rolf Rainer Gecks off-line first verbalizations past tense / Präteritum 12 9 22 3 8 2 8 present perfect / Perfekt 4 2 9 6 10 6 13 Table 2: Grammatical past time markers in first verbalization off-line commentary Alan Green Mike Ingham Alan Parry Armin Lehmann Kai Dittmann Jens Jörg Rieck Rolf Rainer Gecks off-line repeated verbalizations and verbal action replays past tense / Präteritum 31 23 39 32 17 21 23 present perfect / Perfekt 1 7 4 14 12 7 11 Table 3: Grammatical past time markers in repeated verbalization and verbal action replay off-line commentary A look at the most frequent verbs used by the German commentators in the Präteritum confirms that this tense form is used much more frequently for off-line repeated verbalisations and verbal action replays. It could be argued, though, that the most common verbs, such as sein ‘be’, können ‘can’, haben ‘have’, kommen ‘come’, müssen ‘must’, wollen ‘want’, werden ‘become’, gehen ‘go’, stehen ‘stand’, belong to the set of verbs which tend to attract the Präteritum in spoken German. But what is noticeable is the occurrence in the commentaries of a number of strong verb Präteritum forms which, normally, sound very peculiar when used in spoken German and so tend to be avoided. Examples are roch (‘smelled’), as in (8), or glich aus (‘equalised’). 8. das roch nach elfmeter+ (.) das muss man ganz klar sagen für die rumänen+ (.) ‘that smelled of a penalty+ for the Romanians it has to be said’ It is interesting to look closely at where these forms occur: they are only used in verbal action replays, i.e. the context which by definition has the longest gap between event and event reference. This once again underlines the point that temporal proximity has a direct influence on the choice of past time marker in German and that, at least in this particular type of spoken German, a functional difference between Perfekt and Präteritum is maintained. 8 8 This statement holds for radio football commentary in Germany. Austrian or Swiss German commentary may well differ in this respect. <?page no="281"?> 278 9. Primary vs. secondary information and the choice of pronouns Tomlin 1986 attempts to establish a link between importance of information and the choice of clause type (i.e. main clause vs. subordinate clause). He has one group of subjects describe what they see in a short silent cartoon film and asks a second group to decide which of the events in the film represent foreground information and which background information. Tomlin’s results then confirm that the subjects asked to describe the film tended to use main clauses when referring to what was identified as foreground information and subordinate clauses when describing background information. The results were statistically significant. If we accept that description in football commentary can be termed ‘primary information’ - on the grounds that perhaps the main task of a radio commentator is to tell listeners what is happening on the pitch and where the ball is - it would then be justified to label elaboration ‘secondary information’. The influence of the deictic context on yet another syntactic aspect of language could hence be demonstrated by seeing whether primary information was normally coded by using main clause structures, as opposed to secondary information, which would normally appear in subordinate clauses. Rather than just looking for differences in the way Tomlin had done, Müller 2007c chooses to focus on German commentary (focusing on the game Germany vs. Romania from Euro 2000), mainly because German allows an interesting interplay of word order and pronoun choice. The classic German relative clause normally involves a form of the relative pronoun der, die, das, which sends the finite verb to the end (‘Vfinal’, here bleibt), see (9). 9. für die deutschen wird die zeit kürzer+ (.) die zum ausgleich bleibt+ ‘there is less time for the Germans+ to equalise+’ Relative clauses are a means of post-modification, i.e. they characterise a certain referent. As such, they seem perfectly suited for conveying background or secondary information. Now, there is also the possibility of choosing the set of der, die, das pronouns while having the verb follow immediately, i.e. in second position resulting in main clause (‘V2’). This structure is very typical of German football commentary, as can be seen from (10), where muss is the finite verb appearing immediately after the pronoun der. In cases like (10), der, die, das would normally be labelled demonstrative pronouns. 9 10. [<cres> auf den torwart gespielt+ (.) (ON) der muss da mit einer hand klärn+ (ON) ‘played towards the goalkeeper+ he has to save it with one hand+’ Additionally, the personal pronouns er, sie, es can be used, and this will normally result in a main clause structure; see (11), where the main verb hat is in second position 9 Cases where neuter das does not refer back to a noun or pronoun, but to an entire clause or even the context, are not included in the analysis, e.g. Das ist aber nett! ‘Oh, that is nice’. <?page no="282"?> 279 followed by the personal pronoun er. Of course, a subordinator may sometimes introduce the clause, in which case personal pronouns (and potentially also demonstrative pronouns) may appear as part of this subordinate clause, cf. (12). 11. da hat er sie alle aussteigen lassen+ (ELAB) ‘he sold all of them the dummy there’ 12. [<still excited> weil sie (.) in der abwehr anfällig waren+ (.)] (OFF) ‘because they were vulnerable in defence’ There is a further complication, though. Weinert 2007a shows that demonstrative pronouns tend to be used instead of personal pronouns in spoken German when they appear in pre-verbal position. Personal pronouns tend to be used post-verbally and in subordinate clauses. The figures in Table 4 show the distribution of main clause vs. subordinate clause found in the game Germany vs. Romania, where the choice is between der, die, das (whether interpreted as a demonstrative or relative pronoun) and V2 vs. Vfinal. We can see that the preferred structure when conveying primary information, i.e. description, is indeed V2. While there are numerous examples in elaboration which are of the predicted type relative pronoun + Vfinal, the number of cases where demonstrative + V2 occurs is almost as high. Hence this part of the initial prediction is not borne out by the facts. But it appears that at least for description the prediction holds, so that we can conclude that primary information does indeed tend to be conveyed through main clauses. Clause type Description Elaboration V2 51 22 Vfinal 16 24 demonstrative pronoun in other type of subordinate clause 3 2 Table 4: Word order in clauses containing a demonstrative/ relative pronoun in description and elaboration The next question that needs to be asked is what the distribution of personal pronouns vs. demonstrative pronouns is in the commentary. A closer look at the data shows that the choice of pronoun is subject to two different forces: a structural one and a discoursepragmatic one. Structural influence on the German pronoun choice is conditioned by the strong tendency for personal pronouns to occur post-verbally and demonstrative pronouns to occur pre-verbally. This tendency is illustrated in Table 5. <?page no="283"?> 280 Position of personal pronoun Description Elaboration pre-verbal 8 10 post-verbal 70 19 personal pronoun in subordinate clause 18 10 Table 5: Number of personal pronouns in pre-verbal and post-verbal position and in subordinate clauses Personal pronouns only occur pre-verbally if the referent has already been introduced by a demonstrative immediately before, as in (13). The Romanian player Dan Petrescu is first introduced into the discourse by the phrase gegen einen rumänen (‘against a Romanian’), then by his name (gegen dan petrescu, ‘against dan petrescu’). Twice more, he is referred to as der preverbally (der wird dann noch gefoult, ‘he is finally fouled’ and der kriegt tatsächlich ‘he even gets’) before the commentator switches to er, but first in a subordinate clause. Only after having referred to Petrescu five times does Kai Dittmann finally use a personal pronoun pre-verbally in a main clause (aber er holt ihn eben raus, ‘but he actually gets it’). 13. und jetzt drei deutsche (.) gegen einen rumänen+ (.) (ON) gegen dan petrescu+ (OFF) und der wird dann noch gefoult+ (OFF) [<excited> der kriegt tatsächlich+ (.) (DEAD BALL) obwohl er alleine ist gegen drei+ (.) (OFF) noch einen freistoß+] (.) (DEAD BALL) das ganze zwar in der neutralen zone+ (.) (DEAD BALL) etwa fünf meter in der deutschen hälfte+ (DEAD BALL) zehn meter mögens sein+ (.) (DEAD BALL) auf der rechten seite+ (DEAD BALL) [<cres> aber er holt ihn eben raus] (.) [<decres> und wird nicht gestellt+ (.) (OFF) und verliert nicht den ball+] (OFF) ‘and now three Germans against one Romanian+ against Dan Petrescu+ and he is finally fouled+ he even gets+ although he is alone against three+ a free kick+ ok it’s in the neutral zone+ about five metres into the German half+ maybe ten metres+ on the right+ but he actually gets it+ he is not stopped+ and he doesn’t lose the ball+’ It is also noticeable that, if the personal pronouns occur pre-verbally at all, they can only occur as a subject, never in accusative or dative case, nor in a phrase functioning as a prepositional object. Demonstrative pronouns, on the other hand, can occur in cases other than the subject in pre-verbal position. Description and elaboration each have accusative forms, and each has a dative form for the two deictic contexts. Two cases of a demonstrative pronoun in a prepositional phrase occur in elaboration. <?page no="284"?> 281 10. Conclusion The question asked in this contribution was whether the systematic integration of extralinguistic events and situations in the analysis of language can yield new insights into form-function relations. The answer is that this appears to be the case. This different approach, which is methodologically sound, reliable and allows reproduction of the results, also enables us to corroborate older findings. So far issues investigated include syntactic complexity, syntactic preferences tied to a certain extra-linguistic context, choice of pronouns, word order, choice of past time (tense and aspect) marker, fundamental frequency and speech rate, and also - at least to some degree - collocations and preferred lexical items tied to a certain extra-linguistic context. Some of these results have been presented here. It is easy to imagine extending the language phenomena that could be studied in more detail using this methodology. Moreover, given the current trend towards using video material in discourse analysis and related disciplines, the methodology could be extended to include other text types or other extra-linguistic events and situations beyond sport and television. References Chafe, Wallace (ed.) (1980): The pear stories. Cognitive, cultural, and linguistic aspects of narrative production (Advances in Discourse Processes 3). Norwood: Ablex Publishing Corporation Chafe, Wallace (1994): Discourse, consciousness, and time: The flow and displacement of conscious experience in speaking and writing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Cruttenden, Alan ( 2 1997): Intonation (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press Delin, Judy (2000): The language of everyday life. London: Sage Downing, Pamela / Noonan, Michael (eds.) (1995): Word order in discourse (Typological Studies in Language 30). Amsterdam: Benjamins Durrell, Martin ( 4 2002): Hammer’s German grammar and usage. London: Arnold Jürgens, Frank (1999): Auf dem Weg zu einer pragmatischen Syntax. Eine vergleichende Fallstudie zu Präferenzen in gesprochen und geschrieben realisierten Textsorten (Reihe Germanistische Linguistik 207). Tübingen: Niemeyer. Klix, Friedhart (1984a): Über Wissensrepräsentation im menschlichen Gedächtnis. In: Klix b, 9-73 Klix, Friedhart (ed.) (1984b): Gedächtnis. Wissen. Wissensnutzung. Berlin: VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften Müller, Torsten (2007a): Football, language and linguistics. Time-critical utterances, their relation to nonlinguistic situations and events (Language in Performance 36). Tübingen: Narr Müller, Torsten (2007b): Grammatical past time reference in spontaneously produced language. In: Weinert b, 29-59 Müller, Torsten (2007c): Was lehrt uns der Fußball über Wortstellung und Pronomina in spontan gesprochener Sprache? Paper presented at the 13. Arbeitstagung zur Gesprächsforschung, Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, March 2007 Müller, Torsten / Mayr, Robert (2007): Speech rate, time pressure and emotion in English and German football commentary. In: Weinert b, 160-181 Nuyts, Jan / Pederson, Eric (eds.) (1997): Language and conceptualisation (Language, Culture and Cognition 1). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Pu, Ming-Ming / Prideaux, Gary (1994): Coding episode boundaries with marked structures: a crosslinguistic study. In: Canadian Journal of Linguistics 39, 283-296 Quirk, Randolph / Greenbaum, Sidney / Leech, Geoffrey / Svartvik, Jan (1985): A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman <?page no="285"?> 282 Rosenbaum, Dieter (1969): Die Sprache der Fußballreportage im Hörfunk. PhD Thesis, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken Schmitt, Reinhold (2006): Videoaufzeichnungen als Grundlage für Interaktionsanalysen. In: Deutsche Sprache 34, 18-31 Schütte, Wilfried / Spranz-Fogasy, Thomas (2006): Didaktische Möglichkeiten des Videoeinsatzes in hypermedialen Systemen der Gesprächsanalyse. In: Deutsche Sprache 34, 151-169 Sieberg, Bernd (1984): Perfekt und Imperfekt in der gesprochenen Sprache. Bonn: Universität Bonn Tomlin, Russell S. (1983): On the interaction of syntactic subject, thematic information, and agent in English. In: Journal of Pragmatics 7, 411-432 Tomlin, Russell S. (1986): The identification of foreground-background information in on-line oral descriptive discourse. In: Papers in Linguistics 19, 465-494 Tomlin, Russell S. (1995): Focal attention, voice, and word order: An experimental, cross-linguistic study. In: Downing / Noonan, 521-558 Tomlin, Russell S. (1997): Mapping conceptual representations into linguistic representations: The role of attention in grammar. In: Nuyts / Pederson, 162-189 Weinert, Regina (2007a): Demonstrative and personal pronouns in formal and informal conversations. In: Weinert b, 1-28 Weinert, Regina (ed.) (2007b): Spoken language pragmatics. An analysis of form-function relations. London et al: Continuum Dr. Torsten Müller Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik Philosophische Fakultät Universität Rostock August-Bebel-Str. 28 D-18051 Rostock e-mail: torsten.mueller@uni-rostock.de <?page no="286"?> 283 CORNELIA GERHARDT TURN-BY-TURN AND MOVE-BY-MOVE: A MULTI-MODAL ANALYSIS OF LIVE TV FOOTBALL COMMENTARY This paper describes the interplay between live football commentary on television and the accompanying pictures. It demonstrates how commentators manage play-by-play reporting (PP) and colour commentary (CC) in the light of the ever-changing events on the pitch. Despite a number of studies on sports announcer talk (SAT), a micro-analysis of multimodality in this setting has so far not been undertaken. This paper traces the unfolding nature of SAT and how it is dependent on the players’ moves on the pitch. Since there is no one-to-one relation between events on the field and PP/ CC, ‘Ball Out of Play’ does not automatically lead to CC, or a player kicking the ball does not mechanically result in PP. Instead, the commentators have to coordinate the two phases of commentary with the evolving talk and the game in progress. A number of strategies which the broadcasters use in this setting will be delineated, direct results of the ever-changing pictures and the problem that journalists are always lagging behind, due to the immediate nature of the players’ moves and mental processing time. These factors result in different functions of SAT being realized by the sportscasters for the audience. 1. Introduction 1 Sports announcer talk (SAT) has been the object of study for a number of decades now. One vital characteristic, however, has not been treated so far: namely the minutiae of the interplay between talk by the commentators and pictures of the game transmitted. However, since the raison d’être of sports commentary lies in its accompanying nature, this connection seems to be at the core of sportscasting. Hence, in this paper, I will describe how the main commentator and the pundit (or colour-commentator) manage play-by-play announcing (PP) and colour commentary (CC) in the light of the everchanging events on the pitch. The data are taken from the BBC coverage of the FIFA World Cup 2002 in Japan/ Korea. The corpus consists of three different games, namely Argentina vs. England (an early group stage game played on June 7 th ), Denmark vs. England (a second-round fixture from June 15 th ) and Brazil vs. England (June 21 st ), a quarter final which knocked England out of the tournament. The speakers are BBC journalists and pundits, often former football-players. The so-called ‘international sound,’ i.e. the noise from the stadiums, and the pictures are all taken over from the multi-feeds of a Swiss production company (HBS Host Broadcasting Service), which are based on 26 different cameras in the stadium. The BBC can choose between 15 different feeds (e.g. the stadium feed, player feed, permanent highlight feed, bench feed, permanent beauty shot feed, etc.) to make up their programme. Hence, cuts, camera angles, shots and other 1 I would like to thank Neal Norrick and Susanne Ley for faithfully commenting on my papers, for this paper and all former ones. All remaining faults are entirely mine. <?page no="287"?> 284 editorial decisions are generally not taken by the BBC, but they are part of the feed that is provided by HBS. 2 The size of the data base makes it clear that the study is largely explorative in nature. It will describe certain mechanisms in this multi-modal setting and strategies used by the broadcasters, focussing on their function within this speech situation. It cannot venture to make predictions on their relative importance or the statistical frequency of their appearance in SAT in general. Instead, a close qualitative description of the broadcasters’ strategies will illustrate the elaborate interplay between words and pictures: turn-by-turn (by the commentator) and move-by-move (on the pitch). The main question will be: which moves are announced when and why? For this reason, the first section treats the connection between play-by-play announcing and the transmitted pictures. The interplay between the moves of the players and the announcement of the journalist(s) will be described with the help of an example. In a second step, a shift between the two phases, play-by-play announcing and colour commentary, will be described to trace the telecaster’s decision to depart entirely from the concurrent pictures. Hence, this section will illustrate particular points in the broadcast at which the broadcasters cease to follow the pictures. Both the trigger for the shift and the strategies used by the speakers to cope with this situation will be analysed. 2. Play-by-play announcing In the following part, a stretch of PP will be analysed regarding its connection to the pictures it accompanies. The 20 seconds of commentary represent an English attack culminating in a shot at goal. The matter-of-fact style at the beginning becomes more and more emotional as Heskey scores a goal. This phase was chosen because of its representative nature and common features. 1a. EB2 “low in” 1 Com this is Scholes for England. 2 (4.5) 3 this is Mills. 4 (2.1) 5 did well, 6 three in the middle for him. 7 (0.4) 8 four now, 9 (0.5) 10 Sinclair was there, 11 (0.5) 12 so too here is Heskey, 13 (1.8) 14 LOW in, 15 HO, 16 (1.6) 2 Interestingly, though, a feature about a day in the life of an HBS sports broadcast director (FIFA 2002) reveals that the production crew on that particular day were listening to British television (ITV during the game Senegal vs. Turkey) in the studio while the feed was produced. For this reason, one cannot rule out the possibility that, at least in this particular case, the commentary on British television may have influenced the directing. <?page no="288"?> 285 After the transcription of the commentary, let us consider the images that are being transmitted concurrently. It proves rather difficult to render adequately the precise moves of the players on the pitch in a textual format. Not only is the ball perpetually in movement, but also the players orientate themselves towards it, as well as to their teammates and their opponents. A constant shifting of positions resulting from earlier moves and in anticipation of future actions characterise this skilland strategy-based ball game. As in every kind of transcription or transliteration process, selectivity, and thus subjectivity and interpretation are inevitable (cf. Ochs 1979). For the current project I decided to concentrate on the ball as the central element of the game, and when it is being moved across the field by the players. The left column indicates the move of the player with the ball. The earlier transcription of the commentary has moved into the right column and the individual lines have been shortened for reasons of space. The underlined and bold parts in the right column indicate the exact moment at which the action described on the left takes place. If no words are uttered while the players make a move, the time-span elapsing between the start/ end of the move and the start/ end of the commentary is given in the left column. For ease of reference, the players from Brazil were named A, B, C… (from England Z, Y, X…) in the order of their appearance (unless their name is given in the commentary.) Further relevant information, such as the relative proximity of opponents, can only be given in the discussion following this table. 1b. 1 Scholes is passed the ball in the Brazilian half. this is Scholes for England. 2 Scholes attacked by A runs sideways with the ball. (4.5) Scholes passes to the unmarked Mills on the right wing. The ball reaches Mills. 0.1 sec. later: Camera feed changes: instead of wide shot of pitch, now shot on Mills. 3 0.3 sec. later: this is Mills. 4 Mills is attacked by B. (2.1) Mills passes B and runs towards Brazilian goal on the right wing. 5 0.4 sec. later: did well, 6 Mills changes his direction a little and heads more towards the middle. three in the Camera feed changes: wide shot on penalty area. middle for him. 7 Mills continues towards the penalty area. (0.4) 8 Mills shoots right on the edge of the penalty box. four Sinclair jumps up together with C and heads the ball on. now, 9 The ball crosses the penalty area in midair without anybody being able to reach it. (0.5) 10 The ball bounces off the pitch to the left side of the box. Sinclair was there, 11 Heskey moves into a position where he can intercept it. (0.5) 12 Heskey stops the ball. so too here is Heskey, 13 Heskey passes the ball into the goal area. (1.8) 14 D intercepts the ball and deflects it to the goal line. LOW in, 15 The ball bounces over the goal line. HO, <?page no="289"?> 286 Before continuing with the discussion of the transcription, let me note the time spans given here. The seconds, or mostly fractions of seconds, were measured using video transcription software. (Fassnacht / Woods 2004) Hence, the measurements as such are accurate. However, the beginning or end of the measured time span is not always straightforward. After all, the movements of the players are fluid with no clear-cut boundaries between one movement and the next. Furthermore, phonetically, only stops (and affricates) provide clear-cut boundaries in the stream of sounds uttered by the speakers. Hence, on both ends of the measured time spans, 0.1 seconds can often be added or subtracted. For these reasons, the numbers should be taken as relative to each other and indicative rather than exact. In line 1, this is Scholes for England, the commentator resumes PP after a stretch of CC. The demonstrative pronoun this is used deictically here, referring to the player on the pitch (Marriot 1995). Hence, it directly links the words to the pictures. These direct links are common (cf. this in line 3, there in line 10, here in line 12) but not necessary since the link between words and pictures is generally implied (unless something else is signalled.) Hence, Scholes alone is sufficient (and name only is also a frequent form of announcement), since the setting allows the inference that is it Scholes’ current move that is being pointed to and not some past action of his. Nevertheless, the deictics used (also past and present tense) help create and maintain an “electronically mediated inter-subjectivity” (Marriot 1995: 348), i.e. common ground between the telecasters and the viewers. In line 3, shortly after the ball has reached Mills and the camera feed is changed to show Mills only, the formula (Pawley 1991, Kuiper 1996) is re-used: this is Mills. The 0.3 or 0.4 seconds intervening between Mills’ getting the ball and the commentator announcing this fact are presumably due to mental processing time. Unless the commentator knows beforehand who is going to be on the ball, these few tenths of a second are quite usual before the announcement. The prepositional phrase for England is not reemployed in line 3. I t is often used at the beginning of PP not so much for information about the affiliation of the player - the viewers generally know that Scholes plays for England -, b ut to underscore the fact that it is England, and not the opposing team , which is on the ball at that moment. The present tense is used as the players can be seen at the same time as the words are spoken, again underlining the common ground (Ferguson 1982, Marriot 1995, Marriot 1996). In line 5, after Mills passes B, the broadcaster uses the simple past for an evaluation of Mills’ move: did well, a briefing according to Ferguson 1982. In line with the semantic value of the past tense, this reflects the completion of Mills’ action. Unsurprisingly, simply by using past reference the commentator, even during PP, can free himself from the demands of the ever-changing pictures without losing sight of the primary aim, namely to commentate the game. We will come back to further implications of the use of past reference in the analysis of line 10. The journalist’s next utterance (line 6), three in the middle for him, follows immediately without any apparent pause. Furthermore, lines 5 and 6 are connected with the help of the rising intonation of line 5, signalling continuation. These two features already indicate that these three in the middle and Mills doing well must have some kind of connection. At the same time, exactly at the moment the journalist starts talking, Mills redirects his run and moves more towards the middle of the field. Hence, the commentator must have planned his utterance before the player started turning. <?page no="290"?> 287 Furthermore, as Mills approaches the penalty area and the journalist utters these words, the camera shot changes back to a wide shot encompassing the whole box. Only then can the television audience see the three players referred to. So both the broadcaster (verbally) as well as the production assistant (with the cut) re-focus from Mills to the penalty area. It is their expertise in football - which unites the production company, the journalists, and ultimately the TV audience - that establishes this connection: as Mills approaches the penalty area, the viewer starts wondering whether any team-mates are waiting for a likely pass; the journalist looks away from his monitor and to the pitch to ascertain whether there are any team-mates in the box; concurrently, the assistant chooses a wide shot to allow for this information to be available on television (cf. Morris 1987 on the viewer’s contribution in understanding). This triple re-focussing by the journalist, the player, and the camera anticipates a chance for a shot at goal, the rule being: if an unmarked player runs on the wing with the ball towards the penalty area (and his team-mates are waiting for him in the box), a shot at goal is likely to arise. This re-centring of perspective in anticipation of a relocation of the main action within the game cannot be gathered from the information that is available in the pictures. In other words, outside knowledge roughly in the form of the rule above has to be brought in by the commentator and the directing crew. Also, this re-focussing is only fully interpretable for a television audience with the same expertise in the game (Gerhardt 2006). This explicit knowledge of football tactics and common player moves, which arises not from reading the laws of the game, but from watching (and maybe playing) football, lies at the heart of this concurrent shift. Despite this analysis, by looking really closely at the pictures, it is possible to see that Mills also foreshadows this shift as he twice quickly glances left during his run (lines 4-5). Thus, the player’s glances may also be a trigger for this shift of scene by the commentator. However, even though these glances indicate Mills’ orientation towards the middle of the pitch, the knowledge that the positioning and number of his team-mates at that point becomes relevant still remains exogenous, i.e., it comes from general knowledge about football. To sum up, the commentary does not remain glued to the moves of the player with the ball. It frees itself from the pictures if necessary, taking advantage of the privileged position of the journalist in the stadium. The concurrent cut from a close-up of Mills to a wide-angle shot of the penalty box indicates shared knowledge by the commentator and the production crew. Then, as Mills decides to shoot, the commentator gives an update on the number of players Mills could pass the ball to: four now, (line 8). Hence, the commentator’s continued attention is with the possibility of a shot at goal in the immediate future rather than with the ball’s current location and Mills’ current action. Just as in line 6, the commentator in referring not to the player on the ball, not to the immediate play, but to relevant tactical moves of other players, can point to the next move in the game (here: a potential assist) in his talk. The four may be there now: however, four players being somewhere is normally not mentioned. Only the possibility that the ball may reach them almost immediately makes mentioning them meaningful. This leads to another consideration: if we imagine a viewer who does not know anything about common moves in football, he or she could infer that these three/ four players have acquired importance for the game by the fact that they are mentioned. So for an uninformed audience, these two lines (6 and 8) mark significant moves by players who are not on the ball. In the long run, this strategy trains the ignorant viewer about <?page no="291"?> 288 football since it points out relevant moves beforehand. Although here (in line 8) the players are visible on the screen as the commentator mentions them. Again, the immediate link between the move of the player with the ball and the commentary has been broken. In the data, as the journalist starts uttering these words, the anticipated action indeed arises: Mills passes the ball into the penalty area. It is worth noticing how after line 8 all utterances finish with a rising intonation. Once the ball enters the box, the commentator signals on-going action by not using falling intonation. On the one hand, the viewer understands that all ensuing actions are part of one and the same English attack, one and the same event on the screen. On the other hand, this is also a means of alerting the pundit that the commentator intends to keep the initiative. The ball is then intercepted quite early (without having travelled to a player with a chance to shoot) by Sinclair, who heads it on, so that C does not get it. Half a second later, as the ball bounces off the pitch on the left side of the penalty box, the commentator mentions Sinclair’s header: Sinclair was there (line 10). Here again the past tense is used since Sinclair’s action is completed. In contrast to the past tense earlier (line 5), which was used to evaluate a past action, here the action is only announced as it is already over. Two questions arise: first, why did the commentator wait longer than the usual 0.3 seconds which he generally needs to process a move that could not have been anticipated with certainty? Secondly, why does he announce a move that at the time of the announcing is already over? As for the elapsed time, it is significant that a shot at goal may be executed at any moment while the ball travels through midair from Mills via Sinclair to the left side of the box. As shots at goal are crucial in football and may result in a goal, commentators want to be ready to announce these decisive moves at the same time as they happen. Hence, here, in anticipation of a more critical move, the announcing of a less crucial move is postponed. As the ball then bounces out of play, the commentator finds the time to report Sinclair was there. This belated announcement is relevant for a number of reasons: first, because of the wide angle of the camera, it is hard for the television audience to identify the players. They appear very small on the screen, identifiable by their back numbers only (as is usual in the World Cup), and, furthermore, they do not always have their backs turned towards the camera. In this case, it is impossible to assign a name to the player from the pictures alone. Hence, the commentator here clearly identifies (belatedly) the player for the TV audience. It is of further significance that Sinclair jumps up together with the Brazilian C, who is trying to mark Sinclair man-to-man. As Sinclair manages to head the ball, this ultimately also indicates that Sinclair has beaten C, i.e. an English player has beaten a Brazilian. It may be of significance that both Sinclair’s success here and Mills’ winning the tackle in line 5 are the only uses of the past tense in this stretch of SAT. Put differently, the past tense may systematically be used in live football commentary as a marker of intermediate or partial success, the commentators scoring with the help of them: “This tackle is won; this small victory cannot be taken from us anymore.” A scan of the corpus suggests that this may indeed be the case. After all, there must be a reason why certain past moves are thus brought to the fore. As a final point here, because of the commentator’s actually mentioning it, Sinclair’s move also becomes more significant. In referring to their own team’s, England’s, successful moves, the commentators manage to slant their narrating of the game in favour of a positive outcome for their home team (for bias in reporting cf. Hansen 1999, Beentjes et al. 2002 , <?page no="292"?> 289 Billings et al. 2002, Billings et al. 2004, Eastman / Billings 1999, 2000 and 2001; for SAT as narratives cf. Martinez 1999, Morris et al. 1985.) By choosing from the innumerable possible moves that the pictures offer, the ones in which their team is successful, the TV journalists make the successful moves more significant than the failed or lost ones. As for line 12, the commentator moves back into the present so too here is Heskey, comparing Heskey’s current move to Sinclair’s past one. Heskey then passes the ball into the Brazilian goal area: in this situation, a goal is imminent. However, before one of his team-mates, Z, can reach the ball, a Brazilian player, D, deflects it. As this happens, the commentator calls LOW in (line 14). This could be an imperative verb form elliptical for ‘Shoot the ball low in’ (addressing the English player Z) or, in the sense ‘Take it low in’ (addressing the ball) functioning as a direction on how to beat the goalkeeper. Ellipsis or ‘colloquial reductions’ (Crystal 1980) are characteristic of SAT ( Ferguson 1982, Hoyle 1991 ). The increase in volume with its sense of urgency and directness underlines this reading. Nevertheless, the utterance could also be an elliptical present tense indicative meaning ‘The ball comes low in’. The increase in volume would then be explicable by the fact that a supposed goal is being described. The ensuing exclamation HO, in line 15, which often acts as a marker of surprise, does not help in determining the exact nature of the ellipsis either. What we are left with, then, is the surface form of a spoken utterance and the setting of the speech situation. The increased volume, the reduced form, and the exclamation flag a significant move for the viewer. The commentary has become rapid and emotional. Most notably (potential) goals are marked in SAT in this way. Hence, the audience is alerted that the attack by England has finally culminated in a shot at goal. A short note to round off this discussion: the parallel syntactic (e.g. lines 1 and 3), phonetic (lines 14 and 15) or semantic/ pragmatic forms (e.g. lines 6 and 8, lines 10 and 12), as well as the intonation patterns, add to the coherence of the text, making a story out of the images. To conclude, unsurprisingly, tense is one way of achieving freedom from the demands of the ongoing game. By switching to past tense, the commentator achieves a return to less critical moves that were not announced earlier because a more crucial incident was pending. What is more noteworthy is that by going back to past moves, also in the form of evaluative briefings, the commentator assigns importance to them, since they merit PP despite being already over. Hence, these shifts back to past events allow slanting the reporting in favour of the home team. In addition, the example illustrates how a move is not announced because another more significant one is pending and the commentator is reserving room for its announcement in the flow of SAT. Furthermore, future moves are anticipated in the commentary by pointing out relevant details beforehand. Both the camera shot and the commentary here free themselves from focussing on the immediate actions of the player with the ball. On the one hand, this re-focussing from the current action to a relocation of the action in the immediate future is meaningful only to those with a knowledge of the game. On the other hand, it informs the uninitiated in the long run. Hence, it also becomes clear that PP is based on an explicit knowledge of the game which unites audience, commentators and production crew. In addition, intonational patterns structure the game and connect different moves to meaningful events such as ‘an attack at goal’. Finally, variation in loudness and exclamations signal the significance of the moves being announced. <?page no="293"?> 290 3. Alternating play-by-play announcing and colour commentary After having described the connections between the game and play-by-play announcing, the next step is a description of the shifts from one phase of commentating to the next. Since longer stretches of colour commentary are characterised by a lack of connection to the immediate play, i.e. the pictures, for the current purpose only switches from PP to CC and back are of importance. Again the question is why at a given moment the broadcaster decides to depart verbally from the pictures. (For the coordination between two broadcasters, see Hansen 1999, Bowcher 2003). The following example 3 should illustrate the workings of PP and CC based on the events on the pitch. In other words, it highlights how the events in the game determine the choice between PP and CC. The game broadcast is one from the group stage. The fixture is Argentina versus England. It is only 11 minutes into the game. 2a. EA1 “the first course of that lunch” 1 Com CC that’s- 2 how I see the main problem,= 3 PP =that’s Beckham, 4 (0.6) 5 Placente, 6 (5.5) 7 CC I’m sure you’ve 8 delayed the first course of that lunch back at home, 9 or maybe you’ve already had it. {acc} 10 (0.7) 11 PP here’s Scholes, 12 (0.8) 13 to Butt, 14 (4.9) Lines 1-2 represent an evaluation (Labov / Waletzky 1967) in a story about the ticketing in the tournament. The many empty seats in the stadium led to this discussion. Lines 3 and 5 consist of the commentator’s announcing the players who are in possession of the ball. Lines 7 to 9 represent a reference to the domestic world of British viewers. This is followed by mentioning the players’ names again. In the rest of this section, we will concentrate on the shift from PP to CC in lines 5-7, and, conversely, from CC back to PP in lines 9-11. The letters A, B, C stand for Argentine players. 2b. 5 ball reaches Placente near the Argentine goal Placente, 6 Placente passes backwards to A (5.5) A passes sideways to B 7 0.6 sec. later: I’m sure you’ve- 8 long shot towards English goal by B delayed … at home, 9 or … had it {acc} 3 This example was used in an earlier publication to illustrate the use of references to food in football commentary (Gerhardt, forthcoming). <?page no="294"?> 291 0.3 sec. later: ball touches ground near centre circle where Scholes and C try to intercept it 10 Scholes wins the tackle (pushes the ball to his team mate Butt) (0.7) 11 0.2 sec. later: here’s Scholes, 12 ball reaches Butt, who heads it back to Scholes (0.8) 13 0.3 sec. later: to Butt, In line 5, the commentator does PP by naming the player with the ball: Placente [ pl sænt ]. This allows the well-informed audience to infer that the team which is currently in possession of the ball is Argentina. At the end of the turn on the high front vowel the ball reaches Placente near his own goal. The early announcement was possible because of the time it took the ball to travel to the player and because of the player’s solitary position. However, this move is not particularly exciting. This is also true of Placente’s next move: Placente passes the ball back to A, another Argentine player. This move is not commented on by the journalist (line 6), whereas the fact that the ball reaches Placente is still stated, since it includes the information that Argentina and not England are now on the ball. Here the journalist departs from following the play move-by-move. A then passes the ball to a third player B. This subsequent move is across (by two Argentines) the front of their own goal. Furthermore, no English player is in sight. Again, the move is not announced. Instead, 0.6 seconds after this shot, the commentator commences CC: I’m sure you’ve delayed the first course of that lunch back at home. Hence, after a pass backwards and then one sideways, two moves which do not merit mentioning by the commentators since they have no immediate impact on the run of play, the commentator chooses to talk about matters not related to the game. The game simply does not merit close PP at that moment. As far as the utterances of the commentator are concerned, post hoc, one could assume that line 5 represents the end of PP. However, it has to be kept in mind that for the sports journalist’s ad hoc commentary, the option to continue using PP was open until the beginning of line 7. If Placente had opted to pass the ball into midfield, the player receiving it would probably have been named (cf. lines 8-11,) if only to identify the team with the ball. Also, subsequently, if A had decided to start an attack, a comment would have been due. Hence, while the commentator awaits the subsequent moves of the players, the switch from PP to CC has not yet been undertaken. The time elapsing between one prior turn (here line 5, the last PP) and one subsequent turn is relevant for the decision whether to continue in PP or to switch to CC: the longer the gap, the greater the likelihood that the journalist will switch to CC. It is noticeable, though, that no exact time span can be given, since the commentary is not evenly spread across the game. For example, there is much more talk at the beginning of the first half than in the middle of the second half (all other factors being equal). While in the first half the TV broadcasters seem to use the gaps left by the match to give different kinds of extra information about the game, the venue, individual players, the tournament, etc., later on they seem to allow much longer pauses in their SAT. Interestingly, the verbal behaviour of the football fans who meet to watch games on TV together is similar. At the beginning of the game they talk a lot more to each other, both about game-related matters and other subjects, than towards the end of the match. <?page no="295"?> 292 To continue with the example: when the commentator has reached home (line 8), the Argentine player B decides on a long shot at the English goal. The subsequent utterance by the journalist or maybe you’ve already had it (line 9) is offered much more quickly than the surrounding talk. The prior utterance (as in line 8, after the cut-off) being the most relevant one in terms of the relativeness of speech rates, consists of 11 syllables, and is pronounced in 2.1 seconds. The utterance in question, albeit a little shorter (9 syllables), is still produced in one second only. This marked acceleration allows the speaker to end his sentence before the ball moves midfield. The utterance ends 0.3 seconds earlier. This timing permits the journalist to be ready for PP when the game picks up again. Here, the time constraints the broadcasters are subjected to become evident (Wanta / Leggett 1988, Mackenzie 2004). The “impulse constantly to shift the viewer’s perspective […] in order to prevent their attention from wandering and their hand from straying to the remote control button” (Rowe 1999: 157, on the fast style in sports presentation on TV) may be one reason for this shift to CC. 5.5 seconds (line 6) are spent in silence before a new perspective is opened up for the viewers with the help of CC. However, with the data under discussion, World Cup matches featuring England broadcast in the UK, the likelihood of channel flicking seems remote. Taking this aspect into consideration, together with the finding that SAT decreases during the broadcast, other functions become apparent. The commentators at the beginning of the broadcast use the space left by the game to pursue secondary agendas which are part of SAT, but not possible in PP. For instance, they have to align themselves with the viewers to bridge the co-presence gap (O’Keeffe 2006) between presenter and audience in this mediated discourse. Also, relevant background information that seems necessary for a complete picture of the match has to be given sooner or later. So at the beginning of the game, shorter spaces are used to cover these secondary agendas since they are more pressing at the beginning than later on, when a relation to audience has been established and most extra information has been given. 4. Conclusion This paper proposes a way of aligning the commentary and the game by transcribing and analysing the commentary during the run of play. By concentrating merely on two short stretches of SAT, a number of issues still become apparent. The term ‘play-by-play announcing’ suggests that each and every move on the pitch is announced as it happens. The data suggest that the announcement is generally carried out approximately 0.3-0.4 seconds after the move due to the mental processing time. However, the announcement may also be realised beforehand because of the positions of the players on the pitch and the distance the ball has to travel. Depending on their relative importance, sometimes moves are simply not mentioned. Furthermore, the journalists also deviate from the pattern by commenting retrospectively. These deviations can allow them to slant their reporting in favour of the home team. The future, on the other hand, is also anticipated by pointing out aspects on the pitch which will only become relevant later. This re-focusing is based on the common knowledge of all participants: the producers, the commentators, and the television viewers. Deictics underline common assumptions about the game. However, commentators also take <?page no="296"?> 293 advantage of their privileged position in the stadium. Colour commentary, on the other hand, is used to pass the time during uninteresting parts of the game. Secondary agendas, apart from the pure reporting of the players’ moves, are served in this way. Journalists manage these different functions of SAT in the light of the ever-changing events on the pitch and time constraints. Variation in speech rate and loudness as well as voice modulation and intonational patterns, syntactically reduced forms, and exclamations mirror the different phases of the game linguistically. A number of questions have had to be omitted. For instance, speaker change is another variable which adds to the complexity of the setting. Furthermore, quantitative studies (e.g. Reaser 2003) may investigate how frequently formulae such as X for England are used to resume PP or to what extent the use of the past tense does serve to slant the reporting in favour of the home team. Transcription conventions she’s out. falling tone in the preceding element; suggesting finality so, level, continuing intonation; suggesting non-finality bubut cutoff or truncated intonation unit (2.0) timed pauses in seconds and= latching (continuation without pause) =then {acc} becoming faster References Beentjes, Johannes / Van Oordt, Marianne / Can der Voort, Tom (2002): How television commentary affects children’s judgements on soccer fouls. In: Communication Research 29, 31-45 Billings, Andrew C. / Tambosi, Fabio (2004): Portraying the United States vs portraying a champion. US network bias in the 2002 World Cup. In: International Review for the Sociology of Sport 39, 157-165 Billings, Andrew C. / Halone, Kelby K. / Denham, Bryan E. (2002): Man, that was a pretty shot. An analysis of gendered broadcast commentary surrounding the 2000 men’s and women’s NCAA final four basketball championships. In: Mass Communication & Society 5, 295-315 Blust, Robert (ed.) (1991): Currents in Pacific linguistics. Honolulu: Pacific Linguistics Bowcher, Wendy L. (2003): Speaker contribution in radio sports commentary. In: Text 23, 445-476 Crystal, David (1980): Neglected grammatical factors in conversational English. In: Greenbaum / Leech / Svartvik, 153-166 Eastman, Susan T. / Billings, Andrew C. (1999): Gender parity in the Olympics. Hyping women athletes, favoring men athletes. In: Journal of Sport & Social Issues 23, 140-70 Eastman, Susan T. / Billings, Andrew C. (2000): Sportscasting and sports reporting. The power of gender bias. In: Journal of Sport & Social Issues 24, 192-213 Eastman, Susan T. / Billings, Andrew C. (2001): Biased voices of sports. Racial and gender stereotyping in college basketball announcing. In: Howard Journal of Communications 12, 183-201 Fassnacht, Chris / Woods, David K. (2004): Transana. http: / / www.transana.org, 28/ 10/ 2004 FIFA (2002): Day in the life of John Watts, sports broadcast director. “That’s out, lot.” http: / / 2002.fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/ 02/ en/ da/ dl/ 24.html, 25/ 10/ 2002 Ferguson, Charles A. (1982): Sports announcer talk. Syntactic aspects of register variation. In: Language in Society 12, 153-172 Gerhardt, Cornelia (2006): Moving closer to the audience. Watching football on television. In: Revista alicantina de estudios ingleses (Special issue on media discourse) 19, 125-148 <?page no="297"?> 294 Gerhardt, Cornelia (forthcoming): “You could leave the bacon and eggs for just a couple of hours.” References to food in British football commentary. In: Lavric Greenbaum, Sidney / Leech, Geoffrey / Svartvik, Jan (eds.) (1980): Studies in English linguistics for Randolph Quirk. London: Longman Hansen, Alan D. (1999): Narrating the game. Achieving and coordinating partisanship in real time. In: Research on Language and Social Interaction 32, 269-302 Helm, June (ed.) (1967): Essays on the verbal and visual arts. Seattle: University of Washington Press Hoyle, Susan M. (1991): Children’s competence in the specialized register of sportscasting. In: Journal of Child Language 18, 435-450 Kuiper, Koenraad (1996): Smooth talkers. The linguistic performance of auctioneers and sportscasters. Mahwah, JH: Erlbaum Labov, William / Waletzky, Joshua (1967): Narrative analysis. Oral versions of personal experience. In: Helm, 12-44 Lavric, Eva (ed.) (forthcoming): Food and language. Sprache und Essen. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Mackenzie, J. Lachlan (2004): Incremental functional grammar and the language of football commentary. In: British and American Studies 10, 237-248 Marriot, Stephanie (1995): Intersubjectivity and temporal reference in television commentary. In: Time & Society 4, 345-364 Marriot, Stephanie (1996): Time and time again. ‘Live’ television commentary and the construction of replay talk. In: Media, Culture & Society 18, 69-86 Martinez, Matias (1999): Nach dem Spiel ist vor dem Spiel. Erzähltheoretische Bemerkungen zur Fußballberichterstattung. In: Jahrbuch für Finnisch-Deutsche Literaturbeziehungen 31, 20-29 Morris, Barbara S. (1987): Reading replay in ‘live’ television. In: Journal of Popular Culture 20, 147-157 Morris, Barbara S. / Nydahl, Joel (1985): Sport spectacle as drama. In: Journal of Popular Culture 18, 101-110 Ochs, Elinor (1979): Transcription as theory. In: Ochs / Schieffelin, 43-72 Ochs, Elinor / Schieffelin, Bambi (eds.) (1979): Developmental pragmatics. New York: Academic Press O’Keeffe, Anne (2006): Investigating media discourse. London and New York: Routledge Pawley, Andrew (1991): How to talk cricket. In: Blust, 339-368 Reaser, Jeffrey (2003): A quantitative approach to (sub)registers. The case of ‘sports announcer talk’ In: Discourse Studies 5, 303-21 Rowe, David (1999): Sport, culture and the media. The unruly trinity. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press Wanta, Wayne / Leggett, Dawn (1988): ‘Hitting paydirt.’ Capacity theory and sports announcers use of clichés. In: Journal of Communication 38, 82-89 Cornelia Gerhardt FR 4.3 Anglistik Universität des Saarlandes PF 15 11 50 D-66041 Saarbrücken e-mail: c.gerhardt@mx.uni-saarland.de http: / / www.uni-saarland.de/ fak4/ norrick/ staff-courses/ gerhardt.html <?page no="298"?> 295 JIM WALKER THE FOOTBALLER’S PERFECT - ARE FOOTBALLERS LEADING THE WAY? It is often believed that the only verb form available for recounting events in past time is the English Preterit form. Every single available academic grammar of the English language supports this view, relegating the Present Perfect to a whole series of other possible uses, such as experiential past, past events with present repercussions, and so on. However, it is an indubitable fact that, in some forms of English, the Present Perfect is used as a narrative tense, and it is equally indubitable that this usage is associated especially with football, as this paper will attempt to justify on the basis of a corpus of sports interviews. Secondly, it will show that narrative Present Perfect does exist outside football, and will reflect on whether it is simply a non-standard form that has gained a certain ‘visibility’ in the light of the recent explosion in the amount of televised coverage, or whether footballers might be taking the English language down a road towards a narrativisation of the Present Perfect, a path that many other languages have followed before English. 1. Introduction As somebody who shares their time between teaching English as a foreign language and conducting research into, and teaching, linguistics, I am used to a situation whereby I spend half a day teaching grammatical rules which I then go on to spend the other half of the day debunking. The subject of this particular paper is a case in point. I shall begin with an example of the phenomenon I wish to discuss. The following extract is taken from the post-match discussion in the Sky Sports studio, subsequent to the incident on 3 rd October 2007 in which AC Milan goalkeeper Dida was confronted by Glasgow Celtic fan Robert McHendry, who had made his way on to the pitch. The two speakers are the Sky Sports anchorman and Charlie Nicholas, a former professional who now works as a studio expert. I have underlined the verb forms of interest. 1. Charlie Nicholas: I don’t know how Celtic won it, Milan dominated for long periods, but it’s no fluke […] it’s great result, but I don’t know, he’s hardly touched the goalkeeper, and I’ve watched it, I watched it unfold, and I could not believe what I was seeing, at first, at first I didn’t think the supporter had touched him, he’s gave him a little tickle, Dida chases him and then realises he can’t take it and he goes down, and he’s stayed there, he’s off with the ice pack and the stretcher, and he’s completely bluffed it, but Celtic will get absolutely hammered because of this one fool. Interviewer: Dida decided to see the whole thing through, from the fact that the fan ran to him, and then Dida decides to make much more of it [looking at the film] there it is, the fan came from nowhere… CN: You can see, he hardly touches him, he’s reacted because he’s angry… Most teachers of English explain the difference between the English Preterit and the English Present Perfect using the tried and tested rule of thumb that the Preterit in English is the form used to narrate events in the past that no longer have any connection with the present, whereas the Present Perfect is a somewhat more complex form with a <?page no="299"?> 296 variety of different uses, all of which have as a common feature the fact that there is some link to the present, and that therefore the name Present Perfect is not entirely anomalous (a tried and tested view that I will be returning to). And yet a cursory glance at the above example shows that this is by no means the case. Nicholas alternates between the Preterit, the Present Perfect and the Present Simple, in a manner which appears to be unmotivated. There can be no doubt that the Present Perfect is being used here to narrate events where we might in Standard English have expected a Preterit. Only the interviewer appears to use the Preterit in a more canonical fashion, with one switch to a Present Simple. The second example presented below serves to reinforce the impression that footballers, or ex-footballers, use the Present Perfect in what seems, prima facie, to be an unusual way. This example is given partly because, anecdotally, it served as the spark to ignite this particular research project, and secondly as a means of demonstrating the conventions I will continue to use throughout this paper, whereby I underline those uses of the PP which I deem interesting or problematic. Those that are conventional, so to speak, are left unmarked. Note once again the switches between the Present Perfect and the Preterit. 2. I think Gary was a bit disappointed first of all but I have apologised and explained to him that I have tried to pull out. I have tried to explain to all the other Everton players that I have tried to pull out at the last minute. I think it just looks bad because I have gone in with two feet. I am never going to try to deliberately hurt a fellow professional. Although I did go in with my studs showing I have tried to pull out at the last minute - I can honestly say that. We will have to see if there is action from the FA. If I had gone through with the tackle maybe I could have hurt him even worse but I have pulled out and he has only got a little mark so I am glad for him that I haven’t hurt him and he has been able to carry on.“ Steven Gerrard, Liverpool midfielder, English, Liverpool, 26 years, recounting a horrific tackle on Everton player during derby, 22 nd December 2002 1 2. A football phenomenon? My initial working hypothesis, one that enabled me to work on the syntax of English while sitting in front of the television, was that this was, if I might use a rather trivial expression, a ‘footballer’s thing’. It certainly seemed to be occurring with considerable regularity, according to my then casual observations, in the mouths of players and managers, as in the following example: 3. We’re disappointed, because Portsmouth have only created one chance in the match, and they’ve taken it…We didn’t play as well as what we have been…We had decent possession around the halfway line, we gave the ball away cheaply, then the next minute, we’ve overcompensated and pushed men forward, and it’s left Curtis Davis 1 v. 1 - he’s unfortunate with his challenge…and that’s cost us a point. Bryan Robson, manager West Bromwich Albion, English, Co. Durham, after defeat to Porstmouth, Dec. 2005 2 1 The information following the quotations includes information, such as the age and place of birth of the speaker, that will not be exploited in this paper. The intention is to address the issue of the sociolinguistics of the narrative Present Perfect, most notably its regional distribution. I will make only passing reference to this issue later in the paper. 2 It must be noted, of course, that Bryan Robson had an illustrious career as a player before turning to management. <?page no="300"?> 297 These initially casual observations were given more concrete expression by the constitution of a corpus of post-match interviews. All of the interviews involving British-born 3 players and managers, broadcast on the BBC programme Match of the Day, were recorded over the period from January to April 2006. Almost 40% of all such interviews contained an example of the Present Perfect being used to narrate events in the match, a finding which indicates beyond doubt that we are dealing here not with some isolated grammatical oddity, but with a much more widespread and systematic phenomenon, therefore deserving of attention. Something akin, in fact, to what might loosely be referred to as an example of syntactic register. This notion was further bolstered by the following two examples. The first is the caption to a photograph which appeared on the sports pages of the British newspaper, The Guardian. 4. FA Cup fifth round: Michael Duberry dives to scoop the ball out of the back of the net. No goal! No penalty! The ref’s had an absolute shocker here, you know. (Guardian photo caption linking to http: / / football.guardian.co.uk/ Match_Report/ 0,1527,897062,00.html match report, accessed on February 17 th , 2003) It seems clear that the use of the Present Perfect in the final sentence here is an attempt, reinforced by the use of the lexical items ref and shocker, to lend the caption a certain ‘footballing feel’. If I might be permitted a neologism, this is a footballised caption. The second was an article that appeared in the same Guardian, written by David McKie, a historian and the newspaper’s deputy editor at the time. The article, entitled Present far from Perfect, is essentially a complaint about this particular phenomenon, in which, among so many other eminently citable passages, we might pick out the following: “Does this practice, so common in football commentary nowadays, have any grammatical justification? […] And yet the usage in football still seems awkward and odd. It doesn’t happen with cricket.” (McKie 2002) 4 So at this stage in my research, it appeared that the idea of a ‘footballer’s Present Perfect’ was fully justified, so much so that it served as the motivation for the title of Walker (2008). But this hypothesis had to be rejected once the corpus was opened up to cover other sports, as the following two examples, successively from rugby and snooker, demonstrate. 5. Today it’s gone against us but we played the rugby. It’s a game we had won and then there’s an element of luck and we’ve lost it. There was that bounce of the ball from O’Gara’s little chip at the end. Credit to them - they had to throw everything at it. They’ve tried something and it’s paid off - the luck of the Irish, as it were. It’s difficult to say we’ve thrown that game away because it’s the bounce of the ball. We’ve played most of the rugby and unfortunately we’ve come away with nothing again.“ Jamie Noon, English centre, English, Yorkshire, 19 th March 2006, 27 years, after defeat to Irish 3 This particular restriction was applied, naturally, to eliminate any non-native speaker errors from the corpus. 4 The implicit sociolinguistic comment here, in the comparison between football and cricket, deserves a degree of attention that this particular paper does not allow for. <?page no="301"?> 298 6. I came out afterwards, and I had three difficult shots, all 3 of which I’ve missed, and Steve then’s gone break break break and it looked like it was going to be 8-7, and then he fell down and makes 57 points and I’ve managed to clear the table and I’m absolutely delighted. Steve Davis, snooker player, Romford, commenting on being in final of UK Championships in 2004 But before continuing the investigation into how widespread this form is, it is important at this juncture to take a more purely linguistic detour and to reflect on the syntax of this form, to try and counter the possible objection that these narrative Present Perfect forms are in fact not particularly unusual or interesting. 3. The narrative Present Perfect - What’s all the fuss about? This narrative use of the Present Perfect, illustrated above, seems to have received very little coverage. The breadth and scope of the literature on the Present Perfect in English is nothing short of impressive, which makes its relative silence on the matter of the narrative Present Perfect all the more deafening. I posit three reasons for this absence: first, that my fellow academics do not spend enough time watching football matches; second, more seriously, that we are dealing here with a very recent development, one that has not had time to percolate into the grammatical descriptions of English, and third, the interpretation least favourable to my enterprise here, that the Present Perfect as used by footballers is in fact of no major linguistic interest, inasmuch as it is merely an extension of existing uses. I will begin this section by attempting to demonstrate that discussion of the phenomenon is indeed lacking in the literature, before going on to indicate why I believe this usage is of great importance. In so doing, I will add a fourth explanation to the three outlined above. In none of the reference grammars which I was able to consult is there any mention of the Present Perfect being used to narrate past events 5 . There are occasional references to the use of the Present Perfect in conjunction with past time adverbials, such as Quirk et al. (1985: 195), where we see the example “Yes, I’ve seen it [Macbeth] ages ago, when I was a child”, followed by the somewhat throwaway remark to the effect that “Examples such as these may be explained as performance errors”, but it is important to stress here I shall want to claim that this is an entirely different phenomenon. The use of the Present Perfect with past time adverbials has been given a certain amount of coverage both in grammar works, as we have just seen, and in the linguistic literature, to which we shall turn, but in none of the examples that I have presented is there an explicit time adverbial - past time reference is recoverable from context only, and the context is one of narrative, which is not the case in the example from Quirk and in all of the others I have seen in the literature. Turning now to the linguistic body of research on the Present Perfect, we see a similar absence. This is not the place to go back over the extensive work that has been done on the Present Perfect in contemporary English, but suffice it to say that be it in the works by McCawley 1971, McCoard 1978, Cotte 1987 or Elsness 1996, along with a host of others, there is not a breath of this. There are one or two very fleeting remarks, 5 See Joly / O’Kelly 1990, Souesme 1992, Swan 1995, Biber 1999, Huddleston / Pullum 2002, Carter / McCarthy 2006. <?page no="302"?> 299 almost in passing. According to Denison (1998: 279), Leisi mentions that “in some dialects, it is possible to hear the Present Perfect used for past-time narrative”, although it is not entirely clear in this passage whether the foregoing citation is to be understood as being in conjunction with past time adverbials. Trudgill (1984: 42) mentions en passant the use of the Present Perfect for recounting events. There is also the article by Engel and Ritz on Australian English (Engel / Ritz 2000), but very little on contemporary British English. Furthermore, Mair (2006: 84-85) provides an extensive list of syntactic changes in Modern English that are deserving of our attention, but no mention is made of a potential change in the balance between the Preterit and the Present Perfect. But, as intimated above, this is perhaps simply due to the fact that I am reading too much into too few data. Let me attempt to counter such an objection. Most of the literature on the Present Perfect adopts a somewhat typological approach. Sometimes these typologies are semantically based; in other cases they have a more syntactic bent, but in essence they can be boiled down to the following exposition. In contemporary British English, most authors would concur, there are four types of Present Perfect, which may be illustrated as follows 6 : a. Perfect of Result I’ve washed my hair. I’ve written to them, but they haven’t replied. b. Existential/ Experiential Perfect Have you ever broken a bone? I’ve seen ‘Pulp Fiction’ I don’t know how many times. c. Perfect of Persistent Situation (Extended Now) Harold has been here since last week. d. The ‘Hot News’ Perfect Saddam Hussein has been executed. The narrative Present Perfect causes a problem because it clearly does not enter into any of the first three categories. There is, however, a strong temptation to attribute the examples I have quoted in the paper so far to the fourth category above, viz. the ‘hot news’ perfect. The nature of the corpus, a series, let us remember, of post-match interviews, is very likely to lead us to believe that what we have here is nothing more than a conventional and much studied use of the Present Perfect. I believe this to be a mistaken interpretation, for at least two reasons. First of all, it is my intuition that it is perfectly possible to invent an example such as the following, in which events in the distant past are narrated (here, the final of the UEFA Champions League in 2005): 7. Early in the second half, Steven Gerrard’s scored a magnificent header and it’s given Liverpool the self-belief they didn’t have in the first half. A few minutes later, Šmicer’s scored a cracker and then Gerrard’s been fouled for Alonso’s penalty. This intuition would appear to be shared by McKie in the article already mentioned, in which he provides another invented example, purporting to recount events one week old: 6 Authors will often differ as to the names they give to these categories, and on many of the finer details, but this presentation is sufficiently detailed for our present needs. <?page no="303"?> 300 8. We’ve missed absolute sitters ... Mark Badman has kicked it straight at the goalie from five yards. Our luck was summed up in the last minute when Steve Brown has put in an absolute pearler of a cross to Charlie Griffin and, from four yards, he has managed not to put it in the net. (McKie 2002) More relevantly, it would appear that the examples quoted thus far in this paper are intrinsically different from the ‘hot news’ perfect in one important respect: that is, they can be used to recount an entire sequence of successive events, in a way that is entirely analogous with the characteristic use of the Preterit in Standard English. As far as I am aware, a ‘hot news’ perfect is often used to introduce the subject of a narrative, but when that narrative begins, as in the example with Saddam Hussein quoted above, we would normally expect the Preterit to take over. This is not what occurs in the footballing examples, where the Present Perfect seems to be used from beginning to end of a conversation turn. It is chiefly for this reason that I would contend that the narrative Present Perfect does not fit in to the standard descriptions in the literature, and is therefore extremely problematic. The foregoing discussion would seem, therefore, to lead to the conclusion, sketched out at the beginning of this section as the second of three reasons why the narrative Present Perfect does not feature in the literature, that we are dealing here with an emergent use of the periphrastic perfect in modern English, for narrative purposes. It must be conceded that this is indeed an extremely tempting conclusion, one that is given support by many who have written on the diachrony of past tense forms. Many of the authors who have noted the somewhat uncanonical uses of the Present Perfect with past time adverbials have advanced the theory that English is following the path trod by other languages before it, and most notably the Romance languages, wherein perfect forms have taken on simple past meanings (for example, Comrie 1976: 61, Cotte 1987, who both attribute it to a relaxation of the restriction of current relevance). McKie (2002), writing from a non-linguistic perspective, sees the narrative Present Perfect as something new, as does Rastall (1999: 79), who, contra Comrie and Cotte, contends that this “unexpected Present Perfect is due to focus of attention on current relevance which has led to a recent new usage”. These ideas are given ample support by authors who state that such a diachronic change involving the perfect is an entirely uncontroversial cross-linguistic phenomenon. Lindstedt (2000: 366), for example, has this to say: “The perfect is a gram type 7 that is frequent [...] but unstable, as it often tends to be lost. More often than not, it does not disappear as a form, but becomes something else - a general past tense, for instance.” As is well documented, this is precisely what has happened in German and French, among a host of other languages. Applying this analysis to the narrative Present Perfect is therefore hugely tempting, but nevertheless faces a number of problems, not least of which is the fact that American English functions in a manner which is wholly different, a fact which has been amply recorded (e.g. by Schottman 1997). This last consideration makes sweeping statements about “the direction English is going” more difficult to sustain, in particular in light of the fact that there may be another explanation. As Mair (under)states (2006: 111), there is a lack of clarity as to the diachrony of the Preterit versus Present Perfect 7 For the term ‘gram type’, see, among others, the preface and the first article by Dahl in the same volume. <?page no="304"?> 301 distinction in English, and reading Olga Fischer, who says “The perfect is not fully grammaticalised in Middle English: it freely alternates in almost all its functions with the Preterit.” (Fischer 1992: 256), it is very hard not to be struck by the ease with which this remark could be applied to the examples given above. This is not to suggest that modern British footballers speak Middle English, rather that a picture whereby the Present Perfect is becoming a narrative form in contemporary English is potentially a misleading one. 4. Not an emerging form, but a re-emerging one? The suggestion I wish to sketch out in this concluding section can briefly be stated as follows. It is possible that what we are dealing with here, in the murky, troubled waters of the history of non-standard Englishes, is not in fact a new development at all, simply an increased visibility for a form which has never in fact disappeared. Let it be stressed immediately that in the current state of research, it is impossible to confirm or reject this hypothesis, but it is an avenue that I believe we should pursue. Earlier in this paper, I explained how my thinking developed from considering the narrative Present Perfect as being part of footballing register to regarding it as part of a wider sporting register. In the light of examples such as the following, it is clear that this particular position has to be abandoned. In one series of sketches, English comedienne Catherine Tate plays the role of Sam, a young woman who recounts events of the most stunning banality to her husband Paul, as if they were exceptional exploits, whereupon Paul collapses into hysterical laughter. 9. An absolutely mental day-to-day, you’ll never believe it. Lunchtime, right, Elaine said to me “what do you fancy? ” And I said I was thinking about a jacket potato and she said “I’ve half a mind to go to Prêt à Manger” and I said “why don’t I walk down with you ‘cos it’s on the same way.” In the end we’ve ended up sharing a jacket potato, cottage cheese and a salad so it’s all worked out quite well. We’ve gone back to work, we’ve got in the lift, next thing I know, the lift’s stopped, the doors have opened, she’s walked out, I’ve followed her out, I’ve taken one look around me - I’m only on the fifth floor ain’t I? I’m only on the fifth floor in human resources instead of the third floor in personnel [...] we have gone into uncontrollable hysterics. She said “what you doin’ up here”, I said “you know what I’ve done, doncha? I’ve only gone and followed you”. She said to me “you’re a lunatic! ” The accent in which this soliloquy is delivered can best be described as working class southeast English. So what conclusions can we draw? First, that the narrative Present Perfect is not a part of the sporting register, but is a form prevalent in non-standard British English 8 generally. It does seem to have a particular association with football, that much is clear, but is not restricted to this field of activity. The fact that we are clearly dealing with a sociolect raises the possibility that the narrative Present Perfect, far from being a novelty emerging in the English language, is a form of a certain venerability which has simply remained out of sight for many years. In the teaching and study of English grammar, and even in research into the history of English, the focus 8 The work on geographical distribution remains to be done, but this would appear to be a pan-British phenomenon. The corpus contains Scottish, Welsh and English speakers, from all four corners of the British Isles. <?page no="305"?> 302 has almost always been exclusively on the development and description of standard English, with the result that huge amounts of data simply never feature in the prevailing accounts. Only in recent years, with the extensive media coverage accorded to sports people in general and footballers in particular, has this form developed a certain degree of visibility and has become widely known, if not accepted, across all strata of society. In other words, my contention is that footballers are indeed leading the way: not by being innovators of a new grammatical form, but rather by being the vectors by which a particular use of the Present Perfect, a tense that has never been grammaticalised in nonstandard Englishes in the way that it has in Standard English, has gained wider public recognition. Whether or not this is true, and some arduous work on the diachrony of non-standard Englishes awaits this author, we can only conclude by thanking our much linguistically maligned professional footballers for showing us once again how endlessly fascinating and complex the English verbal system can be. Footballers are often accused of verbal inadequacy, but if we listen closely they have a great deal to teach us! References Biber, Douglas (1999): Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Pearson Education Blake, Norman (ed.) (1992): The Cambridge history of the English language. Vol. II. 1066-1476. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Carter, Ronald / McCarthy, Michael (2006): Cambridge grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Comrie, Bernard (1976): Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cotte, Pierre (1987): Réflexions sur l’emploi des temps du passé à la lumière de deux évolutions récentes du système verbal de l’anglais. In: Contrastes 14-15, 89-161 Dahl, Östen (ed.) (2000): Tense and aspect in the languages of Europe. Berlin et al.: Mouton de Gruyter. Denison, David (1998): Syntax. In: Romaine, 92-329 Elsness, Johan (1996): The Perfect and the Preterit in contemporary and earlier English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Engel, Dulcie / Ritz, Marie-Eve (2000): The use of the Present Perfect in Australian English. In: Australian Journal of Linguistics 20/ 2, 119-140 Fillmore, Charles / Langdoen, D. Terence (eds.) (1971): Studies in linguistic semantics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Fischer, Olga (1992): Syntax. In: Blake, 207-408 Girard, Geneviève (ed.) (2008): Etrange / étranger (CIEREC Travaux 128). Saint-Etienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Etienne Huddleston, Rodney / Pullum, Geoffrey (2002): The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Joly, André / O’Kelly, Dairine (1990): Grammaire systématique de l’anglais. Paris: Nathan Lindstedt, Jouko (2000): The Perfect - Aspectual, temporal and evidential. In: Dahl, 365-384 Mair, Christian (2006): Twentieth century English - History, variation and standardization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press McKie, David (2002): Present far from Perfect. In: The Guardian, October 3 rd McCawley, James D. (1971): Tense and time reference in English. In: Fillmore / Langdoen, 93-113 McCoard, Robert (1978): The English Perfect: Tense-choice and pragmatic inferences. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company Quirk, Randolph / Greenbaum, Sidney / Leech, Geoffrey / Svartvik, Jan (1985): A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman Rastall, Paul (1999): Observations on the Present Perfect in English. In: World Englishes 18, 79-83 <?page no="306"?> 303 Romaine, Susanne (ed.). (1998): The Cambridge history of the English language. Vol. 4. 1776-1997. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Schottman, Wendy (1997): Le Present Perfect face au colloquial Preterit en anglais américain et britannique contemporains. PhD Thesis, Université de Paris 13 Souesme, Jean Claude (1992): Grammaire anglaise en contexte. Paris: Ophrys Swan, Michael (1995): Practical English usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press Trudgill, Peter (1984): Applied sociolinguistics. London: Academic Press Walker, Jim (2008): L’étrange phénomène du parfait du footballeur. In: Girard, 15-26. Walker, Jim (forthcoming): The strange phenomenon of the footballer’s Perfect. In: Actes du colloque de la SAES à Nantes, mai 2006 Jim Walker Université Lumière Lyon 2 Département d’Etudes du Monde Anglophone Centre de Recherche en Terminologie et Traduction 74 rue Pasteur 69007 Lyon France e-mail: Jim.Walker@univ-lyon2.fr <?page no="308"?> 305 ANASTASIA MAKAROVA DEVIATIONS IN SPORTS COMMENTATOR SPEECH: STATISTICAL AND LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS The present study aims at creating a data base of speech errors of sports commentators, working with live-broadcasts, and at attempting to explain some of the features of this type of text in order to gain more information on characteristics of spontaneous speech in general. The notion of speech errors is understood most broadly here: all kinds of irregularities on phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic levels that are noticeable to an educated native speaker of Russian. Live sports commentaries are an example of speech produced in an extreme situation of limited time. Commentaries of tennis and football matches were taken as material for this study; the results for the two types of commentary were compared. The data obtained were systematized and subjected to statistical analysis. Russian commentators speak up to 88% of the time and make 1 mistake every 35 seconds. Cases of repair (self-correction) are scarce with tennis commentaries (3%), but appear more often in football commentaries (14-36%). Errors are similar for both types of commentary and for all commentators (which leads us to believe that the results obtained are representative and may be extended to various other types of spontaneous speech). 1. Introduction: Errors in spontaneous speech This study relates to such areas of linguistics as psycholinguistics and research into speech production processes. The mechanisms of speech production will be on the agenda for the foreseeable future, for none of the existing theories of speech production offers a fully-fledged description of the phenomenon. Speech production is a complex process of transfer of meaning into text (written or spoken); failure may occur on various levels of this intricate process, and these failures are reflected in the top level observable, i.e. in the final message itself. Many linguists have been focusing on speech error data, trying to find some relationships and trying to create a model of speech production (see, for example, Garrett 1988). Their motto is - let me put it this way - “describe malfunctions and try to find the reasons for their appearances in order to understand how the norm works”. It is difficult to give a universal definition of the term ‘error’. For this study, we will use the words ‘error’, ‘mistake’, ‘irregularity’ or ‘lapse’ mostly as synonyms and will understand ‘error’ in a broad sense: all kinds of irregularities in L1 on all levels of language which are noticeable for an educated native speaker, all cases that lead to unacceptable or inappropriate utterances. We agree with Ringbom (1994: 740): “In fact, the term ‘error’ is an artificial concept, which, however, is convenient for many research purposes…” Some researchers state that there are two main types of speech errors: some are made because of insufficient knowledge of the language system (not the object of the present study), while others, sometimes called ‘mistakes’ or ‘slips of the tongue’, occur in spontaneous speech and are not consequences of defective competence (see, e.g., Corder 1973). The latter may shed light on the internal structure of the utterance, <?page no="309"?> 306 since they reflect the underlying planning process and interaction of units within one level or between various levels of language. Other researchers, such as Kolde 1980 and Shattuck-Hufnagel 1994, do not distinguish between errors and slips of the tongue. In many existing works there are error classifications, which are attempts at explanatory theories of the origin of speech errors. One of the most popular explanations is the competing plan hypothesis (see, for example, Baars 1980). A speaker may have more than one possible way of expression of one and the same meaning: these may interfere while planning or already articulating the utterance, and therefore the probability of disorder rises. Most of the researchers agree that speech errors are not simply casual and may help to understand the concealed processes of how language functions and also provide information on the organization of the mental lexicon (Chomsky 1957; Fromkin 1973, 1990; Emmorey / Fromkin 1988; Garrett 1988; Givón 2002; Levelt 1983, 1989; and others). Not only do they offer evidence on the phonological level, but they also illustrate the structure of larger units used in the organization of phrase constructions. 2. Aims of the present research Studying errors and spontaneous speech is not easy for it requires an extensive corpus of data. Obtaining or compiling such a database is a challenge in itself. It is very important when recording the ‘negative linguistic material’, as the famous Russian linguist Lev Sscherba (Sscherba [ *Š ] 1940 / 2002) called speech errors, that the surrounding context is recorded, too. Isolated errors can hardly provide any information on planning processes and can hardly be classified or analysed. How large the context should be is not so clear. It seems, however, that the larger it is, the safer our conclusions are. There is also a serious ethical problem: may we or may we not make recordings of people without telling them about it, if we want to access real spontaneous speech? When warned, people speak more accurately and take more time for planning and editing, which, in turn, makes their speech less natural. The main goal of this study was not only setting up a database of speech errors, but also their analysis and statistical characteristics. There already exist error databases (for L1 and L2) and error classifications; there are attempts at explanatory theories, but there is still a lack of reliable statistics and quantitative data. Obtaining frequency characteristics at least for one type of spontaneous oral text was one of the main objectives of this research, as well as finding systematic relationships between various features. The final goal of the study may be seen as the identification and analysis of certain patterns and regularities in the grammar system of the Russian language. 3. Material for the study Many of the problems mentioned above were solved when the material for the present study was chosen. As an example of spontaneous speech, sports commentaries in Russian, produced during live broadcasting by professional commentators, were taken. Such circumstances are extreme cases of speech production, and therefore significant and telling. The exaggerated situation reveals the main tendencies, which may not be <?page no="310"?> 307 that clear at first sight when analyzing spontaneous speech. The results obtained should not be regarded as universal for all text types, as a sports commentary certainly has its own particular characteristics. Some features are typical only of this genre; nevertheless, most of the tendencies do not seem to be unique or ‘local’. A sports commentator is a professional, obliged to work in an extreme situation of limited time. A live commentary is a special genre: it has to be full and detailed, and at the same time both current and momentary, for it has to do with a constantly changing situation. The main consequence of limited time is the impossibility of internal editing, monitoring, or self-control, aspects which are typical of informal speech and which involve anticipation and avoiding errors. Commentaries of tennis and football matches were taken, all from big sporting events, such as Grand Slam finals or UEFA finals. 640 minutes of videotapes all together, 360 minutes for tennis, which yield only 160 minutes of speech (long pauses are not included in this figure) and 280 minutes of football matches (about 210 minutes of speech). The speech of three commentators for tennis was analysed and six for football. Some of them were working in pairs, which made the statistical analysis more complicated. Our preliminary hypothesis was that speech characteristics as well as error types would vary for different commentators. We did not analyse the speech of those commentators who are famous among fans for their terrible Russian language or heightened emotionality 1 . The commentators chosen represent the average. 60 minutes of tennis matches and 100 minutes of football matches were fully transcribed into a normal Word file. The text transcribed contains more than 10,000 lexical tokens. All pauses were measured and cut out, using a computer algorithm in order to obtain the exact figure for the time of speaking. Short hesitations were not cut out. For informal spontaneous talk the average percentage of pausing is 40 to 50 %. In the case of sports commentary there are fewer pauses. Professional football commentators speak up to 88% of the whole time. Tennis commentators make more pauses, often half of the time. It is obvious that there are fewer pauses when the moment is decisive, when there is a lot of action going on. 4. General remarks Before coming to errors, I would like to make a few remarks and state the most characteristic features of live sports commentary and of speech on TV. Olga Lapteva [ | Ÿ Q ], a researcher who has been studying Russian TV language for many years, is struck by the uninhibited and uncontrollable element of spontaneity in the texts produced and notes that, although all the characteristics may vary depending on the person, in general characteristic features of spontaneous speech can be highlighted as follows (Lapteva 2003: 17): • segmentation, • increased number of verbs, • use of formulaic constructions, • strange combination of two competing strategies, economy and redundancy, 1 The author is grateful to Yevgeniy Markov [ Q| "^- ” * >Q] for his advice. <?page no="311"?> 308 • domination of meaning over form. The last feature should be regarded as the main principle. Most of the features listed are typical of sport commentaries as well. It is predictable that the majority of utterances in sports commentators’ speech will be short, with many of them seeming abrupt. Many utterances remain unfinished. In view of the constantly changing picture on the screen commentators are often forced to change a planned utterance for a more immediate one. Therefore there are many unexpected pauses and intonations. The quality of the commentary mostly depends on the professional skills of the commentator. They are in some way like old Germanic skalds who sang their poems using formulas and filling these formulas with different content (see Lord 1960). Composition in performance is what they did centuries ago and what commentators do nowadays. Formulas and clichés are typical of sports commentaries. It is natural to use common constructions which are retrieved from memory in an extreme situation more easily. Another typical feature is the use of professional slang. These cases may often be evaluated as errors by an inexperienced audience. Slang affects not only lexical units, but also units of a more complex structure. Some word choices may seem wrong, but are used as terms, like 1. Verkhovoy miach instead of verkhniy miach ‘Riding’ ball instead of ‘upper’ ball Comment: the adjective verkhovoy [Q *•>Q>-] is normally used for ‘riding’, here it refers to a ball which is much higher and further from the pitch. Sometimes the word verkhniy [Q *•"^-] with the same stem verkh- [Q *•-] for ‘upper’ is used in a similar context. For specialists in football, the word verkhovoy has nothing to do with riding: it is clear for them. A typical example of professional slang. 5. Results A football or tennis match involves dynamic action, coded in verbs. Therefore it is predictable that one will find many verbs in such a text. However, there are almost three times fewer verbs than nouns, for both commentaries of tennis and football matches. According to the statistical data of the National Corpus of Russian (which now counts 1,260,897 lexical tokens altogether), the distribution of parts of speech is the following: nouns represent 27,25% of all lexical tokens, verbs 19,34% and adjectives 7,45%. These are the average figures for texts of all types, not only spontaneous spoken texts. At the same time their distribution in sports commentaries is the following: nouns 35,8%, verbs 14% and adjectives only 4,28%. This is a very significant difference. There being few adjectives is predictable and can be explained easily: all qualifiers usually introduce some extra information. In the commentary there is simply not enough time to embellish. The other reason is that adjectives evaluate, while the main task of a commentator is observation. Listeners are able to assess and evaluate themselves. The surprising ratio of nouns and verbs is more difficult to find an explanation for. One possible explanation is that, in many cases, the whole situation can be described with just one word, like ‘pass’ or ‘goal’. These are sometimes expanded: <?page no="312"?> 309 opasniy moment (‘dangerous moment’), opasniy moment seychas na pole (‘dangerous moment now on the pitch’) or Barbosa pas na Liedsona (lit. ‘Barbosa pass [noun] to Liedson’), Rochemback v tsentr (lit. ‘Rochemback to the centre’). In tennis matches it is often the score which does not need any verbs: 40-0. The constantly changing score makes the commentator interrupt his line of thought to announce this score. Coming back to his thought often results in syntactic errors; short-term memory does not always manage to restore and fulfil the former plan. Another frequent feature is tense blending, where the commentator starts using present forms and then switches to preterite forms. Numerals, whose declination is confusing for many speakers, are wrongly used only rarely. This may be the result of their high frequency and vital importance in a sports match; another reason is that they are generally used in the nominative form, which is less difficult, and that there is rarely a need to use complex numerals (commentators do not really need to be able to calculate figures higher than 90). Traditionally, the attention of linguists has been drawn to the description and analysis of pure ‘slips of the tongue’. Other typical deviations may be assigned to one of the following types or to several of them at once: Choice of form and disagreements are frequent errors: disagreements in gender and number of nouns, as well as discrepancies between the forms of subject and predicate. 2. yesli dva napadajuschikh horosho drug drugu ponimayut instead of: drug druga If two forwards understand each other [Dat] well (instead of accusative) 3. Moutin’jo pereveli miach na Tello Moutinho [Sg] passed [Pret, Plur] [the] ball to Tello Instead of: Moutin’jo perevel miach na Tello What verbs govern is often impaired: 4. zdes’ yemu atakuet Odia instead of: zdes’ yego atakuet Odia Here Odia attacks to him instead of: here Odia attacks him Dative instead of accusative; the verb ‘to attack’ in Russian requires an accusative: therefore, the pronoun should have been yego instead of yemu. Another frequently occurring phenomenon is violation of collocation: 5. oni vstrechalis’ mezhdu soboy tri raza instead of : vstrechalis’ drug s drugom they met between themselves three times instead of: met each other The interesting fact here is that there is no possible way of expressing the same meaning by using ‘mezhdu soboy’. 6. Za schet mobilnogo dvizheniya instead of: Za schet aktivnogo dvizheniya Due to mobile movement instead of: Due to active movement A movement cannot be mobile, it can be active or scurrying.. The last example may also be interpreted as redundancy. <?page no="313"?> 310 Redundancy is another prevalent characteristic. Redundant adverbs and particles frequently appear in order to fill in the hesitations and pauses. These may sometimes involve contradiction in the sentence. 7. dva ochen’ takih dostatochno skromnykh turnira two very such quite modest tournaments Instead of: dva ochen’ skromnykh turnira two very modest tournaments or: dva dostatochno skromnykh turnira two quite modest tournaments 8. eto konechno bessporno ego luchsheye dostizheniye it is of course indisputably his best achievement One of two adverbs should be omitted. Omission / Ellipsis. For example: omission of subject, referring to the same person named in the previous part of the commentary. 9. Tello vypolniaet na shtangu Tello carries out to [the] cross-bar It is absolutely clear from the context (i.e. hits the cross-bar) that udar = ‘a kick’ is carried out, although this word was not mentioned in previous utterances, nor is it mentioned after. 10. Vnov’ uglovoy budet Sporting sejchas ___ Again a corner will Sporting now ___ Here again a listener can reconstruct a word with the meaning required, although there are several options, such as bit’ = ‘kick’, vypolniat’ = ‘perform’, and many others. Sometimes there are omissions of important terms which cannot easily be reconstructed from the context. These omissions often result from inverted word order or they reflect the commentator’s distraction because, at the moment, he has more urgent information to give. 11. yego zasluga v___ ogromna his contribution in__[is] immense 2 12. chto budut delat’ portugaltsi chtoby dat’ vozmozhnost’__ i okazat’ pomosch’ Liedsonu what will [the] Portuguese do in order to give an opportunity ___ and to help Liedson C Here we cannot easily reconstruct the intended message (an opportunity to do what? ) Word choice: preposition, noun, verb 13. Esli vy smotrite etot futbol doma instead of: match If you are watching this football at home. This is actually a possible collocation, namely smotret’ futbol = ‘watch football’ as an abstract action. Here, however, it is clear from the context that this is about a certain match. 14. zadohnulsya nemnozhechko instead of: zapykhalsya suffocated a little bit instead of: ‘was out of breath’ 2 No copula is used in the Present Tense in Russian. <?page no="314"?> 311 The verb zadohnutsya presupposes the death of the subject, which fortunately was not the case in this match. Typical competing plans and blends 15. Dat’ nasladitsya chasti publiki uhodom Anelca, a chasti vykhodu na pole Sancesa Let take pleasure part of the public in leave [Instr] Anelca’s, and part appearance [Dat] on the field of Sances Instead of: Dat’ nasladitsya chasti publiki uhodom Anelca, a chasti vykhodom na pole Sancesa with both Instrumentals or: Dat’ nasladitsya chasti publiki uhodom Anelca, a chasti poradovatsya vykhodu na pole Sancesa Let take pleasure part of the public leave in Anelca’s, and let part of the public rejoice the appearance on the field of Sances. The verb nasladitsya requires an object in the instrumental case as in the first part of the sentence; the second part tends to match another verb with a similar meaning, namely poradovatsya = ‘rejoice’, which requires a dative. 16. mne dazhe nemnozhko eto udivilo to me [Dat] even a bit this surprised Instead of: menya dazhe nemnozhko eto udivilo Me [Acc] even a bit this surprised or: mne dazhe nemnozhko eto udivitel’no to me even a bit this [is] surprising The verb udivit’ = ‘astonish’ or ‘surprise’ requires an accusative. 17. vygliadeli ochen’ organizovannaya komandoy looked like very organized [a] team. Instead of: vygliadeli ochen’ organizovannoy komandoy [Instr] or: vygliadeli kak (= ‘as’) ochen’ organizovannaya komanda [as Nom] 18. Nalbandian ob-ogral Can’jasa Nalbandian outstripped+defeat Canas, The verb ob-ognal stands for ‘outstripped’, ‘left behind’; whereas ob-yrgal means ‘defeated’. There sometimes appear occasionalisms, one-off formulations by the commentators. 19. na urovne intuitsii ochen’ mnogo vzaimoponimajut on [the] level [of] intuition very much understand mutually The verb ponimat’ means ‘to understand’; there is a derived noun vzaimoponimaniye for ‘understanding each other’, ‘mutual understanding’, ‘rapport’, but there is no Russian verb with this meaning. A similar meaning is expressed in the collocation ponimat’ drug druga (‘understand each other’). Moreover, the word mnogo for ‘much’ cannot be used in this context: instead, it should have rather been the adverb horosho = ‘well’. An interesting and unexpected fact is that there are, though not many, cases of unusual, uncharacteristic use of aspect. Russian is well-known for having a complicated system of verbal aspects, which is, indeed, difficult to understand for every language learner. The common belief is that Russians never make mistakes when using aspect forms. There is, however, a tendency to replace perfective forms with imperfective ones - a tendency that shows itself when analyzing the sports commentaries. In the following <?page no="315"?> 312 examples, grammatical rules do not forbid this use, but another aspect seems preferable in these contexts. 20. Liedson tam narushal pravila instead of: narushil Liedson there was breaking / has been breaking the rules instead of: broke / has broken The imperfective verb describes in this case either a long-lasting situation or, what is more likely in such a context, an iterative situation. The perfective would normally be used, for it is a completed action which involved a penalty in the match. Likewise: 21. Maratu nuzhno vyigryvat’ odin miach, chtoby setbol sdelat’ instead of: vyigrat’ Marat needs to be winning one ball to [a] set ball make instead of: to win The commentator is talking about a concrete situation and not about a repetitive or usual one. Another unusual tendency is the misuse of reflexive and non-reflexive forms. 22. Miach otskakivaetsya instead of : otskakivaet [the] ball jumps itself aside instead of: jumps aside 23. Komanda igraetsya ochen’ dazhe po-raznomy instead of: igraet the team plays itself very indeed differently instead of: plays As for transitivity, in the texts observed some intransitive verbs are used with direct objects. These are the verbs igrat’, podavat’ and popadat’ (‘play’, ‘serve’, ‘hit the mark’), which are very text-specific indeed. The transitive use of the verb igrat’ = ‘play’ may be regarded as an influence from English, where statements like Agassi played Kafelnikov are acceptable. In the texts analysed, there are examples like igrat’ myach (‘play a ball’), igrat’ klassicheskiy tennis (‘to play classical tennis’), igral osnovnuyu setku (‘played the main draw’, which would normally be igral v osnovnoy setke = ‘played in the main draw’). With the verb popadat’ in popadat’ pervuyu podachu (‘to hit the mark with the first serve’), such an influence is hardly the case. Not everything, however, is immediately obvious. There is a huge problem with error classification: we are not able to get into the speakers’ heads and follow all their steps while producing such utterances. The speakers themselves are not able to do so, either. In sentences like (24), it is not really clear what the initial intention was: 24. Im uzhe segodnya nuzhno prazdnovat’ gosudarstvenniye nagradi They already today need to celebrate [the] state awards What the commentator means is not clear. The team has won the UEFA Cup and is being awarded the trophy (we know this from the video) while this statement is made. What is understood with ‘state awards’ is not clear, because a team which wins the UEFA Cup gets awards from the UEFA and is not supposed to get any special awards from their own state. The other problem is that the collocation prazdnovat’ nagradi, ‘celebrate awards’ is not possible in Russian. 25. Nuzhno snizhat’ Sporting vot takimi bystrimi atakami One needs to lower Sporting with such fast attacks <?page no="316"?> 313 What is usually lowered is the speed: here we either have some noun omission or wrong verb choice. The general sense is clear due to associative connections but it is difficult to transform this sentence into a normative one. Obtaining statistical distributions for various error types would be welcome: which types of errors are more frequent, which grammatical rules tend to be transgressed. The complexity of attributing deviance to this or that type is a real problem. We can only surmise, according to our intuition and overall feeling, that the most susceptible level is the syntactic one. Cases with ambiguous word order, governing of verbs and various false agreements occur most frequently in the analysed material. The number of errors made per time unit can be counted. According to Petrie (1994: 1481-1482), speech errors and slips of the tongue tend to appear once in five minutes of spontaneous speech. The quantitative data obtained in our study were rather surprising: up to three errors per minute in tennis matches and from one to two errors a minute for football matches. 6. Repair A very interesting and important aspect is self-monitoring. While we speak, we also hear ourselves speaking and can analyse the input (which is the output at the same time). We may notice some lack of coherence and correct ourselves. The more official the context is, the more careful the speakers are, and so the chances they will correct themselves are higher. It is clear that sports commentators do not have enough time and concentration to monitor their performance in full. Even so, they still manage to repair syntactic constructions and to repeat the utterances with correct forms. Let us look at a couple of examples: 26. V takom specialnom - v specialnoy maske takoy In such [masc] [a] special [masc] - in [a] special [fem] mask [fem] such [fem] In Russian the adjectives should agree with the referent nouns. The word maska = ‘mask’ is feminine: the commentator first used the masculine form of the adjective (in the right case, though) and then managed to correct himself. Repair most often concerns slips of the tongue: 27. Juli - Jurij Zhirkov 28. Se - sobitiya 29. Ja imeu v vidu futbolistov polosatykh v polosatykh futbolkah I mean [the] footballers striped in striped T-shirts The T-shirts are striped, not the footballers. Here the word futbolist = ‘footballer’ and futbolka = ‘T-shirt’, derived from one and the same root in Russian, may have triggered the wrong formulation. The word stem repetition could have confused the speaker. Football commentators manage to correct themselves quite frequently. One of the football commentators analysed, who speaks 66,5% of the broadcast time, makes one mistake every 45 seconds on average and manages to correct 36,8% of his mistakes. <?page no="317"?> 314 Another example is less representative, for the two commentators involve two sets of statistics; in this commentary the pauses take only 12% of the time. They make a mistake every 35 seconds and manage to correct only 14,75% of them. They speak faster and do not really seem to reflect on their speech. As for tennis commentators, the situation differs. Tennis commentators, even when working in pairs, often talk only 50% of the given time. Even so, when they speak they seem to have less time for planning, as cases of repair are scarce and only about 3% of mistakes are corrected. This confirms the assumption that a tennis match is more difficult to commentate, for the situation changes more swiftly. During a football match, the commentators have an opportunity not only to comment on the actual situation, but to deal with the context of the game, and to offer stories about the players. Football commentators have more freedom in choosing the subject of their narrative. They can talk about what they know and what is easier for them to convey. Tennis commentators, in contrast, are constrained by the continually changing score and have to keep their concentration fully focused on the match. 7. Conclusion Errors and their characteristics (apart from frequencies) are similar for both tennis and football commentaries. What is more important is that they are almost the same for all commentators. This is not immediately evident, for there are commentators who are famous among the fans for their awful Russian and others who are said to be very literate and can perform well. It is also surprising that emotional commentators are not really noticeably different. This fact may have two possible explanations: 1) on the surface, sports commentators’ forms of speech are virtually identical, the type of text making them all speak in a similar way. This, however, is hardly possible, for the commentators considered have individual language manners; 2) the results obtained may be regarded as more or less universal for all speakers confronted by limited time. The similarities detected are more or less representative. Commentaries of tennis matches are more likely to have errors although there are more pauses than in football matches. The low percentage of repair strategies in tennis commentaries also reflects how tennis matches involve intensive speech production. References Asher, Ronald E. (ed.) (1994): Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. Vol. 2, 7, 8. Oxford et al.: Pergamon Press Baars, Bernard J. (1980): The competing plan hypothesis: An heuristic viewpoint on the causes of errors in speech. In: Dechert / Raupach, 39-51 Cherubim, Dieter (ed.) (1980): Felherlinguistik. Beiträge zum Problem der sprachlichen Abweichung. Tübingen: Niemeyer Chomsky, Noam (1957): Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton Corder, S. Pit (1973): Introducing applied linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Dechert, Hans W. / Raupach, Manfred (eds.) (1980): Temporal variables in speech. Studies in honour of Frieda Goldman-Eisler (Janua Linguarum, Series Maior, 86). The Hague: Mouton <?page no="318"?> 315 Emmorey, Karen D. / Fromkin, Victoria A. (1988): The mental lexicon. In: Newmeyer, 124-150 Fromkin, Victoria A. (1973): Speech errors as linguistic evidence. The Hague: Mouton Fromkin, Victoria A. (1990): Grammatical aspects of speech errors. In: Newmeyer, 117-138 Garrett, Merrill F. (1988): Process in language production. In: Newmeyer, 69-96 Givón, Talmy (2002): Bio-linguistics: The Santa Barbara lectures. Amsterdam et al.: Benjamins Kolde, Gottfried (1980): Auswirkungen sprachlicher Fehler. In: Cherubim, 172-187 Lapteva [ Ÿ Q ], Olga A. [ | .] (2003): Zhivaya russkaya rech’ s teleekrana [Lively Russian Speech from the TV screen = ^Q „ *‰ „ * ‹  * " .]. Moskva: URSS Levelt, Willem J. C. (1983): Monitoring and self-repair in speech. In: Cognition 14/ 1, 41-104 Levelt, Willem J. C. (1989): Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge: MIT Press Lord, Albert B. (1960): The Singer of tales. Cambridge: Harvard University Press National Corpus of the Russian Language: http: / / www.ruscorpora.ru, 22/ 10/ 2007 Newmeyer, Frederick J. (ed.) (1988): Linguistics: The Cambridge survey. Vol. 3. Language: Psychological and biological aspects. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press Newmeyer, Frederick J. (ed.) (1990): Linguistics: The Cambridge survey. Vol. 2. Linguistic theory: Extensions and implications. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press Petrie, Helen L. (1994): Speech errors. In: Asher 7, 4181-4183 Ringbom, Håkan (1994): Contrastive analysis. In: Asher 2, 737-742 Sscherba [ *Š ], Lev V. [ Q “.] (1940 / 2002): Opyt obschey teorii leksikografii. Izbranniye raboty po yazikoznaniyu i fonetike [Attempt of a general theory of lexicography. Selected papers on linguistics and phonetics = Ÿ  >Š£ -  >*^^ ^ >|* ‚^^. ’Š* "" * Š> Ÿ> „’ >’" "^– ^ ‚>" ^ .]. St Petersburg: Izdatelstvo Sankt-Peterburgskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta Shattuck-Hufnagel, Stefanie (1994): Slips of the tongue. In: Asher 7, 3966-3971 Anastasia Makarova Department of General Linguistics St Petersburg State University Universitetskaya emb. 11 199034 St Petersburg Russia e-mail: anastasiamakarova@yahoo.com <?page no="320"?> 317 JOHN WIREDU AND JEMIMA ANDERSON ADJECTIVES IN FOOTBALL REPORTING The objective of this paper is to discuss adjectives that are used in reporting football matches in Ghana’s Premier League. The paper compares reports that were randomly selected from three Ghanaian newspapers for a period of two years (2004-2006). The findings of the paper show that adjectives are used to qualify four main categories in the football matches: the matches, the teams, the players and the fans. In all, the matches themselves seem to have been qualified by more adjectives than the players or the teams. This is followed by the players, the teams and the fans in that order. Most of the adjectives used were adjectives that assessed matches. The findings show that the reporters gave their personal assessment of the matches instead of reporting what was happening on the field. From the syntactic distribution that was made, we observed that there were more instances of attributive adjectives than predicative adjectives. The semantic types also show that the adjectives that occurred were adjectives that dealt with the performance of the players, physical descriptions of the players, as well as the general assessment of the reporters. The paper also shows that, in spite of its competitive nature, football matches are seen as friendly activities and are reported with friendly and positive adjectives 1. Introduction One constant observation made to budding sports reporters is that sports fans want reports to reflect the tension, colour and excitement of the game, for many of them may have watched the match and are probably aware of the score line. This means that a drab, unexciting recital will not interest many readers today. According to Brasch (1970), “Sport is adventure, personal and vicarious. It is challenge, endeavour, and relaxation. It is, too, universal and very few people have not succumbed to its lure, either as participant or spectator”. (Quoted in Le Unes / Nation 1996: 4) Not surprisingly, therefore, interest in sports has risen phenomenally in the world. We are either participants or spectators of one sport or another. This is why it is important for the media to enhance the enjoyment of sports in their reports to the public. However, in various definitions of sports, two constant features which stand out are its competitiveness and the satisfaction of participants. For example, according to Spears and Swanson (1983: 3), sporting activities involve power and skill, competition, strategy and/ or chance, and are engaged in for the enjoyment and satisfaction of the participant and/ or others. For this reason, media reports of events are expected not only to describe their competitive nature but also to produce excitement and satisfaction in the reader. Sport is both competition and entertainment (Nixon 1984: 14). If sport is competition, then there is always the likelihood of violence. Unfortunately, the world is full of acts of violence. And sport is no exception. Both participants and spectators are prone to be unpredictable and violent. A game like football is characterized by some degree of aggression, defined as: “the infliction of an <?page no="321"?> 318 aversive stimulus upon a person by another, an act committed with intent to harm, and perpetuated against an unwilling victim, and done with the expectancy that the behaviour will be successful.” (Le Unes / Nation 1996: 253) But the question is: is football really as aggressive as described above? To answer this question, it is necessary to note the dimension of aggression identified by research studies (see Cox 1990 and Silva 1981). According to Geen, Beaty and Arkin (1984), among the properties associated with aggression are aversive behaviour and intention to be aversive. Thus, three different types of aggression are identified: Hostile aggression - the goal is to harm Instrumental aggression - the goal is to win Assertiveness - the goal is to play with as much force and skill as possible Looking at the above, it is clear that football is characterized by assertiveness - because the goal is to use legitimate force to win. Most players on the field regard their ultimate goal as defeating their opponents rather than as harming them. Thus, if we consider the following definition of violence, we note that most sports are not violent: harm-inducing behaviour bearing no direct relationship to the competitive goals of sport, and relating, therefore, to incidents of uncontrolled aggression outside the rules of sports (Terry / Jackson 1995: 27). The legitimate question that crops up is: how do media reports view the games they describe? It is in answer to this question that we have undertaken this stylistic study. Indeed, to carry out a more comprehensive exercise will mean to study the nominal, verbal, adjectival and adverbial choices the reports use. But in this study we limit ourselves to the adjectival choices found in sports reports. 2. Objective The principal objective of this study, therefore, is to identify the adjectives which occur in reports of Premier League football matches in Ghana. To study the adjectives, the following sub-themes were examined: a) the syntactic distribution of the adjectives (i) attributives/ predicative types (ii) derived/ non-derived types b) the semantic distinctive types of adjectives. Under this sub-class we examine what adjectives are selected with regard to: (i) the players, in terms of • physical description/ appearance • age • performance • emotions • assessment by the reporter (ii) the teams, in terms of • physical description/ appearance • age • performance • emotions • assessment by the reporter <?page no="322"?> 319 (iii) the fans, in terms of • behaviour • size • emotions • assessment by the reporter (iv) the matches, in terms of • results • actions • assessment by the reporter We must mention that under the reporter’s assessment we also checked for adjectives with positive or negative connotations. 3. Scope The study involved 121 news reports which were published in the The Daily Graphic, which is Ghana’s most widely read and highly regarded newspaper. These were reports of football matches played in the two seasons of Ghana’s Premier League Games in 2004 to 2006. In all, 49 editions of the newspaper were used. 4. Syntactic types 4.1. Syntactic distribution A. Players (See Appendix 1) Attributives = 54 = 76.06% Predicatives = 17 = 23.94% 71 100.00% B. Teams (See Appendix 2) Attributives = 53 = 54.081% Predicatives = 45 = 45.92% 98 100.00% C. Fans Attributives = 25 = 83.33% Predicatives = 05 = 16.67% 30 100.00% D. Matches (See Appendix 3) Attributives = 213 = 86.23% Predicatives = 34 = 13.77% 247 100.00% E. Total Number of adjectives Attributives = 345 = 77.37% Predicatives = 101 = 22.65% 446 100.00% <?page no="323"?> 320 Some Observations: Adjectives occurred either as attributive only or as predicative only. Indeed, very few adjectives occurred as both attributive and predicative: a) For the players, only the following adjectives occurred in both attributive and predicative positions: bemused, defiant, ineffective. b) For the teams, only the adjectives listed below occurred as both attributive and predicative: confident, depleted, impregnable, solid. c) fans - 0 No adjective occurred in both attributive and predicative positions. d) The following adjectives occurred as both attributives and predicatives: agonizing, barren, goalless, good, loose, swift, tight, tough, wide, wrong. From the above results, we observe that out of a total of 446 adjectives only 17 adjectives (3.8%) occurred in both attributive and predicative positions. We interpret the above information in the light of how Cruse 2000 interprets these adjectival positions. The main function of adjectives is modification. In order to modify, there are two recognized positions - attributive and predicative. As he expresses it: “the semantic correlates of this positional difference [are] that the predicative position attributes a relatively greater time sensitivity to designated state of affairs” (Cruse 2000: 289). This means that, where the writer sees the descriptive information as a more ‘permanent’ feature, the tendency is to place the adjective in an attributive position. As the data suggest, then, the reporters’ overwhelming choice of attributive (rather than predicative) positions can be interpreted as their view of the designations as more ‘naturally’ characteristic of the events and people in the reports. Their choices correspond to Cruse’s observation (2000: 289): “Generally speaking, we would expect dispositions to be happier in attributive position and labile states to be happier in predicative position. Thus, they would prefer to say: This is a tough match rather than This match is tough.” 4.2. Derived/ Non-derived choices We noted the following results: A. Players (See Appendix 4 a ) Derived Adjectives 51 = 71.83% Non-derived Adjectives 20 = 28.17% 71 100.00% B. Teams (See Appendix 4 b ) Derived Adjectives 76 = 77.55% Non-derived Adjectives 22 = 22.45% 98 100.00% C. Fans (See Appendix 4 c ) Derived Adjectives 22 = 73.33% Non-derived Adjectives 08 = 26.67% 30 100.00% D. Matches (See Appendix 4 d ) Derived Adjectives 177 = 71.66% Non-derived Adjectives 70 = 28.34% 247 100.00% <?page no="324"?> 321 Observations: There is overwhelming evidence that the adjectives preferred by the media are the derived adjectives: Derived Adjectives 326 = 73.09% Non-derived Adjectives 120 = 26.91% 446 100.00% Frequency of Adjectival Types: There is an impressive number of adjectives used in the reports. Indeed, only the following adjectives were repeated across the four sub-divides: Adjective Place(s) Repeated Players Teams Fans Matches advancing attacking brave businesslike confident creative crestfallen dangerous defensive defiant determined disappointing difficult + + + - + + + + + + - + - - - - + + - + + + + + + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - + + - + - + - + - + + - + dramatic fast good great hard-pressed impressive inexperienced loose losing marauding miserable offensive poor relentless skilful slippery swift suspect strong tactical terrific thunderous uninspiring unlucky unyielding violent - - + + + - + + - + - - - - + + + + - - + - + + + + + + + - + + + - + + + + + + - - + - + + - - + + + - - - + - - + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + - - - - + + + + - + - + + - + + + + + + + + + + + + - - - + Table 1: Frequency of adjectival types <?page no="325"?> 322 From the above table, we get the following picture: Adjectives cited more than once 40 = 8.97% Adjectives cited only once 406 = 91.03% Total 446 100.00% Apart from the list above, most adjectives never occurred across the subject being studied. That is, with the exception of the adjectives in the list, all other adjectives were restricted to one group. Thus, we have adjectives which occur only for players, for example, and never occur anywhere else. From the distribution of adjectives among the subjects, it appears that writers focused their attention on the players, the teams and the matches. This means that, in reporting the games, the writers appeared to be more interested in what affected the players, teams and matches. Very little interest was shown regarding the fans. 5. Semantic types The following results were found (See Appendix 5) A. Players (i) Physical Description 08 = 11.27% (ii) Age 04 = 5.63% (iii) Performance 23 = 32.39% (iv) Emotions 07 = 9.86% (v) Writer’s Assessment 29 = 40.85% 71 100.00% B. Teams (i) Appearance 05 = 6.10% (ii) Age 04 = 4.88% (iii) Performance 20 = 24.39% (iv) Emotions 19 = 23.17% (v) Writer’s Assessment 34 = 41.46% 82 100.00% C. Fans (i) Behaviour 07 = 30.44% (ii) Size 05 = 21.74% (iii) Emotions 06 = 26.08% (iv) Writer’s Assessment 05 = 21.74% 23 100.00% D. Matches (i) Action 82 = 36.77% (ii) Writer’s Assessment 141 = 63.23% 223 100.00% When we consider the semantic content of the adjectives selected, we notice that: I. More adjectives were selected which reflected the writer’s assessment of the games. This means that more subjective adjectives were selected. <?page no="326"?> 323 II. Next in line were adjectives which described the performance of the players, teams and the fans at games. III. In third position were the adjectives which dealt with the emotions of the participants. IV. Interestingly, the actual description of the game received very little attention - as the figures for physical description and age show. V. Even in their reports on the matches, we observe that adjectives on writer’s assessment far outweigh adjectives on action. The obvious conclusion that arises from all this is that the reporters appeared more interested in assessing the game - rather than providing descriptive reports of the matches. In a further analysis of the adjectives on Writer’s Assessment, we note the following results: A. Players Positive Adjectives 22 = 64.71% Negative Adjectives 12 = 35.29% 34 100.00% B. Teams Positive Adjectives 22 = 64.71% Negative Adjectives 12 = 35.29% 34 100.00% C. Fans Positive Adjectives 05 100% Negative Adjectives 0 0% 05 100% D. Matches Positive Adjectives 74 = 52.48% Negative Adjectives 67 = 47.52% 141 100.00% (See Appendix 6 for actual adjectives). When we consider the above profiles, we realize that, with the exception of the figures for matches (which are quite close), there is a wide gap in the use of positively connotative adjectives as against negative adjectives. 5. Conclusion We will end this study by observing that, in Ghana, much criticism has been made about the role of the media (especially, the radio) in their ‘promotion’ of violence. This is probably not specific to Ghana, as Bryant / Zillman 1983 have observed. However, from the study we notice that there is no sufficient basis for this perception. Indeed, according to this study, our media reporters do not regard a football match as war. Rather, they see it as a game. Moreover, what many see as aggressive is really assertive behaviour. <?page no="327"?> 324 APPENDIX 1: PLAYERS (a) ATTRIBUTIVES abundant adroit advancing attacking bare-chested bemused brave burly classy clean-shaven colourless confident creative crestfallen dangerous daring defensive defiant dependable disappointing enterprising fat-improved fresh fresh-limbed gifted good great hard-pressed hardworking ineffective inexperienced lanky leading limping marauding nimble-footed onrushing outstanding outstretched overconfident petite reliable shortish skilful slippery slow-reacting smallish stranded talented temperamental towering uninspiring unmarked young (b) PREDICATIVES anonymous bemused defiant equal ineffective jittery loose magnificent prominent unlucky unyielding violent wasteful APPENDIX 2: TEAMS (a) ATTRIBUTIVES cheering disappointed drum-beating enthusiastic flag-waving good impressive infuriated intimidating irate large loud mixed shocked silent sizeable sparse stunned superstitious teaming thick thunderous unflinching usual wild (b) PREDICATIVES disappointed shocked silent stunned wild APPENDIX 3: MATCHES (a) ATTRIBUTIVES abrupt absolute abundant action-packed additional aerial agonising anxious attacking balanced barren beautiful begging better bold brave brief bright brilliant brutal <?page no="328"?> 325 businesslike cautionable cheeky classic clear closely-fought comfortable commanding countless creative crisp crucial dangerous dead deceptive decisive defence-splitting defensive defiant deft delicate delightful deserving determined difficult dismal drab dramatic dribbling dubious dying early easy ecstatic famous fast faulty favourite fierce fiercely-fought fine firm fitting floating flowing fluid flying frantic frenetic frightening futile glorious goal-bound goalless God-sent golden good great gruelling hard hard-fought harsh heart-rending heavy hectic historic immaculate immense important impressive improved incessant incisive incredible inspired intelligent intense intermittent jaded judgemental lackadaisical last late lightening limited lone long loose losing lovely low lukewarm magnificent massive misdirected miserable missed much-improved much-needed near neat needed nightmarish numerical numerous obvious offensive one-sided only opening overhead overwhelming penetrating physical piercing poor powerful previous quick rapid relentless resultant scary scoreless scoring scrappy sensational serious sheer shocking short significant simple skilful slippery solo splendid sterling stout stunning strong substandard superb superlative surviving suspended suspense-filled sweet swift swinging tactical tailor-measured technical tedious tense tension-packed terrible thunderous tight timely total tough typical unchanged uneventful unpardonable unpleasant unsatisfactory valuable vehement violent weak well-cut well-deserved well-laid well-measured well-rehearsed wide winning worst wrong yawning (b) PREDICATIVES able agonising barren cagey critical desperate elusive evident feeble flat-footed goalless good heated high hot impossible ineffective influential irrelevant loose <?page no="329"?> 326 negative nonexistent reminiscent short-lived silent slippery suspect swift tight tough unbearable unperturbed wide wrong APPENDIX 4: NON-DERIVED ADJECTIVES (a) PLAYERS adroit anonymous bemused brave burly equal fresh good great lanky loose marauding petite prominent slow sullen suspect swift violent young (b) TEAMS bereft bogey content difficult ebullient erratic fast ferocious former grateful hapless high hungry impregnable mere ordinary poor quiet solid strong stubborn sure (c) FANS irate large loud silent sparse thick usual wild (d) MATCHES able abrupt absolute anxious barren bold brief bright brilliant clear compact crisp crucial dead deft delicate dismal drab dubious early empty extra fast fierce fine firm fluid frantic frenetic futile great guide hard harsh hectic immense jaded last late lone long low near neat obvious only poor previous rapid serious sheer short silent simple solo stout strong superb suspect sweet swift tense tight total tough vehement violent weak wide wrong <?page no="330"?> 327 APPENDIX 5: SEMANTIC TYPES (a) PLAYERS i. Physical Description bare-chested burly clean-shaven lanky petite shortish smallish towering ii. Age fresh fresh-limbed inexperienced young classy iii. Performance advancing attacking defensive fast-improved hard-pressed hardworking ineffective jittery leading limping loose marauding nimble-footed onrushing outstretched prominent slippery slow slow-reacting swift unmarked unyielding iv. Emotions bemused confident crest-fallen overconfident stranded sullen termperamental v. Writer’s Assessment abundant adroit anonymous brave colourless creative dangerous daring defiant dependable disappointing enterprising equal good gifted great magnificent outstanding reliable skilful talented terrific uncharacteristic uninspiring unlucky wasteful violent (b) TEAMS i. Appearance refreshed rejuvenated rusty-looking tired-looking worn-out ii. Age experienced former inexperienced youthful iii. Emotions calm confident confused content crestfallen demoralised desperate ferocious gloomy highly-charged hungry intimidated miserable nervous overawed quiet sure settled iv. Performance advancing aggressive businesslike bogey definding defensive erratic fast hard-pressed leaky losing marauding offensive relentless static swift tactical unblemished whipping winning v. Assessment adventurous bereft better comfortable dangerous defiant depleted determined disappointing disorganised dramatic fabulous formidable fortunate good grateful gritty hapless impregnable impressive lousy merciless ordinary poor relentless solid strong stubborn superior trusted uninspiring unlucky unwavering wasteful <?page no="331"?> 328 (c) FANS i. Behaviour cheering drum-beating flag-waving loud silent thundering ii. Size large sizeable sparse teeming thick wild iii. Emotions disappointed enthusiastic infuriated irate shocked iv. Assessment good impressive intimidating unflinching usual standard (d) MATCHES i. Action abrupt additional aerial attacking brief cautionable closely-fought commanding compact countless crisp crucial defence-splitting defensive dribbling dying early elusive empty evenly-fought fast faulty feeble fiercely-fought flat-footed floating flowing fluid flying goal-bound goalless grueling hard-fought heart-rending heated high incessant incisive ineffective intensive intermittent late lightning lone long loose losing low misdirected missed near numerical offensive one-sided only opening overhead penetrating physical piercing quick rapid relentless resultant scoreless scoring short-lived silent slippery solo stout suspense-filled swift swinging tailor-measured technical tense unchanged weak well-cut wide winning yawning ii. Assessment able absolute abundant agonizing anxious balanced barren beautiful begging better bold brave brilliant brutal cheeky classic clear comfortable controversial costly creative critical dangerous decisive defiant deft delicate delightful deserving desperate determined difficult dismal drab dramatic dubious easy ecstatic effective emotional emphatic excellent famous favourite fierce fine firm fitting frantic frenetic frightening futile glorious God-sent golden good great hard harsh heated heavy hectic historic hot immaculate important impressive improved incredible ineffective influential inspired intelligent irrelevant jaded judgemental lackadaisical limited lovely lukewarm magnificent massive miserable much-improved much-needed neat needed negative nightmarish non-existent <?page no="332"?> 329 obvious overwhelming poor powerful reminiscent scary scrappy sensational serious shocking significant simple skilful splendid sterling strong stunning substandard superb superlative surviving suspect sweet tactical tedious tense tension-packed terrible terrific thunderous tight timely total tough typical unbearable uneventful unpardonable unpleasant unsatisfactory valuable vehement violent weak well-deserved well-laid well-measured well-rehearsed wide worst wrong APPENDIX 6: ASSESSMENT (POSITIVE / NEGATIVE) (a) PLAYERS i. Positive abundant adroit classy creative dangerous daring defiant dependable enterprising equal good gifted great magnificent outstanding reliable skilful talented terrific ii. Negative anonymous colourless disappointing uncharacteristic uninspiring unlucky wasteful (b) TEAMS i. Positive adventurous better comfortable dangerous defiant determined dramatic fabulous formidable fortunate good grateful gritty impregnable relentless solid strong stubborn superior unwavering ii. Negative bereft depleted disappointing disorganised hapless lousy merciless ordinary poor uninspiring unlucky wasteful (c) FANS i. Positive good impressive intimidating unflinching usual ii. Negative (d) MATCHES able absolute abundant balanced beautiful better bold brave brilliant classic clear comfortable creative decisive defiant deft delightful deserving determined dramatic easy ecstatic effective emphatic excellent famous favourite fine firm fitting glorious god-sent golden good great historic <?page no="333"?> 330 immaculate important impressive improved incredible influential inspired intelligent lovely magnificent massive much-improved neat obvious powerful sensational significant simple skilful splendid sterling strong stunning superb superlative sweet tactical terrific timely total typical valuable well-deserved well-laid well-measured well-rehearsed wide References Brasch, Rudolph (1970): How did sports begin? New York: David McKay Bryant, Jennings / Zillman, Dolf (1983): Sports violence and the media. In: Goldstein, 129-146 Cox, Richard (1990): Sports psychology: Concepts and applications. 2 nd ed. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown Cruse, David Allan (2000): Meaning in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press Goldstein, Jeffrey (ed.) (1983): Sports violence. New York: Springer-Verlag Geen, R. / Beatty, W / Arkin, R (1984): Human motivation: Psychological behavioural and social approaches. Boston: Allyn and Bacon Le Unes, Arnold D. / Nation, Jack R. (1996): Sport psychology. 2 nd ed. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Nixon, Howard L. (1984): Sport and the American dream. New York: Leisure Press Silva, John M. (1981): Normative compliance and rule violating behaviour in sport. In: International Journal of Sport Psychology 12, 10-18 Spears, Betty M. / Swanson, Richard A. (1983): History of sports and physical education in the United States. 2 nd ed. Dubuque: Wm. C. Brown Terry, Peter C. / Jackson, John J. (1985): The determinants and control of violence in sport. In: Quest 37, 27-37 John F. Wiredu and Jemima Asabea Anderson Department of English University of Ghana P.O.Box LG 129 Legon Accra, Ghana West Africa e-mail: janderson@ug.gh.edu, jegyening2000@yahoo.com <?page no="334"?> 5 . MEDIA AND DISCOURSE: EMOTIONS <?page no="336"?> 333 IRENE THEODOROPOULOU FOOTBALL REGISTER FORMATION: THE CASE OF GREECE’S TRIUMPH IN EURO 2004 1 Register formation is a reflexive model of behaviour (Irvine / Gal 2000) that evaluates a semiotic repertoire (or set of repertoires) as appropriate to specific types of conduct (such as the conduct of a specific social practice), to classifications of persons whose conduct it is, and, hence, to performable roles (personae, identities) and relationships among them (Agha 2007: 147). This paper seeks to develop the register of sports commentaries (cf. Ferguson 1983) into a more integrated ‘football’ register, i.e. a ‘language of football’ which is used not only for describing a football game, but also for commenting on the impact a game has on society. Such a significant game for the Greeks was the final of EURO 2004, where Greece played against Portugal, where the players gained victory and won the European Championship for the first time in their football history. On the basis of the commentary of this game by the Greek sports announcer Kostas Vernikos and the impact it had on the media (newspapers, magazines), this paper describes ‘triumphalese’, a sub-register whose characteristics interact with the social practice of football, and hence should be considered as a key feature of the umbrella term ‘football language’. 1. Introduction The term ‘register’, as well as related terms such as ‘style’, ‘genre’, ‘stance’, etc., constitute a set of metalinguistic labels which are always hard to define in sociolinguistics and discourse analysis. This is due to the multifaceted nature and complex function of these terms. In this paper, whose aim is to investigate football register formation on the basis of data stemming from Greece’s triumph in EURO 2004, the term ‘register’ will be understood as a “linguistic repertoire that is associated, culture-internally, with particular social practices and with persons who engage in such practices” (Agha 2004: 24). The use of the term ‘formation’ implies that register is not considered as something fixed or given or stable; rather it is viewed as a situationally defined variety (Biber 1994: 31-32), as a cultural model of action (Agha 2007: 4), whose elements, namely the situational and linguistic dimensions, are formed and reformed on behalf of the speakers of a given speech community. The aim of the register viewed as such is to offer a stereotypical way of performing social acts. What defines ‘register-ness’, i.e. the property of a register to be identified and called such, is the capacity of the members of the speech community to reflect on this specific level of language and to deal with it as a model of behaviour (Irvine / Gal 2000). This includes a semiotic repertoire (or set of repertoires) as appropriate to 1 This paper is dedicated to Otto Rehagel and the amazing Greek team with which he and his assistants won the EURO 2004. They showed how cooperation, discipline and passion are always the safest ways to success and triumph. The research for this paper has been funded by the Greek State Scholarships Foundation (IKY) and the Foundation for Education and European Culture (IPEP), whose support is highly appreciated. <?page no="337"?> 334 specific types of conduct (such as the conduct of a specific social practice), to classifications of persons whose conduct it is, and, hence, to performable roles (personae, identities) and relationships between them (Agha 2007: 147). The specific social practice that is of interest here is football. It is not just seen as a sport, where there are two teams, each consisting of eleven players, each with given positions and fixed roles (e.g. the goalkeeper is expected to stop the ball going into the goal). Rather, special emphasis is given to the dimension of football as a form of social conduct, namely as a practice which involves people who watch football games, comment on them, are informed of the latest plans and transfers of players and coaches, learn about the fans’ behaviour after a game (cases of hooliganism vs. peaceful exit from the stadium and celebrations in the streets), participate in their team’s game as a fan (regardless of whether inside the stadium or watching the game on TV or listening to a radio broadcast), etc. All these are activities which are closely related to football as a practice, and as such they should also be taken into consideration in terms of their situational features and linguistic repertoires. The aim is to form an integrated ‘football register’, which will cover football in all its social dimensions. Concerning the language used to refer to the social practice of football, the main focus has been so far on sports commentaries (cf. Ferguson 1983) and on reporting on football games (e.g. Ghadessy 1988a; Leitner / Hesselmann 1996; Politis 2007). The common denominator of these studies is ‘football register’ as ‘football jargon’, namely a kind of technical vocabulary used to describe or to report on actual football matches. An example of an individual lexical item is the phrase ¶ ·¸$ ¹ º (= ‘he nailed it’), which is used for goal scorers in Greek. This paper treats football as a wider social phenomenon. Focusing on Greek society, a significant game for the Greeks was the final of EURO 2004, where Greece defeated Portugal, winning the European Championship for the first time ever. On the basis of the description of this game by the Greek sports commentator Kostas Vernikos and the impact it had on the media, this paper will present the subregister of ‘triumphalese’ as an important repertoire belonging to ‘football language’. It will be argued that ‘triumphalese’ forms a significant aspect of football language, namely of winning. ‘Triumphalese’ will be investigated on the basis of its repertoire of linguistic characteristics, which are intertwined with the social range of enactable (pragmatic) values (indexical focus, images or icons) stereotypically attached to indexical sign forms (cf. Silverstein 1996). 2. Methodology The theoretical framework used in this paper to describe football register formation in Modern Greek is the one presented and developed by Agha (2007: 145-189). Register is seen as a kind of enactable behaviour linked to performable signs of various kinds (2007: 189). Through Agha’s model we are able to shed more light on the processes through which football functions at a social level and forms an integral part of social life, say, in Greece. According to Agha (2007: 147), register formation consists of three aspects: a) metapragmatic stereotypes of speech, namely culture-internal models of utterance indexicality associated with speech variants; <?page no="338"?> 335 b) the use of these stereotypes; c) the historical dimension of its creation. 2.1. Metapragmatic stereotypes of speech Metapragmatic stereotypes of speech are considered to be clusters of linguistic and nonlinguistic features (e.g. paralinguistic features, such as gestures, intonational contours, etc.), which co-occur repeatedly in similar contexts. They are the result of speakers’ “evaluative attitudes towards variant forms” (Ferguson 1994: 18). As active members of a society who use and listen to speech on a daily basis and in a wide range of social occasions, people tend to develop a sharp ability to discriminate among different clusters of linguistic and non-linguistic features, which they identify with culturally specific activities. In other words, through their experience stemming from their participation in social practice they develop metalinguistic behaviour (cf. Agha 2004: 26). An example of a linguistic and non-linguistic cluster which forms a metapragmatic stereotype used in football language is the football commentator’s “goa: : : : : : : l” with rising intonation, especially in the case of a goal scored by the national team. Another example of a metapragmatic stereotypical football phrase is, for instance, Manchester United forged their way to a 4-0 victory over hapless Liverpool. In order to find its way into society, it is essential for the register to recur in the behaviour of other speakers. Its containing metapragmatic stereotypes depends very much on their being observed, recognized and documented as data, which in turn is labelled by speakers and clustered under the umbrella term of ‘register’. 2.2. Utterance or use of registers The use of ‘triumphalese’ reflects a social occasion of language use, indexing stereotypical features such as interlocutors’ roles, relationships and the type of social practice in which they are engaged. To be more specific, in the case of football commentary, immediately after a goal (and especially if that goal has been scored by a national team which the commentator supports), the commentator’s relationship with the team and the audience ceases to be objective and distanced. It turns itself into a form of companionship, a sense of common joy and happiness, a feeling of triumph achieved by one person only, the goal scorer. However, it has an impact on the whole team and, since the team represents a whole country, on all citizens of that country. Another significant aspect of register is that its tokens are never experienced in isolation during discourse; on the contrary, they are encountered during conditions of textuality, i.e. co-occurrence, with other signs, both linguistic and non-linguistic, that form the context or co-text. To show how textuality works, the following example 2 combines signs and linguistic forms: 2 The picture is taken from http: / / www.sport.gr/ euro2004/ games/ 725/ photostory/ index.asp (15/ 10/ 2007) <?page no="339"?> 336 Figure 1: Greek fans at the EURO 2004 final This picture shows the stands in Daluz, where the Greek fans were supporting their team. One of their favourite cries was the following: “¼½½¸¾ ½¿ ½¿ º ¶"À"¶Â Ã" ¶$"Ä Å Â ¶¿ ¿ ¼½½¸¾ ½¿ ½º” (= ‘Hellas ole ole I never stop to sing ole Hellas ole ole’). This verbal sign was accompanied by the fans waving Greek flags, dressed up as tsoliades 3 and painting their faces with blue and white colours. (Sometimes they even paint the flag on their face, while almost all of them wear T-Shirts with the flag or shirts of the national team with players’ names on the back). All these features form a cluster, ‘triumphalese’, which in turn encourages the team players to perform with maximum effort. 2.3. Historical dimension of registers In Agha’s model, registers are viewed as historical formations that take their shape through processes of valorization and counter-valorization which establish their signvalues (e.g. sports register, religion register, etc.). As a result of these processes, registers change in both form and value as time passes. For example, football register in Greece has changed dramatically over the last few years. 4 This change has been reflected in the general language, trying to keep up with the latest trends that are taking place in football as a social practice. In this sense, during the 80’s and the 90’s people were talking mainly about the national championship games, where certain traditionally powerful teams tended to monopolize interest, e.g. Olympiakos, Panathinaikos, AEK, and PAOK. Nowadays, and especially after 2004, the unexpected success of the national football team in EURO has led many Greek players to play for European teams (e.g. Charisteas, Amanatidis). In general, Greece’s triumph was a significant reason why massive numbers of people, including social groups which traditionally have not been such huge supporters of football (like women), started showing great interest and actively participating in football either as fans or even as players. This desire for football was created mainly due to the success itself and through language, which was used to codify this success, which in turn created enthusiasm and brought the people into the stadiums. 3 Tsoliades or Evzones are a culturally specific category of men, who form the Athens Presidential Guard team. Due to their hard training they are viewed as symbols of courage and heroism. 4 Unfortunately, we do not have any historical linguistic studies on any aspect of football register in Modern Greek; however, as this paper will try to show, there are dramatic changes in the ways football has developed in Greece, which are mainly related to the national team’s success at an international level as well as the popularity of the sport among Greeks, and which have turned football into a well-established business and the professional players into assets worth millions of Euros. Changes in football register have appeared from the need to capture the shift of the social make-up of the sport in Greece. <?page no="340"?> 337 This language could be considered to be a register in its own right, namely ‘triumphalese’, which is part of a wider football register in all languages, since in all countries of the world where football is played there are triumphs to celebrate either at a national or international level. ‘Triumphalese’ existed in Greece too, but only at a local level; that is, there were examples of this register mainly in newspapers that support a specific team (e.g. Sportime and Derby for Panathinaikos, Protathlitis [= ‘The Champion’] for Olympiakos, Score Live for AEK), and on the websites of the fan clubs of these teams. When their team wins a game or, even more important, the championship or the cup, or when it participates in the Champions League, then these newspapers, through their exaggerated headlines (e.g. “O ¶"Æ$ ¾ ǽÅÀ #"· ¾ ¸º# ¶ Champions Laegue! ” [= ‘Bull Olympiakos makes it to the Champions League! ’) and their dramatic pictures from the games, manage to enhance this triumph. However, during EURO 2004 a new ‘triumphalese’ was created. Its main difference from the previous one is that it refers to the national team of Greece, not a local football club, and through the team it resonates to all Greeks, not only to those who live in Greece, but also to the Greek diaspora. ‘Triumphalese’ had such an impact on Greeks during the summer of 2004 that it was also used to eulogize the successful organization of the 2004 Summer Olympics hosted by Athens and to praise the athletes who won medals. 3. Triumphalese The word ‘triumphalese’ is derived from the adjective triumphal + the suffix -ese, which is also used for labelling other registers, such as legalese, journalese, etc. Agha’s approach (2007: 169) is preferred in this paper because of its way of capturing the dynamic, continuously shifting nature of register and its close connection with social practices such as football. 3.1. Repertoire characteristics This category includes certain linguistic and non-linguistic features whose frequency of usage in my corpus has been found to be high. These features cover a range of linguistic levels including phonetic features (intonation patterns, pauses), tense markers, adjectives and adverbs. 3.1.1. Phonetic features This category of features derives from the commentary of the EURO 2004 final, as well as from talk shows and the TV cover stories that followed the triumph of Greece. The first feature worth mentioning is the so-called ‘uptalk’ style (see Munson 2005 for a linguistic description of the phenomenon illustrated by data from Lynda Barry). This style can be found in declarative sentences and its distinctiveness lies in its <?page no="341"?> 338 high rise contour H* H-H% 5 at the end of the utterance; in other words, a declarative sentence sounds more like a question than a declarative. The ‘uptalk’ intonational pattern is used in 67% of the total number of declarative utterances in my oral data corpus (2589 ‘uptalk’ declarative utterances out of a total number of 3864 declarative utterances). In trying to explain the ‘uptalk’ intonational contour, I would suggest the idea that the commentators and the other journalists who covered Greece’s triumph in Daluz, Portugal, found it hard to believe the success, and especially that Greece beat Portugal in their own country twice. Hence, this ‘uptalk’ style is used, probably unconsciously, to express their surprise. The other interesting phonetic feature used extensively is pauses. Especially during the description of a goal and immediately after it, the pauses become long for two reasons: first of all, because the commentators want the sound from the fans to be heard, so that the audience can experience some of the atmosphere in the stadium. In addition, it might be the case that the commentators are at a loss for words. Example (1) below is the description of Angelos Charisteas’s goal in EURO 2004, where Greece played against Portugal and won 1-0; see the actual video of that game available under http: / / www.greek-movies.com/ sports.html (Game Portugal- Greece, part 1, time slot 1.07.32-1.08.52) The example illustrates how pauses work in ‘triumphalese’ 6 : 1. Êranscript of the ‘golden goal’ phase (EURO 2004 Final, 4/ 7/ 2004) Portugal-Greece 0-1 commentary by Kostas Vernikos. Greek text Ä#" Ã" ÆÀº ¶ à ˺̶"$Í Î (.) º À#" º ÍϺ Î ¸º# À à ¾ ¶ Å (..) ¶Îà $¶ Ä"½#·Ð ¸ÀÅÃ" (.) Ï" ·¸Ãº# ·"# ¶Î ¿Ã¶$" Ñ $ú$ · $ú$ " ¶ à Ò# Æ$·" " ºÓ#¸ (...) ·"# ˸À"$"÷ ¶ ºÍÔº ‘ º# ‘ ¶"à ºÍ ¶º ºÃ¹À¿Ã # ·¸Ãº¶º Ï"ÆÀ"¶" ¶"à ¶$Âĺ ¶º Àº¶"ÓÆ "¾ ºÍÃ"# ,¶# Ôº#$ ¶º$ (...) Ä#" Ã" ÆÀº (.) ¶ 56’ (..) ¿Ôº# ½Æ $ À À $ ¶¸ ¶ Å ¶ "#ÔÃÍ # (...) ÕÄĺ½ ¾ × " #ø¾ ¸º# Ã" º·¶º½¿ º# ¶ · $ú$ (..) ÏÅÀ À" ¶º ¶ Ã Ê #¸$¶" Ã" ÎÀ" ºÆº# " ‘·º#ÃÎ ¶Î ĹÃÍ" ¶ $ ÎÄ ÆÀºÃ "#ÔÃÍ # (.) º  # ؽ½Îú¾ ͽ"Ͻ # (.) · #¶¸Ó¶º ¶Îà ºÓ¿ $" (...)ø¶ ¾ × " #ø¾ (..) ¿Ô Åà Ùĺ# ½ # À $ ¶¸ (..) Ú"$# ¶¿"¾ ·# Û¿½½"¾ ÒÑÇÜ ÒÑÇÜ ÒÑÇÜ ÒÑÇÜ ¶ ·¸$ ¹ º (.) ÒÑÇÜ Ú"$# ¶¿"¾ Ä· ½ Ú"$# ¶¿"¾ (.) ¶$º½"Íú# ¶ ݶ"½ ÆÞ ¶$º½"Íú# ¶Îà ¼½½¸ " ¶$º½"Íú# ·# ºÀ¸¾ (.) ÕÄĺ½ ¾ Ú"$# ¶¿"¾ (.) " ¶ÎÃ Í #" Ï¿ Î Å $#à ж"à º·ºÍ (.) Ê #¸$¶"¾ ¶Â$" (.) × " #ø¾ (..) ÒÑÇÇÇÇÇÇÜ (.) Ï" ¸º# "ö Æ (.) ø¶ ¾ Ú"$# ¶¿"¾ ¶ ¶$Ͷ ¶ Å Ä· ½ (.) Ï" À"¾ ¶$º½¸Ã Åà ½ ž (.) Ò·"Ä·¸¶ ξ Ã" ÀÎà ¶ # ¶ºÆº# (...) Ó"ø ·"# Ó"ø (.) · #¶¸Ó¶º ¸Ãº Î · #¶¸Ó¶º ‘ ¹ (.) · #¶¸Ó¶º ‘ ¹ ·"# Ï"ÅÀ¸ ¶º (.) ÕÄĺ½ ¾ ¶Î¾ ¼½½¸ "¾ Ô¶Æ Î º ·"# ¸½# (.) ÕÄĺ½ ¾ ¶Î¾ ¼½½¸ "¾ ¶ ¶$Ͷ ¶ Å Ä· ½ (.) ¶ 57’ ¿Ôº# ½Æ $ À "· À" (.) ¸Àº #ĸ #ĸ English translation Let’s see Seitarides (.) he is going on his own in an attack (..) on the Portuguese defence (.) he will take the centre pass corner corner from Giourkas from the right (…) Samaranch has also said so ‘when you (the Greeks) are united, you can do miracles, when you fight with each other, this is the worst (…) let’s 5 For further information about ToBI, the intonation annotation system which has been used here to depict the ‘uptalk’ contour, see the following link: http: / / www.ling.ohio-state.edu/ ~tobi/ (29/ 10/ 2007). 6 For the transcript I have used the standard transcription convention (.) for pause; the number of full stops inside the parentheses indicates the length of a pause. <?page no="342"?> 339 see (..) in 56’ (.) the game has a long way to go (…) Angelos Basinas is going to take the corner (..) you remember Tsiartas pointing from that corner in the previous game (.) here (you see) the Greek fans (.) take a look at the platform (…) everybody has moved forward (..) Charisteas and Dellas GOAL GOAL GOAL GOAL he’s nailed it (.) GOAL by Charisteas goal by Charisteas (.) he makes Daluz go crazy he makes Greece go nuts he makes us go crazy (.) Angelos Charisteas (.) from the same position where he was before (.) Tsiartas now (.) Basinas (..) GOOOOOAL (.) it will go everywhere (.) here’s Charisteas his third goal (.) they will drive us all crazy (.) Gagatsis 7 doesn’t believe it (…) again and again (.) look at the comfort look here (.) look here and admire (.) the Angel of Greece has struck again (.) the Angel of Greece his third goal (.) in 57’ it (the game) has a long way to go (.) let’s go slowly slowly The large number of pauses are significant in football language in general, and in ‘triumphalese’ in particular. There are pauses functioning not only as a way for the shouts in the stadium to be heard but also as a result of the overwhelming joy on the part of the commentator. 3.1.2. Tense markers In terms of tense markers, in both my written and spoken data, I have noticed extensive use of the Simple Present, in cases such as “Þ ÆÀº ¿Ã" ú#$ ” (= ‘we live a dream’), “" Í ¶ºÅ¶" $¸ÄÀ"¶" ÅÀÙ"Íà Åà ¶ da Luz” (= ‘incredible things happen in Estadio da Luz’), “Î ¼½½¸ " ¶¿ º¶"# $¹¶"Ͻж$#" ¼Å$ ξ” (= ‘Greece is the crowned champion of Europe’). The following chart shows the exact frequency of occurrence of the Simple Present for both the written and the oral data: Total verb occurrences Simple Present types Frequency of use Oral data 9.467 6.331 66.94% Written data 12.592 7.016 55.7% Table 1: Frequency of Simple Present forms in written and oral data This kind of tense choice does not come about by accident, but is a deliberately chosen rhetorical strategy that could be interpreted as a mixture of the commentators’ need to describe a goal and their expression of joyful feelings caused by the goal. This is presented as lively and directly as possible. Finally, the Simple Past tense also occurs in my data, less frequently than the Simple Present (29.15% in the oral data and 27% in the written data), mainly in catch-phrases such as “¶ ·¸$ ¹ º” (= ‘he’s nailed it’) in the case of Angelos Charisteas’s goal in the EURO 2004 final or “¶ Ð$"Àº ¶ ¼Å$¹ "Ì· ” (= ‘we‘ve won the European [Championship]’), which was a favourite phrase chanted by the fans after the victory and which appears in almost all of the newspaper headlines the day after the final, i.e. in the Greek newspapers on 5 July 2004. 3.1.3. Adjectives and adverbs In ‘triumphalese’, a wide range of adjectives and adverbs can be expected. 7 Gagatsis was the President of the Hellenic Association of Football (EPO) in 2004. <?page no="343"?> 340 Most frequently used adjectives 1 Hellenic ! ! #%&'() 2 Olympian +! ,-.&+) 3 god-like / 0'() 4 unbelievable, incredible 1.234 54+) 5 triumphal / 6&1-7 54&'() 6 amazing '141.! #'4&'() 7 crazy 46 ! () Table 2: Most frequently used adjectives Use of adjectives 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 adjectives frequency of use Figure 2: Use of adjectives Adjectives like º½½ÎÃ#· ¾ (= ‘Hellenic’), ½ÆÀ # ¾ (= ‘Olympian’), Ϻ̷ ¾ (= ‘god-like’) are typically favored by journalists. In my opinion, this choice is a reflection of “language ideologies productively used in the creation and representation of the social identity of nationality” (emphasis in original, Kroskrity 2004: 509). Through the use of emotionally charged words, such as the adjectives mentioned above, journalists try to construct national identity (Kroskrity 2004: 507). The basic characteristic of these ideologies is that Greeks should feel proud of this god-like victory which has brought them to the mountain of Olympos. There is an obvious effort to re-connect with ancient Greek mythology, and thus with the past. The other adjectives contain hyperbole: " Í ¶ºÅ¶ ¾ (= ‘unbelievable, incredible’), Ï$#"ÀٺŶ#· ¾ (= ‘triumphal’), ·"¶" ½Î·¶#· ¾ (= ‘amazing’), ¶$º½ ¾ (= ‘crazy’). Here ‘triumphalese’ aims at praising a great and totally unexpected national victory that resonates with the hopes and feelings of a whole nation. Most frequently used adverbs 1 at last .&48! +5) 2 finally .&48! +5) 3 team-wise +-19&': 4 together -1; 2 5 unbelievably 1.234 541 6 amazingly '141.! #'4&': / 1.234 541 Table 3: Most frequently used adverbs <?page no="344"?> 341 use of adverbs 0 10 20 30 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 adverbs frequency of use Figure 3: Use of adverbs The first two (= º #¶¿½ ž) might reflect the fact that Greece did not have any great success in team sports until EURO 2004; this unexpected triumph acted as a sort of panacea, erasing any bad memories from Greek minds and healing the wounds of the past, i.e. the unsuccessful participation of Greece’s national football team in the FIFA World Cup 1994 or the fact that Greece did not manage to qualify for the 1998 World Cup held in France. The next two adverbs, À" #·¸ (= ‘team wise’) and À"ÞÍ (= ‘together’), are used to stress the importance of cooperation, through which success was achieved; cooperation is emphasised in ‘triumphalese’ because, according to Kostas Vernikos, “cooperation is something rare for the Greek tribe” 8 . However, quoting Juan Antonio Samaranch, he says that “when Greeks cooperate, they can produce miracles”. 4. Conclusion It has been argued that ‘triumphalese’ is a sub-register that can be incorporated into the wider notion of ‘football language’ mainly due to its basic function, which is to link linguistic and non-linguistic clusters with the social practice of football. Ideally, it is to unite people, and in particular a whole nation, in order to celebrate a football team’s triumph at international level. Such was the case with Greece in July 2004. During the celebrations of this triumph it became clear that ‘triumphalese’ had indeed a social existence, which spread to Greeks inside and outside the country. It is exactly this register that enhanced the national spirit and boosted the hopes of a whole nation. Appendix TEXT CORPUS ORAL DATA WRITTEN DATA 1. The EURO 2004 final game Portugal vs. Greece, commentated by Kostas Vernikos. 1. 12 sports newspapers on 5 July 2004 (the day after the EURO 2004 final) Goal News, Sports Day, Sportime, Derby, <%=3#, 8 This can be heard in the actual description of the game (see the previous video link to the game) immediately before Charisteas scored (1.07.12). <?page no="345"?> 342 ? &'8@1! +), A.+6 4+5 B+66: , C=) 4=% A.+6, C2! 1/ ! +), D61 E&1 A.+6, F6=41/ ! #4G), H/ ! #4&'G IJK 2. After-game comments by A. Panoutsos, A. Karpetopoulos and Nikos Meggrelis (appr. 4 hours of data) 2. 5 political and economic newspapers on 6 July 2004 BG-1, L1/ #- 6&%G, M! ,/ 6+) N,.+), H.+E 5-14&%G, M! 5/ 6+45.21 3. Stories covering the triumph of Greece and the impact it had on Greeks (live transmissions with Syntagma and Omonoia Square in Athens) by the Greek TV channels Mega, Antenna, Alter, Star and ET (app. 6 hours of data) Table 4: Oral data and written data References Agha, Asif (2004): Registers of language. In: Duranti, 23-45 Agha, Asif (2007): Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Biber, Douglas (1994): An analytical framework for register studies. In: Biber / Finegan, 31-56 Biber, Douglas / Finegan, Edward (eds.) (1994): Sociolinguistic perspectives on registers. Oxford: Oxford University Press Duranti, Alessandro (ed.) (2004): A companion to linguistic anthropology. New York et al.: Blackwell Ferguson, Charles A. (1983): Sports announcer talk: Syntactic aspects of register variation. In: Language in Society 12, 153-172 Ferguson, Charles A. (1994): Dialect, register and genre: Working assumptions about conventionalization. In: Biber / Finegan Ghadessy, Mohsen (1988a): The language of written sports commentary: Soccer - a description. In: Ghadessy b, 17-51 Ghadessy, Mohsen (ed.) (1988b): Registers of written English. Situational factors and linguistic features. London: Pinter Publishers Irvine, Judith / Gal, Susan (2000): Language ideology and linguistic differentiation. In: Kroskrity, 35-84 Kroskrity, Paul V. (ed.) (2000): Regimes of language. Santa Fe: School of American Research Kroskrity, Paul V. (2004): Language ideologies. In: Duranti, 497-517 Leitner, Gerhard / Hesselmann, Markus (1996): What do you do with a ball in soccer? - Medium, mode, and pluricentricity in soccer reporting. In: World Englishes 15, 83-102 Munson, Ben (2005): Blog of life-affirming anecdotes: Ben Munson. http: / / blog.lib.umn.edu/ munso005/ httpbloglibumneduMunsonblog/ 031540.html (29/ 10/ 2007) Politis, Periklis (2007): Lexical variation in written sports reports. Paper presented at the International Conference for Greek Linguistics (ICGL) 8. University of Ioannina, 29 August - 2 September 2007 Silverstein, Michael (1996): Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. In: SALSA 3, 266- 295 Irene Theodoropoulou Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Department & Centre for Language, Discourse & Communication King's College London Strand London WC2R 2LS UK e-mail: eirini.theodoropoulou@kcl.ac.uk http: / / www.kcl.ac.uk/ projects/ ldc/ itheodoropoulou <?page no="346"?> 343 KERSTIN JUNG WORLD CUP FOOTBALL LIVE ON SPANISH AND ARGENTINE TELEVISION: THE SPECTACLE OF LANGUAGE Aiming at high viewer ratings, the media, and particularly television, try to create new forms of programmes to produce attractive spectator shows on television. Especially football World Cups are big spectacular television events. On Spanish and Argentine Television this ‘spectacularization’ of football does not only concern the media staging as a spectacle, but also the language of the live commentary. Development in the media sector, the ‘spectacularization’ of football, goes hand in hand with the language used in the live football transmission: the language of the live commentary becomes part of the spectacle. This article examines the language of different live commentaries of Spanish and Argentine football broadcasts of the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany. A linguistic analysis of transcripts of the commentaries shows the characteristics of the language of football in a spectacular live commentary, in which elements like the use of nicknames for players, playing with national stereotypes, the construction of national identity, emotions and verbal exaggeration when a goal has been scored all appear. 1. Introduction “¡Qué espectáculo que ha dado el equipo de Luis Aragonés! ” (ESP-UKR, Cuatro, 89: 18) - ‘What a spectacle offered by the team of Luis Aragonés! ’ With these words Carlos Martínez, one of the commentators of the Spanish television channel Cuatro, summed up the first match of the Spanish national team in the World Cup 2006 in the last minutes of the live commentary. The FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany was an enormous media event. The spectator sport of football is nowadays one of the biggest spectacles, captivating people all over the world. But the World Cup is not only a social and sports event; it is, according to Castañón Rodríguez, also a ‘fiesta’ of words, which leads to a linguistic celebration in the media (cf. Castañón Rodríguez s.a.: 1). Against the background of the increasing commercialization of football, the media, particularly television, aim at high viewer ratings and at creating new forms of programming in order to produce a spectacular spectator event on television. This highly commercialized sports culture has led to a media staging of football, to an “espectacularización del fútbol” (González Ramallal 2003: 2). This article aims to analyze if this development in the media sector, in other words, this ‘spectacularization’ of football, goes hand in hand with a ‘spectacularization’ of the language used in the live commentaries of football matches of the FIFA World Cup 2006 on Spanish and Argentine television. The verbal celebration of a goal in Spanish and Argentine live transmissions is clearly evident. Commentators use nicknames for players, they play with national stereotypes, they give free rein to their emotions and it seems as if they are creating a kind of community spirit and national identity with their language. In this article, first, the ‘spectacularization’ of football on television will be illustrated. Secondly, the corpus of this work and its particularities, using transcription, will be presented. Third, in the linguistic analysis, extracts from the live commentaries of various matches of the World Cup 2006 are <?page no="347"?> 344 analyzed to illustrate how sports commentators create a special ‘spectacular’ style of commentating and how they play with language to stage a big sports spectacle and to entertain the spectators. 2. The ‘spectacularization’ of football on TV: The show of words in live commentary Sports on television are extremely popular and, throughout Europe and South America, football remains the dominant television sport (cf. González Ramallal 2004: 275). Especially big football events attract increasingly large audiences. The FIFA World Cup is, therefore, one of the most important live TV sports events, attracting the largest audience and, in 2006, directly reaching an estimated 32 billion viewers from 207 countries worldwide (cf. Web site FIFA World Cup 2006). The combination of high costs and promotional opportunities has created powerful alliances of interest between the media, the advertising industry and sports organizations. Sports, television and advertising all seem to have fused into a single commercial entity (cf. Gruneau 1989: 136; cf. Knobbe 2000: 60). The commercialisation of sports on television and the increasing importance of the viewer ratings have led to a mass-communicated and highly commercialized sports culture. Taking into consideration the increasing commercialization and media presentation of football in recent years, it is not surprising that football events on television are elaborate and expensive spectacles. In this context González Ramallal 2003 speaks of a ‘spectacularization’ of football (cf. González Ramallal 2003: 2). Football on television and especially World Cup Football is presented like a show, a football-show celebrated as colourfully and spectacularly as possible, with a maximum entertainment value (cf. Wehrle 2001: 204). 1 This recent development in the media sector also has an effect on the language of the live commentary. To secure the audience, the football-show on television needs a live commentary which adds colour to a game: If something is not a show, it is not televisual. If a programme does not entertain, the spectator does not watch it, if life is not transformed into a spectacle, life doesn’t exist. (Gutiérrez 2003: 204, translation by the author) For this reason the ‘spectacularization’ of football in the media sector goes hand in hand with the language used in the live commentary of football matches. Sports reporters are increasingly becoming entertainers who have to fulfil the expectations of viewers. Due to this, commentators use a spectacular style of language, and they are always in search of linguistic originality (cf. Palacios 1999: 355). Alcoba López 2005 also sees this tendency towards an expressive style in sports reporting: a new and more attractive mode of expression is emerging, one that is comprehensible for everyone, irrespective of their level of education (cf. Alcoba López 2005: 143). In order to stage football as a spectacular live-show on television, the language of the commentary itself becomes a spectacle. Commentators entertain the audience and the supporters of their national 1 Some channels, like the Spanish channel ‘Cuatro’, also promote public viewing zones in big squares, the newest form of spectacle. <?page no="348"?> 345 team while commentating. Using lively and dramatic language, Spanish and Argentine commentators create entrancing football-shows. 3. Material and methods 3.1. The corpus: Live football commentary and its characteristics Within the scope of this paper, live broadcasts of football matches of the FIFA World Cup 2006 in Germany transmitted by Spanish and Argentine television were examined. In Spain the channels ‘Cuatro’ and ‘La Sexta’ broadcast the football matches of the World Cup 2006 in real time, and in Argentina the matches were transmitted by the channel ‘Canal 13’. The following matches were examined: Spanish Television Channel Date Time Match Abbreviation Result Cuatro 09.06.2006 18: 00 Germany - Costa Rica GER-CRC 4: 2 Cuatro 14.06.2006 15: 00 Spain - Ukraine ESP-UKR 4: 0 La Sexta 15.06.2006 21: 00 Sweden - Paraguay SWE-PAR 1: 0 Cuatro 19.06.2006 21: 00 Spain - Tunisia ESP-TUN 3: 1 La Sexta 19.06.2006 21: 00 Spain - Tunisia ESP-TUN 3: 1 La Sexta 20.06.2006 16: 00 Germany - Ecuador GER-ECU 3: 0 Cuatro 23.06.2006 16: 00 Spain - Saudi Arabia ESP-KSA 1: 0 Cuatro 27.06.2006 21: 00 Spain - France ESP-FRA 1: 3 Cuatro 05.07.2006 21: 00 France - Portugal FRA-POR 1: 0 Argentine Television Canal 13 10.06.2006 21: 00 Argentina - Côte d'Ivoire ARG-CIV 2: 1 Canal 13 24.06.2006 17: 00 Germany - Sweden GER- SWE 2: 0 Canal 13 24.06.2006 21: 00 Argentina - Mexico ARG-MEX 2: 1 Canal 13 30.06.2006 17: 00 Germany - Argentina GER-ARG 4: 2 Table 1: The corpus A ‘live’ commentary is precisely that: it is on air at the same time as the event takes place. As the commentary responds simultaneously to what is happening on the field, commentators have to think ‘on their feet’, i.e. while they talk - probably while listening to instructions over their headphones as well. For this reason, commentators have little opportunity to correct errors while commentating, and their speech is spontaneous and unplanned. Therefore, commentators need a strongly developed ability to improvise (cf. Beard 1998: 61, 79; cf. Rowe 2004: 119). <?page no="349"?> 346 3.2. Cultural particularities of football live transmissions: different styles of commentary The ‘art’ of sports commentating varies with the cultural background. When watching a Spanish or Argentine football live transmission, one soon realizes that Hispanic live transmissions are different from German live broadcasts: Hispanic live commentaries seem to be more emotional and more dynamic than German ones; they do not have long silences: quite the opposite, there is constant talking. Additionally, Spanish and Argentine commentators not only speak more, but they also speak more quickly and louder. 2 Hispanic live TV commentaries are similar to radio commentaries: a commentator with a Hispanic cultural background does not let the pictures do the talking; he comments on what is happening on the pitch. These cultural differences of communication also concern the organisation of the live commentary in the analyzed live broadcasts: in most of the Spanish and Argentine live transmissions analyzed, the team of commentators consists of three members. According to the function the commentators perform while commentating the match, there are different kinds of commentators: the ‘narrador’ (narrator) narrates what is happening on the field, that is to say, he does not let the pictures speak for themselves; the ‘comentarista’ (commentator) provides supplementary information - he usually has an encyclopaedic knowledge of football -, and the expert supplies a kind of insider-information that he has gained by playing football at the highest levels. As in some of the live transmissions the role of narrator and commentator alternates between the reporters, in the analysis the expression ‘commentator’ is used for all three types of commentators. Due to this formal organisation of the commentary, Spanish and Argentine football live commentaries can consequently be classified as a dialogical genre. During the live transmission, the commentators sit next to each other at the commentators’ desk; the situations seem amicable and relaxed, and the live commentary resembles an informal conversation between friends. 3.3. Transcription according to Ehlich / Rehbein’s HIAT (1976) The transcripts were made according to the HIAT system 3 developed by Ehlich and Rehbein in 1976. The HIAT system was chosen because of its suitability for the transcription of spoken language in communicative situations which involve multiple speakers. The suitability for the analyzed Spanish and Argentine live commentaries, in which three commentators usually participate, is due to the so-called ‘Partitur’ (‘musical score’) notation, which enables the visualisation of temporal sequence and simultaneity between the utterances of different speakers, between different modalities (verbal and nonverbal behaviour) and between segmental and non-segmental (prosodic) phenomena. HIAT also allows annotations in a special section to describe additional features or comments. The transcript is based on segmentation into utterances. According to HIAT, simultaneous utterances or events are annotated at the same horizontal position, while the left-to-right direction corresponds to temporal sequence. In order to allow easy readability and simplicity, the HIAT system uses a derivation 2 This thesis is based on the assumption of a culturally determined interpretation of communication, which makes itself felt especially in sports reporting (cf. Müller 2004: 447). 3 The acronym HIAT stands for ‘Halbinterpretative Arbeitstranskriptionen’. <?page no="350"?> 347 from written orthography which is called ‘literary transcription’ 4 (cf. Ehlich 1992: 123- 127, Ehlich / Rehbein 1976: 22-23, Schmidt 2004: 1). The transcription conventions according to HIAT can be found in the appendix. Extracts from the transcript of the live commentaries are marked with the abbreviation of the match and the corresponding time. Before kick-off and after the final whistle, extracts of the transcript are quoted according to the timeline of the recording. During the match extracts are quoted stating the minute of play, for instance, the match Spain-Ukraine transmitted by the channel Cuatro: ESP-UKR, 48: 23. In the following sections, characteristics of the vibrant language of football used by the commentators in the live commentaries analyzed will be shown. 4. Linguistic analysis of the football live transmissions: the spectacle of language 4.1. The staging of football as a spectator event by reducing the distance between the commentators and the audience In live transmissions, spectators are integrated into the sports spectacle and, while watching a football match, they practically play along as the 12 th man (cf. Neugebauer 1986). The language used in the live commentary bridges a gap between the commentators and the audience. The character of football commentary as an informal conversation between friends arises, on the one hand, due to the dialogical form of the commentary and the spontaneity of the communicative situation and, on the other hand, from the familiarity between the interlocutors and the emotional involvement of the commentators. According to Koch / Oesterreicher’s proximity-distance continuum, these communication conditions point out that the commentaries analyzed are marked by communicative proximity and thus by conceptual oral communication (cf. Koch / Oesterreicher 1990: 8-10). The use of conceptual oral communication in the live commentary suggests a relation of closeness between the commentators and the viewers and can be interpreted as an approximation of the football reporters towards the audience. According to Guerrero Salazar 2002, in Spanish sports language there exist colloquial and literary elements. The use of colloquial speech in the live commentary creates a familiar and informal situation. By employing ‘español colloquial’, the language of sports in the live commentary is comprehensible for every viewer, independent of their level of education. Thus, the application of ‘español coloquial’ bridges the gap between commentators and spectators (cf. Guerrero Salazar 2002: 365- 368). On the lexical and semantic level the use of idioms is a characteristic element of colloquial speech in the commentary. Commentators are in the habit of using colloquial expressions while reporting: “Bueno pues esto se ha dado la vuelta como una tortilla española, ¡dos a uno de España! ” (ESP - TUN, Cuatro, 76: 53) 4 Literary transcription (in German ‘literarische Umschrift’) is based on the standard orthography of the transcribed language, but it differs from orthography in the degree of regularity with which it maps phonetic/ phonological sounds onto graphemes. That is to say, it departs from the standard orthographic rendering of an item when phonetic/ phonological sounds can be annotated in a better way than the orthographic one by noting another combination of letters, but in a manner that is meaningful for someone familiar with the orthographic system as a whole. <?page no="351"?> 348 In the live commentary, reporters are addressing the spectators directly. Interacting with the spectators also allows the narrowing of the distance between the team of commentators and the public (cf. Neugebauer 1986: 173). Furthermore, this direct address has an additional function, namely to emotionalize the viewer. Some of these addresses include direct calls on the viewers to act in a certain way by using imperatives. In example 2, for instance, the commentator calls on the public to stand up for the national anthems: 1. ¡Aficionados de las Islas Canarias! ¡De Madrid! ¡De Cataluña! ¡De Zaragoza! ¡De Valencia, del País Vasco! ¡Suennaa el himno español! (ESP-UKR, 0: 02: 33) 2. ¡Atención, pónganse ustedes de pie! ¡Qué suenan los himnos! (ESP-UKR, 0: 01: 45) 3. Y en casa está buscando la mejor (ubicación) la mejor posición. ¡Para quedarte en Canal Trece! ¡Para quedarte en el Canal del Mundial! ¡Para ilusionarte con Argentina! ¡Para emocionarte con Argentina! ¡Señoras y señores! (ARG-CIV, 0: 02: 29) In the live broadcasts analyzed, commentators show a certain amount of support for their national team, as they can be confident that most of the spectators will agree (cf. Beard 1998: 73). In Spanish and Argentine live transmissions one cannot ignore that commentators cheer on their national team: “¡Arriba Argentina arriba! ” (ARG-CIV, 0: 04: 26). They are not shy about sympathizing openly with their national team. “¡Vamos chavales que lo merecemos! ” (ESP-FRA, 87: 39). They also speak to players on the pitch and try to give them advice as all fans in the stadium do, just as if they were normal fans. Therefore, they are on an equal level with the fans and the audience. In the following example, for instance, the commentator calls on a player to pass the ball to Mariano Pernía: “¡Ahí ahí ahí ahí ahí ahí ahí ahí ahí ahí ahí! A Pernía.” (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 00: 36), or the commentators use imperatives to give advice to the players: “¡Vamos Sergio que puede! ¡Vamos, tírala! ” (ESP-UKR, Cuatro, 26: 11). 4.2. Spectacular live commentary through emotionality Without emotions no big spectacle can be staged. The phenomenon of emotionality is another important element of Spanish and Argentine live transmissions. The commentaries are emotionally charged. On the one hand, emotions can be the subject of the live commentary; on the other hand, there are indirect indications of emotions in the commentary, like exclamations, diminutives, interjections and suprasegmental features. The commentators directly let the viewers in on their feelings, they communicate that they love football, and that they have enjoyed the match, but that they have also suffered during the match: 4. esto ha sido un espectáculo, ¡que hemos vivido todos! ¡Que hemos sufrido todos! ¡Y que hemos disfrutado todos! (ESP-TUN, Cuatro, 0: 51: 28). 5. ¡Cómo nos gusta el fútbol! (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 06: 50) In the first match of the Spanish national team, the narrator of the channel Cuatro lets us know that he is excited by telling the audience that he is getting goose pimples before the match starts: “eso es el momento de verdad realmente, ¡que pone los pelos de punta! ” (ESP-UKR, 0: 00: 33). Even if emotions are not directly subject to the <?page no="352"?> 349 commentary, one can realize that the commentary is highly emotional. Emotionality is indicated by affective language. One characteristic evidence of affective language is exclamations (cf. Drescher 2003: 59-60). In the Spanish and Argentine live commentaries, exclamations appear comparatively often: 6. ¡Qué ambiente! (ESP-UKR, 0: 04: 14) 7. ¡Qué bárbaro! (GER-ARG, 99: 00, 106: 52) Diminutives can also be seen as a sign of affection or rather of emotional involvement (cf. Hasselrot 1957: 261). Diminutive forms are built by suffixation with the suffix -ito / -ita. In the live commentary diminutives appear frequently: reporters not only use diminutives of the players’ names (Carlitos (GER-ARG, 47: 30), but also diminutives of adjectives like cortito (ESP-KSA, 7: 07), or tranquilito (ESP-UKR, 30: 54) as well as diminutive forms of nouns: “Otra tarjetita ya para Barreto.” (SWE-PAR, 84: 23). Fries argues that interjections point at high emotional involvement on the part of a speaker (cf. Fries 2000: 101-102). A foul or a sending-off are typical situations in which emotions are released and in which we can find interjections in the live commentary (cf. Müller 2004: 444), for instance “ui ui ui ui ui” (ESP-UKR, 14: 50) when David Villa is fouled in the Ukrainian penalty area. Without a doubt, a goal is the most important event in a football match and it is obvious that goals evoke strong emotions. Therefore, chances to score are typical situations with plenty of interjections, for example “¡Oooooooooooooooo<1,5s>h! ” (SWE-PAR, 88: 01) just before Sweden scores. Another remarkable interjection is the following one; in this case the name of the player Cruz is turned into an interjection, GER-ARG, Canal 13: 8. Time louder loud SPK1 [v] Comment Cruz scores. The name of the player Cruz is turned into an interjection. In all, the lengthening of the vowels lasts 5s. The tension and emotionality of the football match are also reflected in the suprasegmental features of live commentary. High emotional activity in speech is characterised by variations of the voice of the live commentator. That is to say, the expressiveness and the emotionality of the commentary can be intensified through the speaker’s voice. Thus, emotions from the stadium can be transmitted to the viewer and attract the interest of the television audience. Generally in sports commentating, variations of voice can include loudness, intonation, and tone, as well as tempo variations and speaker emphasis (cf. Blanco 2002: 85-99; cf. Neugebauer 1986: 128- 140). Trouvain 2004 mentions emotions as one of the most important reasons for tempo variation in discourse (cf. Trouvain 2004: 15). When the action on the pitch is exciting, one way of achieving a higher tempo in speech is to shorten the pauses, while another strategy for acceleration is to reduce the number of pauses (cf. Trouvain / Barry 2000). An example of speed-up is the following extract, ESP-UKR: <?page no="353"?> 350 9. [9/ 1] Minute faster Carlos [v] [9/ 2] Minute faster fast Carlos [v] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >>>> [9/ 3] Minute fast louder louder Carlos [v] >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > < < < The volume of the commentary also varies according to the action on the pitch. When a player of the national team is fouled in the penalty area, or when a goal is scored, commentators speak up, as can be seen in the following example, ESP-TUN, Cuatro: 10. Minute very loud Carlos [v] Comment Penalty for Spain, Fernando Torres converts, 3: 1 for Spain. 4.3. Spectacle through verbal exaggeration in the commentary In live football broadcasts, Spanish and Argentine commentators show enthusiasm and euphoria, and they celebrate the effort of certain footballers with loud comments at scoring chances, and especially at goals. The Spanish expression cantar un gol alludes to the fact that commentators seem to sing while celebrating a goal. According to Castañón Rodríguez, during a Football World Cup the celebration of a goal “canto emocionado del gol” (Castañón Rodríguez 1999: 152) is extremely flamboyant. But not only are goals celebrated by using an exaggerated style of commentating; in Spanish and Argentine live commentaries a strong tendency towards verbal exaggeration is also observable. This verbal exaggeration is part of the spectacle and the most important element of the football show in the live transmissions analyzed (cf. Bernárdez García 1998: 21). So, the rhythm and tension of the match are often reflected in the live commentary by the use of repetitions: <?page no="354"?> 351 11. ¡Qué buena qué buena qué buena es Crespo! • ¡Crespo Maxi Crespo Maxi Crespo Maxi Crespo Maxi • • ¡Maxi Maxi Maxi Maxi Maxi! • ¡Maxi Maxi Maxi Maxi Maxiii! • ¡Luchooo! (GER- ARG, Canal 13, 53: 42). Another noticeable form of verbal exaggeration in the live commentary is the extreme lengthening of sounds. According to Blanco, lengthening sounds is a typical stylistic element in sports reporting in order to catch the attention of the viewers. Lengthening also embellishes the ‘narración’ and is favoured or evoked by the emotionality of the commentator (cf. Blanco 2002: 92). Extreme lengthening nearly always appears in the commentary when commentators celebrate a goal, GER-ARG: 12. [12/ 1] Minute Louder very loud fast, loud very loud SPK1 [v] Comment Corner of Riquelme. Ayala scores a goal. [12/ 2] Minute very loud very loud very loud SPK1 [v] Commentators lengthen the word gol, but also names of players, for instance, the name of the Spanish footballer García (“¡Lui Garcíii<3,5s>aaa<1,3s>! ” (ESP-UKR, 12: 44)). In some live transmissions, commentators try to animate the viewers by verbal exaggeration - thus, not only repetitions and lengthening are used intentionally. Reporters also chant their comments in the manner of football terrace songs or sing canticles to praise football. The comments of Andrés Montes of the Spanish channel La Sexta are of special interest to illustrate this, for instance, SWE-PAR: 13. Minute rhythmical, faster Montes [v] Comment The manner of speaking resembles a football chant. Andrés Montes uses his comments for sensation. The loudly shouted element of song in praise of football in the next example is pure show and is meant to enliven the commentary: 14. ¡Cómo nos gusta el fútbol! • • ¡Viva el fútbol! ¡Viva el fútbol, • Salinas! • • ¡Siempre viva el fútbol! (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 6: 50). <?page no="355"?> 352 4.4. Stereotypes and identity as part of the spectacle 4.4.1. Strong German giants and the pride of Swedish Vikings: stereotypes in live commentary In sports reporting, identification is a key element, particularly in televised sports. Therefore, sports reporters usually use the first person plural and rely on national stereotyping (cf. Wernecken / Bacher 2006: 232). National stereotypes can be seen as simplified and rigid descriptions of a complex world. For journalists stereotypes are, despite their reductive and banal character, an ideal element for reporting about other nations and for making the commentary more interesting (cf. Müller 2004: 47-48). In the live commentaries analyzed, commentators enjoy playing with national stereotypes: relating to the Swedish national team in the live commentary of the match Sweden- Paraguay, the narrator Andrés Montes talks about Viking pride, which is - however - not effective in this match as the score is still 0: 0 : “Ahí tratando de jugarla la selección sueca el orgullo vikingo que no está funcionando hoy aquí en en el Olímpico deBerlín” (SWE-PAR, 83: 37). The most frequent stereotype is the physical strength of the German players and their height. 5 The commentators talk about the giants of the German national team, “la selección germana” (GER-ECU, 00: 12). German footballers are often characterized as strong and powerful. They also state that there is something like a prototype of the German midfielder: 15. Vamos a ver, que suben todos los gigantes a rematar por parte de Alemania (GER-ECU, 27: 13). 16. Y a mí me llama la atención • • eh la tipología de los tres centrales • alemanes, • ¿no ? • Son los trees • • • prototipos del centro alemán • grandes, • altos, • contundentes (GER-ECU, 11: 40) National identity is commonly constructed through establishing differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (cf. Brookes 2002: 94), but in the live transmissions analyzed this is not the only linguistic means by which national identity and corporate feeling are created by the commentary. 4.4.2. The construction of national identity through the language of the commentary Wodak et al. are of the opinion that the complex construct of national identity is the product of discourses. The most important elements in constructing a collective identity are the use of metonymy, synecdoche, personification and the use of the first person plural (cf. Wodak et al. 1998: 61; 94-102). The media do not just reflect national identities, but they also play an important role in how they are made up. The media coverage of sport, and especially international football tournaments such as the World Cup, contributes to the formation of national identity (cf. Brookes 2002: 84-94). There is no denying the fact that in the live commentaries metonymies are used very frequently. The most frequent type of metonymy is the use of the name of the country represented by the footballers in place of a designation for the national team: “¡Juega España! ” (ESP-FRA, 00: 00), “Se viene con la pelota la Argentina.” (GER-ARG, 5 The lack of passion and spirit is another common stereotype about German players, according to the commentator Julio Maldonado, who commentated the World Cup matches for the Spanish channel ‘Cuatro’. Julio Maldonado was interviewed for this article by the author in Madrid in October 2006. <?page no="356"?> 353 106: 57). This kind of metonymy 6 invites the audience to identify with the national team and to show solidarity with the players. The commentators, both of Spanish and Argentine television, also refer to the national colours (“El colorito rojo” (ESP-TUN, 02: 58)) and the national flag in the live commentary: “¡La bandera argentina! ” (ARG- CIV, 0: 03: 03). The aim of this style of commentating is to stir emotions in the viewers. The media also encourage fans to identify with their national team with the prevalent use of the first person plural in the live commentary: “¡Creamos en que todos los podemos vencer! ” (ESP-FRA, 0: 02: 35). As mentioned above, commentators cheer on their national team, more often than not in the first person plural: “¡Vamos chavales que lo merecemos! ” (ESP-FRA, 87: 39). The use of the first person plural emphasises the shared viewing experience during the live transmission and integrates the spectator, so it reinforces a sense of national community. In the following example, national identity is expressed directly, and additionally stressed by the narrator: “Porque hoy, • señores, • • ¡se grita para la Argentina! • • • Porque hoy • en la pantalla de Canal Trece, • • • ¡somos Argentina! ” (GER-ARG, 0: 02: 25). 4.5. Spectacle through capturing the interest of viewers 4.5.1. Attracting attention by creating nicknames for players In contrast to German live commentaries, in Spanish and Argentine live transmissions commentators use the first names of the players of their national teams very frequently (“Mariano” (ESP-FRA, 86: 49) “Fernando” (ESP-UKR, 46: 11), “Maxi” (GER-ARG, 47: 30)). They even use short forms of their first names, for instance “Javi” (ARG-CIV, 0: 04: 10) or “Leo” (GER-ARG, 2: 23: 16), as well as diminutive forms of players’ first names (“Julito Cruz” (GER-ARG, 2: 19: 43) “Carlitos” (GER-ARG, 47: 30)) and of surnames, for instance “Crespito” (GER-ARG, 47: 53). Terms of endearment like diminutive forms have an affective function and can be seen as a demonstration of sympathy and liking (cf. Hafner 2004: 29). Additionally, Spanish and Argentine commentators use special nicknames (‘apodos’) for the players of their national teams, and they even invented new nicknames during the live broadcasts of the World Cup 2006. This fact reflects a close emotional connection between commentators and the national team and, in addition, is another stylistic element to create a corporate feeling. In Argentine football commentaries, the use of nicknames for players is very common. This is illustrated with examples of nicknames used in the analyzed Argentine live commentaries: the beast “la Fiera Rodríguez” (ARG-CIV, 0: 04: 16), the mouse Ayala “el Ratón” (ARG-CIV, 0: 04: 13), the duck “el Pato Abbondanzieri” (GER-ARG, 0: 08: 01) and the rabbit “el Conejo Saviola” (ARG-CIV, 0: 01: 05). Luis González is called “Lucho” (GER-ARG, 47: 34), team captain Juan Pablo Sorín “Juampi” (ARG- CIV, 0: 00: 44) and Gabriel Heinze is “el Gringo” (ARG-CIV, 0: 04: 19). As the use of nicknames for players is getting more and more popular in Spain, Spanish commentators have started creating and using nicknames as well. In the live broadcasts, commentators of the Spanish channel Cuatro call Fernando Torres ‘the child’, “el Niño” (ESP-FRA, 14: 15) and David Villa “el Guaje” 7 (ESP-UKR, 14: 47). But especially the 6 In these examples, the metonymy is a synechdoche (totum pro parte), a meaning extension of the geographical designation for the country, and a personification at the same time. 7 The expression guaje means ‘child’ in Asturian. <?page no="357"?> 354 narrator of the Spanish channel La Sexta, Andrés Montes, took an active part in creating brand new nicknames during the World Cup. He invented the nickname for Carlos Puyol, ‘the shark’ “el Tiburón Puyol” (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 00: 23) and another original nickname for Pablo Ibañez, who is called “el auténtico queso manchego” (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 00: 19), ‘the genuine cheese from La Mancha’ because he comes from this famous Spanish region. Even more surprising is the nickname created by Montes when the Swedish footballer Ljungberg scores a goal, he calls him “Mister Gallumbo” (SWE- PAR, 88: 17), ‘Mr. Pants’, due to the fact that Ljungberg once appeared as a model in an advertising campaign for a famous underwear manufacturer. As the last two examples show, originality is an important feature of new nicknames. The creation of nicknames can be surprising, and the nicknames in general render the commentary more interesting for viewers. In short, they are an important element in the creation of a televised spectacle. 4.5.2. Attracting attention by using onomatopoeia, word-plays and rhymes Onomatopoeia in the live commentary can have a loosening and comic impact (cf. Blanco 2002: 147). The onomatopoeia tiki-taka was created by the commentator of the channel La Sexta, Andrés Montes, during the World Cup 2006. It imitates the sound when players pass the ball to each other with only one ball contact. In the live commentary Montes made the term public and the onomatopoeia became the common term to describe this precise and elegant way of passing the ball: “Estamos tocando tikitaka tiki-taka.” (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 24: 10). Commentators also use rhymes and wordplays to diversify their comments and to make the football show on television more interesting. Sports reporters use these stylistic elements to lend more emphasis to what they say (cf. Guerrero Salazar 2002: 378-379): 17. ¡ Si no lo veo no lo creo! ¡Tunez uno • España cero! (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 21: 10) 18. ¡Si les empatamos les matamos! (ESP-FRA, 85: 29) The following example shows a wordplay with the name of the Spanish channel Cuatro, which means four, and the result of the match 3: 1 ‘three plus one is Cuatro’: 19. ¿Saben qué? • • • ¡Tres más uno • • cuatro! (ESP-TUN, Cuatro, 90: 00+0: 24) 4.5.3. Attracting attention by using superlative forms and augmentatives The frequent use of superlative forms is another essential element of the live commentaries analyzed: 20. ¡Que pase lo mejor para Argentina! (GER-ARG, 48: 52) 21. [...] eso es peligrosísimo del fútbol. (GER-ECU, 04: 39) In the live broadcasts analyzed commentators frequently employ augmentatives. Augmentatives are formed by suffixation with the suffix -azo, for instance pelotazos (ESP-UKR, 09: 52), cabezazo (GER-ARG, 79: 59), golazo (SWE-PAR, 88: 38), with the <?page no="358"?> 355 suffix -ón, for example jugadón (ESP-UKR 80: 58) or by suffixation with the suffix -ete: golete (ESP-UKR 47: 12). Augmentatives in the live commentary can be interpreted as a positive evalutation of the action on the pitch. Superlative forms and augmentatives emphasise the comments of the reporter and create a dynamic and dramatic language in the live commentary. Thus, they help to attract the attention of the audience. 4.5.4. Attracting attention by using metaphors, hyperboles, chiasmi and ellipses The use of metaphorical language is another characteristic element of football commentary. Metaphors serve to express dynamism and hyperbole. They attract the attention of the viewers and enhance their emotional involvement. Not surprisingly, and corresponding to the results of the studies by Gil 1998, military metaphors of combat or war are the most commonly used metaphors in the live commentaries analyzed. The match is presented like a battle: “Portugal al ataque” (FRA-POR, 37: 38), “¡Atención al contra-ataque! ” (SWE-PAR, 85: 05), “la defensa ucrania” (ESP-UKR, 0: 05: 39). The German player Miroslav Klose is described as a dangerous footballer (“un jugador realmente peligroso.” (GER-ARG, 79: 56) or even as a lethal adversary: “cuando está cerca de la portería es cuando es letal.” (GER-ECU, 48: 00). The area of the human body is another lexical field offering images for metaphors in the commentary. Zinedine Zidane has football in his blood: “lleva el fútbol en las venas” (FRA-POR, 0: 04: 44), Xabi Alonso is the brain “el cerebro” (ESP-TUN, La Sexta, 25: 11) of the Spanish national team, and Thorsten Frings is designated as the lung of the German midfield “el pulmón del centro del campo” (GER-ECU, 07: 19). Other semantic fields which yield images for metaphors in the live broadcasts are technology, meteorology, chess and the Darwinian battle for survival: “Portugal tiene hambre” (FRA-POR, 0: 05: 07). As mentioned above, hyperbolic style for exaggeration is another characteristic of sports commentating. Of course, hyperbole also exists in the commentary itself; for instance the Mexican wave on the terraces of the stadium is not designated as a wave, but as a tsunami: “Esto no ha sido una ola, ¡esto ha sido un tsunami! ” (ESP-UKR, 89: 15) Chiasmi, as we can see in these two examples, also intensify the expressiveness of the commentary and lend more emphasis to the message the commentators want to communicate: “Tiene hambre Portugal ¿no? Portugal tiene hambre.” (FRA-POR, 0: 05: 07). Ellipsis, the omission of words or phrases thought to be unnecessary, is another typical element of the language of football (cf. Guerrero Salazar 1999: 464). Elliptical forms in the television commentary all help the commentator to keep up with the action (cf. Beard 1998: 79). In the commentaries analyzed the omission of the verbs while the commentator narrates the action on the pitch is very common: 22. Reyes con Marchena. (ESP-KSA, 7: 15) 23. ((1,5s)) Ballack. ((1s)) Lahm. ((1s)) Ballack. ((1s)) Ballaaack • • • Borowskiii • Kloseee ((2,2s)) Gol de Alemania. (GER-ARG, 79: 28) In the last example, the commentator omits the verbs and only mentions the names of players just before a goal is scored. This type of ellipsis transfers the action on the pitch directly and creates tension (cf. Schaefer 1989: 133). <?page no="359"?> 356 5. Summary “[...] esto ha sido un espectáculo, ¡que hemos vivido todos! ¡Que hemos sufrido todos! ¡Y que hemos disfrutado todos! ” (ESP-TUN, Cuatro, 0: 51: 28) - ‘This has been a spectacle that we all have experienced! During which we all have suffered! And that we all have enjoyed! ’ The linguistic analysis has revealed that the live commentary of Spanish and Argentine live transmissions of Football matches of the FIFA World Cup 2006 on Spanish and Argentine television is a real show of words. We can conclude that the ‘spectacularization’ of football in the media not only concerns the media staging as a spectacle, but also the language of the live commentary. In a nutshell: the language of a live transmission becomes part of the spectacle. In the linguistic analysis, it is evident that by using vibrant and dramatic language with exceptional elements in the live commentary, Spanish and Argentine commentators try to create entrancing footballshows: the commentators use metaphorical language and nicknames for players, they play with national stereotypes and they construct a national identity and community spirit in the live broadcasts. Commentators are not shy about showing their emotions during the live commentary: they give free rein to their emotions, they loudly cheer on their national team and they do not hesitate to celebrate a goal loudly. The commentary captures the on-going excitement of the football match because commentators transfer the tension of the action on the pitch to the commentary by using numerous repetitions and even extreme lengthening. Commentators try to enliven the commentary and to animate the viewers by verbal exaggeration. Commentary is marked by a frequent use of superlative forms and augmentatives. In order to stage football as a spectacular liveshow on television, the language of the live transmission is embellished with onomatopoeia, wordplays, chiasmi, ellipses and rhymes, so that the commentary itself becomes a spectacle. To summarize, in the live transmissions commentators entertain the audience in order to achieve higher viewer ratings. By using colloquial speech and by interacting with the viewers, the football commentators reduce the distance to the audience and create a real spectacle for viewers. Appendix: Conventions of transcription The following conventions of transcription according to HIAT have been used: Lengthening of a sound by reduplicating the corresponding letter: aa normal lengthening, ca. 0,5s aaa longer lengthening, ca 0,75-1s aaa<3,5s> exceptional lengthening, duration timed (in seconds) • short stop within the flow of speech, ca. 0,25s or shorter • • pause, ca. 0,5s. • • • pause, ca. 0,75s ((1,8s)) long pause, duration timed (in seconds) - • pause within a word (* * *) incomprehensible utterance < 1s (* * *, 1s) incomprehensible utterance >1s, duration timed (in seconds) (llegar) supposition in the case of an uncertain utterance ((laughs)) non-phonological phenomenon … interrupted utterance <?page no="360"?> 357 / repair […] omission in the transcript ligature Mascherano speaker emphasis Terms used for the specification of tempo and of modulation or volume: Volume: very low, lower, low, loud, louder, very loud Tempo: slow, slower, faster, fast, very fast <<<<< < < < < decreasing tempo > > > > >>>>>> increasing tempo References Alcoba López, Antonio (2005): Periodismo deportivo. 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In: Fuchs, 271-284 González Ramallal, Manuel (2003): La configuración del fútbol español como deporte espectáculo. http: / / www.efdeportes.com/ efd66/ espect.htm, 28/ 07/ 2006 González Ramallal, Manuel (2004): El reflejo del deporte en los medios de comunicación en España. In: RES-Revista Española de Sociología, 2004/ 4, 271-280, http: / / www.fes-web.org/ revista/ archivos/ res04/ 12.pdf, 23/ 07/ 2006 Gruneau, Richard (1989): Making spectacle: A case study in television sports production. In: Wenner, 134-154 Guerrero Salazar, Susana (1999): La función poética en el lenguaje futbolístico. In: Isla de Arriarán. Revista Cultural y Científica 14, Diciembre 1999, 461-469 Guerrero Salazar, Susana (2002): El lenguaje deportivo, entre coloquial y literario. In: Isla de Arriarán. Revista Cultural y Científica 19, Junio 2002, 365-382 Gutiérrez, Mario (2003): Géneros informativos en televisión. 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(2000): The prosody of excitement in horse race commentaries. http: / / www.coli.uni-saarland.de~trouvain/ trouvain_barry _2000.pdf, 15/ 08/ 2006 Trouvain, Jürgen (2004): Tempo variation in speech production. Implications for speech synthesis. PhD Thesis, Universität des Saarlandes Wehrle, Thomas (2001): Sportjournalismus und Moral oder: Dichtung und Wahrheit in der ballorientierten Unterhaltungsindustrie des 21. Jahrhunderts. In: Roters et al., 203-210 Wenner, Lawrence (ed.) (1989): Media, sports, and society. Newbury Park et al.: Sage Publications Wernecken, Jens / Bacher, Joachim (2006): Willkommen in Deutschland… Zur Integrationsfunktion der Fußballweltmeisterschaft 2006. In: Holtz-Bacha, 214-238 Wodak, Ruth / de Cillia, Rudolf / Reisigl, Martin / Liebhart, Karin / Hofstätter, Klaus / Kargl, Maria (1998): Zur diskursiven Konstruktion nationaler Identität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Web sites: Web site FIFA World Cup 2006: http: / / fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/ 06/ de/ index.html, 14/ 09/ 2006 Kerstin Jung Romanisches Seminar Universität Mannheim Gebäude L15,16 D-68131 Mannheim e-mail: kerstinjung@gmx.de <?page no="362"?> 359 EVA LAVRIC, GERHARD PISEK, WOLFGANG STADLER, ANDREW SKINNER AND ERIKA GIORGIANNI (THE INNSBRUCK FOOTBALL RESEARCH GROUP) “ZIDANE, ZIDANE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? ” - EMOTIONS ON TV IN SIX LANGUAGES This article analyses the expression of emotions in television sports commentary in six languages (German, English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Russian), as illustrated by the famous ‘Zidane incident’, i.e. the foul by Zinédine Zidane against Marco Materazzi, which led to Zidane’s sending off in the 109th minute of the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy. The transcription starts with the moment of uncertainty, when the only thing that is clear is that something has happened, and it ends with the comments on Zidane’s sending off and the end of his career, where, ex post, a tragic moment is constructed discursively. The phases in the seven versions (there are two German-language versions, one from Austria and one from Germany) are quite similar; this is due to the similarity of the television images, with two emotional peaks corresponding to the first images of the actual foul and to the presentation of the red card. In fact, not only the phases of the event, but also the means of expressing emotions are surprisingly similar in all seven versions, and (nearly) all of them are represented in the fictitious quotation in our title, “Zidane, Zidane, what have you done? ”: direct address to Zidane, repetitions, rhetorical questions, exclamations/ interjections. The more emotions rise, the more all these means cumulate in each single utterance. At the climax, there is one more means that is added: pauses. This is the only element that marks a real difference between the seven versions, as it is much more strongly represented in the French one. Faced with the unthinkable becoming reality, the French commentators simply remain speechless - witness their even stronger emotional involvement in comparison with the others. Apart from this, there seems to be something of a common kind of ‘emotionese’ in European football/ sports commentary. How are emotions expressed in football commentaries in different languages and cultures? Is there a gradation in the expression of emotion? And is this dependent on the partiality of the commentator(s)? These questions will be addressed in this article, drawing on the example of the ‘Zidane incident’, i.e. the foul by Zinédine Zidane against Marco Materazzi, which led to Zidane’s sending off in the 109th minute of the 2006 World Cup final between France and Italy. Zidane’s head-butt (in French ‘coup de boule’) against Materazzi was certainly the most salient and emotive incident of the whole World Cup, giving rise, for example, to endless comments, web games, satirical programmes and even to a song that stayed in the charts for weeks. 1 1 To readers who are not familiar with football or who might read this years later when the incident might have been forgotten, it must be explained that Zinédine Zidane was a legendary football star who had already won the World Cup with the French team in 1998 and was, arguably, about to win it again. He had announced that he would retire immediately after the competition. So this World Cup final was his very last game and, when the incident occurred, the game was already in extra time. Zidanes’s foul against Materazzi and the subsequent sending off were decisive insofar as the game <?page no="363"?> 360 Without knowing beforehand, of course, that such a salient episode would occur, we (i.e. the Innsbruck Football Research Group), wishing to study football commentaries in different cultures, recorded the World Cup final on TV in seven versions and six languages: German (two versions, one from Austria, one from Germany), English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. We then transcribed the passage corresponding to the famous ‘Zidane incident’, its preliminaries and consequences (i.e. minutes 108 to 111) 2 and arranged the seven transcriptions in a parallel table (see appendix). What we wanted to study initially was the cross-cultural differences and similarities in football commentaries on TV, together with the aspect of involvement or bias due to the nationality of the commentator (comparing the Italian and French versions with the other ones). What we discovered, though, is an unexpectedly high number of similarities between the seven versions. In fact, the differences due to the number of co-commentators are more striking than the differences due to nationality or partiality on the part of the commentator. The table in the appendix shows that the German and the Austrian versions have only one commentator each, while the English and the Russian versions have two commentators and the Spanish, the Italian and the French versions even three commentators each. This is a significant difference and the most salient aspect of national style we found in our corpus. It has a direct influence on the rhythm of the commentary, as for instance one single commentator is more likely to make pauses in what might otherwise be too pushy a monologue, while with two or three persons the commentary is more like a conversation, all gaps of one commentator tending to be filled by the other participant(s). 3 Furthermore, it is a question of the general policy of broadcast stations, as for example in Austria commentators are advised not to speak all the time. 4 So the balance in the German and Austrian commentaries is between speech and silence, whereas in all other versions it is between the different commentators. 5 As for the question of national bias, what is striking in the different versions is the fact that none of the commentators, not even the Italian one, takes a hostile stance towards Zidane. This might be due to the fact that Zidane played in Italy for a number of years. 6 Nor do the French speakers try to defend him. The commentators all condemn Zidane’s behaviour but still pay tribute to him as a great player (see appendix). went into a penalty shoot-out (where Zidane could have made all the difference), and was finally won by Italy. 2 Thanks to Catherine Lederbauer, Alfonso Merello-Astigarraga and Angelo Pagliardini for helping with the transcription. 3 This seems to be the reason why some versions are shorter than the others, especially the Austrian and the German ones, where there is only one commentator. Twoor three-commentator versions are in general longer - but the French one isn’t: we shall see below why this is the case. 4 These details are the result of a discussion we had with Italian, French and Austrian TV commentators (Marco Civoli, Erik Bielderman, Thomas König) on the occasion of a presentation of our results to a wider public, in Vienna and Innsbruck on 17 and 18 April, 2008. We are grateful to our guests for their helpful comments. 5 It is important to distinguish this type of silence in the German and Austrian version from the type of silence that will be commented upon later in this article, which is due to speechlessness as a result of emotion. 6 Which answers also one more interesting question about the infamous incident: in which language did the verbal exchange between Materazzi and Zidane (and hence Materazzi’s alleged insult of Zidane’s sister) take place? It must have been Italian, which would be the common language between the two players. For the question of language choices in multilingual football teams, see also Giera et al. in this volume. <?page no="364"?> 361 The high degree of similarity we found in the different commentaries is true of all seven versions, including the Italian one; the only exception is the French version, which shows the same characteristics as the other ones, but in a much stronger, more pronounced way. Actually, this high degree of similarity might be due, on the one hand, to the nature of the commentary guided by TV images and, on the other hand, to the incident itself, which produced a strong emotional impact combined with a certain degree of reflection. First, we found that the phases of the incident were parallel in the seven versions because the TV images were identical for all of them. 7 In general, it seems that all the commentators, in spite of being in the stadium, watch the match on their TV screens, as all comments are in line with the TV images. 8 This is important because the incident took place outside the main action of the game, and was not picked up by the main camera. The incident itself was therefore neither seen by the commentators nor by the referee, who had to resort to consulting a linesman. 9 • The first phase is marked by confusion and uncertainty: something seems to have happened, but the commentators cannot say what. This is shown linguistically in all versions by a large number of indefinites and questions (in italics in the transcription). • The next phase is the incident itself, which will be analysed in more detail below. As for its different phases, it has two climaxes: the first one is the presentation of the incident on video, the second one the showing of the red card and Zidane being sent off. • After that comes a phase where this incident is reflected on in a larger context, as it obviously means the end of Zidane’s career. The commentators look back briefly on the player’s background and history and give general evaluations of Zidane as a legendary footballer, as opposed to his momentary lapse and inglorious end. From this contrast emerges the idea of a tragic moment, construed as such by all commentators. The linguistic means involved include all types of antithetical expressions, like concessive clauses, and especially antonyms (often in parallel constructions). They are marked in yellow in our transcription (see appendix). It is interesting to observe, by the way, how Zidane is referred to by the commentators throughout the different phases of the incident. The neutral, unmarked designation seems to be Zidane, while especially in the French version we find the nickname Zizou (until the incident), and later, at the climax of emotions, the direct address to Zinédine. By contrast, when looking 7 In fact, there is a little divergence in the German version, where the slow-motion replay of the incident is played twice rather than only once, as in the other versions. 8 Where there is a team of commentators, it seems that one of them might be in charge of watching the game directly, or at least it seems so from a remark in the Spanish version. This is also what reported Marco Civoli reported, who told us that in Italy two of the commentators normally sit in the special commentators’ area, while the third one stands ‘next to the field’. 9 It was the so-called ‘fourth man’, Luis Medina Cantalejo, who played the decisive role as he had witnessed the incident with his own eyes and was thus able to report it to the referee, Horacio Elizondo. Had the incident only been seen on video, as seemed to be the case at first, it would have been illegal to sanction it, according to FIFA regulations. <?page no="365"?> 362 back at his career, all commentators refer to him by using his full name, Zinédine Zidane. This may be out of a sense of respect for the great player. As for reflections and rationalizations of emotions and the construction of a tragic moment, here again we find strong similarities in all seven versions, with the only difference being that the general reflections start a little earlier in some versions and later in others - which seems to be related to the involvement and the bias of the commentator (i.e. they come later in the French version). 10 In fact, the idea of the tragic moment is not the only point of reflection. There are also comments of other types in the course of the incident, which are all highlighted in yellow in the transcription. These other themes of reflection are also fairly similar in the seven versions, and they concern: the legal or rule-related problem, as the incident had not been seen by the referee and it seemed that it would be judged on the basis of the video recording alone (the ‘technology’ problem), a point referred to in all versions. For whatever reason, this point receives particular attention in the Italian commentary; the question of whether the referee’s red card can or cannot be contested (the ‘contestation’ problem); present in several versions but particularly strong in the French one; comparisons with and memories of past incidents of a similar type in Zidane’s career, but also in the career of the referee; comments on the French trainer (triggered by footage that shows him applauding sarcastically when Zidane is given the red card); questions about what the incident and its outcome might mean for the continuation of the game and for the World Cup as a whole. All these themes can be found in almost all of the seven versions. They mark moments where the immediate expression of emotions is replaced by a more reflective, more distanced stance. The similarity of the themes touched on and the ways they are commented on seems to suggest that there might exist something like a common European style of football discourse, where the do’s and don’ts of commentary are fairly clear and even similar. But let us now turn to the incident itself and the way it is commented on. What is striking in all seven versions is the expression of emotions through a series of linguistic means that can be found in a similar way in all languages and that tend to be cumulative. Emotionality / affectivity in interaction has received comparatively little attention in language and discourse studies until now. For bibliographical reference on this topic, we can cite Fiehler 1990, Marten-Cleef 1991, Niemeyer / Dirven 1996, Battachi / Suslov / Renna 1997, Günthner 2000 and Drescher 2003 (for more titles, see references at the end of our contribution). Fiehler, for example, was one of the first to deal with the manifestation, interpretation and processing of emotions; Marten-Cleef exemplifies emotions through expressive speech acts. The problem seems to be that emotion or affectivity is difficult to define and can only be dealt with by applying an interdisciplinary or intercultural approach (see Wierzbicka 1999). It is related to the inner nature of individuals, which is difficult to research (but can be done through critical self-reflection). Therefore scholars like Drescher 2003 have recently confined their research to the way emotional concern is represented in conversations, that is, emotion is seen as something that is socially constructed and enacted in conversation. Certain linguistic and paralinguistic means 10 These general reflections correspond to what Adelmann et al. (2001: 54-55) refer to as the ‘narrativization’ (“Narrativisierung”) of events. <?page no="366"?> 363 contribute to the affective synchronisation of the participants. These means can be studied through an interaction analysis approach. Studies of emotion show that the expression of emotion is realized through a combination of various linguistic means. Among the means studied until now, we find, above all, interjections (see Kryk-Kastovsky 1997, Drescher 2003) and reduplications (see Drescher 2003). We will focus on the whole variety of means present in our corpus and the way they are combined with and relate to each other. Our own findings suggest that there is a significant accumulation and overlap of such means at crucial points (in our corpus, two such crucial points can be identified: the first images of the head-butt, and the presentation of the red card). Moreover, the expression of emotion follows a climactic pattern, with a clear hierarchy existing between the various emotive devices. What is striking here is how similar our seven versions are. Let us now turn to the details of the linguistic means we have found in our corpus at the crucial emotional points of the Zidane incident. Each of these means has been marked in our transcription by a special colour code: • Interjections/ exclamations and the corresponding intonation (red) The most salient and perhaps most common means of expression in all seven versions are exclamations of all types: there is a great number of interjections, and a general exclamatory intonation pattern (rising, or rising-falling) can be observed in nearly all sentences; the syntax tends to be exclamatory, i.e. it is drastically reduced. 11 • Repetitions and parallel constructions (blue) The second and equally salient device includes repetitions and parallel constructions, which are iconic means of intensification. These repetitions concern not only single words (Drescher’s ‘reduplication’), but also parts of or even whole sentences. At the climax of emotion, sentences are repeated once, twice, or even three times, while parallel constructions give a sense of accumulation. • Direct address to Zidane (green) One more means that can be found in various versions is when the protagonist, i.e. Zidane, is addressed directly, with the second person singular being used. This is stronger in the French version and seems to be due to the commentators’ involvement or even bias. But it is encountered in other versions, too. 11 The most prominent football exclamation - which is not present in our corpus - is of course when a goal is celebrated. In Spanish and Latin American commentary, this often takes the form of an extreme lengthening of the vowel (see Jung in this volume): GOOOOOOL, as long as the breath lasts. (The Austrian commentator Thomas König reports that in the Argentinian radio commenting team, there is one special man whose only task is to perform this ‘canto del gol’.) This is a national or culture-specific speciality, which shows that, despite the great similarities in expressing emotions, there is still room for national styles. See also the contributions by Gerhardt and Theodoropoulou in this volume. <?page no="367"?> 364 • Rhetorical questions (purple) Another means strongly related to exclamations as well as to direct addresses is the use of rhetorical questions (see the fictitious quotation in our title). • Pauses/ silence (speechlessness) (turquoise). Particularly striking in the French version is the speechlessness of the commentators. Although there are three commentators, when the incredible incident happens, all of them seem to be at a loss for words. Long pauses of 2-3 seconds occur, not once, but several times. 12 This is something that distinguishes the French version from the other ones, where pauses also occur, but less frequently and they are dependent on the number of commentators. In general, the ‘speechless’ form of silence occurs in versions with more than one commentator, where it is especially conspicuous as pauses normally do not occur in this context. 13 The use of the colour code allows us to dispense with long multi-version examples in our main text and to refer the reader directly to the multilingual transcription sheet (see appendix). However, there is one problem with this kind of representation, which is at the same time one of our main findings. Let us look at the transcription of the crucial moment in the French version: 1. TG: Ouhh ! Ouhh ! Zinédine ! Oh ! Zinédine ! Pas ça, Zinédine ! […] Pas ça, Zinédine, oh non ! Oh non pas ça ! (Pause 1’) Pas aujourd’hui, pas maintenant, pas après tout ce que tu as fait ! (Pause 2’’) Aïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïe ! (Pause 3’’) In this whole passage (as in many others), it is almost impossible to assign one particular colour to each of the elements, as most of them would have to be assigned two or three colours at the same time. The first and the second lines contain exclamation/ interjections, repetition, and a direct address to Zidane; the fourth line is exclamation, repetition/ parallel construction, direct address, and the beginning of reflection, with a contrast being established between now (the incident) and then (his whole career); at the end comes one more exclamation/ interjection with repetition. Note also the long pauses in-between. This is characteristic of the core moments of emotionality, where all or nearly all possible means of expressing emotion are present simultaneously; they overlap and accumulate in one and the same sentence, or even on one and the same word - while inbetween, in the less dramatic moments, colour assignment is easier; this means that between the peaks the emotional means occur in a more isolated way and can thus be 12 For literature about silence and pauses in conversation, see quote Philips 1995, Ghita 1997, Kurzon 1998, Müller/ Ingwer 1999, Yakovleva 2004 and Stadler 2007. 13 RAI commentator Marco Civoli explained to us that, if in an Italian commentary a longer pause occurs, the audience will immediately think that something must be wrong. <?page no="368"?> 365 more easily separated. Our transcription shows further that some devices (interjections/ exclamations, direct addresses, pauses) tend to occur only at the climax of emotion, while others (repetition, reflection) can be found also in passages where the emotional aspect is weaker and the density of emotional expression not as great. The strongest emotional level seems to be expressed especially through long pauses of speechlessness, as found mainly in the French version. The following may be concluded from our investigation: • The expression of emotions follows a climactic pattern, with peaks, valleys and intermediate levels. • The expression of emotions is cumulative and overlapping, i.e., different emotive devices occur together at emotional peaks. When emotion grows particularly strong, these devices converge on the same linguistic elements. • There is a hierarchy of emotion signals, some of them (exclamations, interjections, direct addresses) occurring more at peaks and at extremes (speechless silence! ), with others (repetitions, parallel constructions) not only at high points, but also at low ones. Reflection, on the other hand, seems to be rather characteristic of slopes, i.e. falling moments of emotion. • Drawing on this idea of hierarchy and accumulation, we are now able, by analysing the linguistic means described, to take the temperature - so to speak - of a given utterance. We can thus compare the emotionality of different moments in a comment or of different versions of it, and in general of any moment in a communicative event. This confirms Drescher’s (2003) approach of studying emotions through their linguistic expression. • Coming back to our first and initial research question, the one about cross-cultural differences, we can now claim that linguistic devices of emotionality are similar in the six languages and seven cultures studied, and that their hierarchy as well as their use of accumulation and climax does not show any significant differences in the various versions of our corpus. • As for partiality or bias, it can only be found in the French version in the form of intensification of emotion and involvement, shown mostly through long pauses and an even stronger and more intense use of all the means described. The other versions, including the Italian one, are fairly similar. In conclusion, we would like to ask what it is that is being enacted through the use of the linguistic and prosodic means described? If emotion is a socially constructed category, what is it that is being constructed in our seven commentaries? What is it that commentators enact in order to share with their audience? The first answer might be: shock and dismay, which is the basic reaction in our seven versions. But how are shock and dismay enacted? Looking at the linguistic means involved, we follow the well-known idea that emotion leads to a loss of control, to an involuntary outcry, where the use of language is strongly affected. Interjections are the simplest form of expression. Exclamatory sentences tend to have very simple syntax, while repetitions and parallel constructions minimize the need for elaboration. Rationality, elaboration, syntax are all suspended when a human being is overwhelmed <?page no="369"?> 366 by emotion. 14 At the climax, language ceases to exist and is replaced by animal-like cries (Aïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïe! ) and speechless pauses as the preferred means of emotive expression. 15 The means of expressing emotions in football commentary are thus surprisingly similar in the six languages and seven cultures we have studied: as illustrated by our title, the German/ Austrian, English, French, Spanish, Italian and Russian commentators use repetitions/ parallel constructions, interjections/ exclamations, direct addresses to Zidane, as well as rhetorical questions and pauses (silence) to express the fact that they are overwhelmed by what is happening. Repetitions/ parallel constructions occur throughout the episode, while interjections/ exclamations, direct addresses, rhetorical questions and, above all, pauses seem to belong to a stronger register and tend to occur mostly at emotional peaks. As emotion rises, these means tend to accumulate and overlap in each single utterance. The rationalization of emotions (in our case, the construction of a tragic moment), on the other hand, tends to occur later when the emotional excitement is beginning to subside. We can conclude that a common emotional language in European football commentary seems to exist. The ways of enacting and expressing emotions are quite similar in different cultures. This might be due to the fact that with strong emotions and their more or less involuntary expression we are touching on something that is in some way universal. Further studies of other sports and other kinds of emotional situations in other countries and cultures might show that the features we have identified in football commentary are in fact the essentials of a general human language of emotions, a kind of universal ‘emotionese’. 14 One interesting sign of this is that commentators tend to make errors, really serious mistakes, due to their emotional involvement: one commentator constantly calls Zidane Zinidane, while another keeps referring to Grosso instead of Materazzi, and the Russian commentator says, the game has been given a 360° twist. 15 Adelmann et al. 2001, who have worked on the enacting of positive emotions in football reporting, dedicate a special chapter to the expression of speechlessness (“Sprachlosigkeit zur Sprache bringen”, p.52). They see in “fragmentarischen Äußerungen und sprachlichen Fehlleistungen eine kanonische Form für die Sprachlosigkeit”, i.e., mistakes, stammering and fragmentary sentences are standardized ways of staging an emotional peak and of expressing the experience of being overwhelmed by emotion. <?page no="370"?> Appendix: Transcriptions Uncertainty, not knowing (indefinites, questions…): italics Mean of expression emotions: Interjections/ exclamations & intonation Repetitions and parallel constructions Direct addresses to Zidane Rhetorical questions Pauses/ silence (speechlessness) Rationalizing emotionality: Constructing a tragic moment = an antithesis: Concessive clauses, antonyms (in parallel constructions), etc. Ger/ Germany [ARD]: RB (Reinhold Beckmann): 1 commentator Ger/ Austria [ORF]: RS (Robert Seeger): 1 commentator Engl [BBC]: JM (John Motson), ML (Mark Lawrenson): 2 commentators Ru [Pervyj kanal 1]: ( ), . ( ): 2 commentators Sp [cuatro]: CM (Carlos Martinez): 3 commentators, 1 main one (CM) It [RAI1]: MC (Marco Civoli), SM (Sandro Mazzola), CP (Carlo Paris): 3 commentators, 2 main ones (MC, SM) French [TF1]: 1 main TG (Thierry Gilardi) and one secondary commentator JML (Jean- Michel Larqué), plus a third one: 3 commentators Irgendwas ist auf der anderen Seite passiert - irgendeine Nigglichkeit, ich hoffe, nicht irgendeine Tätlichkeit. (Pause 3’’) Es scheint Materazzi zu sein. (Pause 4’’) War Zidane da im Spiel? (Pause 8’’) Buffon geht jetzt auf die französischen Spieler zu, beschimpft sie. (Pause 2’’) So, da haben wir’s noch mal: (Pause 0,5’’) Zidane (Pause 2’’) − warum hat er das nötig? Dieser Na, da bin ich jetzt natürlich bei all diesen Szenen (Pause 1’’) immer skeptisch. (Pause 6’’) Die Italiener reklamieren beim Schiedsrichterassistenten. (Pause 2’’) Was wir brauchen, ist die Zeitlupe. (Pause 5’’) Zidane. (Pause 1’’) Grosso. [sic] (Pause 1’’) Oh! (Pause 2’’) Zinédine Zidane, das hat er nicht notwendig. (Pause 1’’) Das hat er nicht notwendig. Das wäre Rot. Ohne ML: Ah! JM: Oh, hang on! ML: This is interesting. This is Trezeguet we think. Trezeguet with Materazzi, is it? JM: Yes, and the assistant referee has seen something. Buffon has run across to him.. There’s been an incident here. (Pause 3’’) I think, I think, it’s Zidane, Mark. I think a head may have gone in there, (Pause 2’’) I think a head went in there somewhere. : š>  € ‰‹^ > ? “> -‹ Š †^ * ’Š^*  „ ¢> ^ Š> >Q>€‰ *Š^*‰. î - ‰Ÿ‰ ^ ^’ Q^$‰. “>" ^ ^ - ^|*> †^ " Ÿ> . ð ô ? “œ: O Q - Ÿ> €>*^€, ‹> Ÿ*>^’>¡ >. `   „ * ’>Š*  „ Q >€ Ÿ^’>$ ^ *| "^" ^- *Š^*. ‰, Ÿ> €>*^€ (Ÿ ‰’ 0,6’’)  (Ÿ ‰’ 0,6’’) ¥^$ "... •,  ! ^‹ |> Š ! “> > $ ! “> > C2: No, ahí pasó algo. Yo no sé … se está quejando Buffon de que ha habido una agresión. No sé. C3: Está diciendo Buffon que el línea lo vio. (Pause 1’’) CM: Sí. ¿El siete, Trezeguet? C2: No sé si Trezeguet que estaba ahí. (Pause 2’’) […] Al linea le están presionando. (Pause 2’’) Vamos a ver ahí. (Pause 3’’) CM: Huy - oh - huy lo MC: Ma c’è un giocatore azzurro a terra. (Pause 2’’) Forse sullo scontro precedente (Pause 1’’), dovrebbe trattarsi di Materazzi. SM: C’è Buffon che sta parlando con il guardalinee perché Buffon ha visto sicuramente più di tutti noi. MC: Sì. (Pause 1’’) Vedremo naturalmente nella riproposizione che cosa è successo esattamente. Probabilmente una scorrettezza, perché se Buffon… SM: Esatto! Buffon anche JML: Y a faute sur Materazzi, il y a quelque chose ici… TG: De l’autre côté on s’est expliqué entre Trezeguet et Materazzi. C’est en tout cas ce que Buffon vient dire à l’arbitre assistant. Que s’est-il passé entre Trezeguet et Materazzi ? JML: J’espère qu’il s’est rien passé parce que… TG: Ouais, ouais, ouais, ouais, ouais ! JML: Non le juge, le juge ne semble pas intervenir. Makelele avec Buffon, tiens. <?page no="371"?> große Spieler. (Pause 2,5’’) Hier in der Verlängerung. So ein Aussetzer. (Pause 4’’) Keiner hat’s gesehen. Der Linienrichter hat’s nicht gesehen. Aber die Kamera hat’s gesehen. Immer wieder diese Momente in der Karriere von Zinédine Zidane. Kopfstoß gegen Materazzi. (Pause 8’’) Und das in seinem letzten Fußballspiel überhaupt. (Pause 5’’) Was hat ihn da geritten? (Pause 2’’) Es ist nicht das erste Mal (Pause 2’’) . . . in der großen Fußballbiographie von Zinidane [sic]. Voller Absicht hinein! Auf die Brust! (Pause 3’’) Wie kann man sich so seinen Abschied zerstören? Alle lieben diesen Fußballer. Alle verehren ihn. (Pause 4’’) Und jetzt hat er Meldung gemacht, jetzt ist’s klar: Zinidane [sic] muss gehen. (Pause 3’’) Jetzt ist die Information (Pause 3’’) über den vierten Offiziellen und möglicherweise auch den fünften Offiziellen an den Schiedsrichter gegangen. (Pause 2’’) Da kann Raymond Domenech abwinken (? ) wie er will. Da gibt’s Diskussion. Da haben die Italiener recht und völlig zu Recht reklamiert. Und wenn das der Schiedsrichterassistent nicht gesehen hat, dann weiß ich nicht, wo er hingeschaut hat. Zinedine, sind dir da die Nerven durchgegangen? (Pause 1’’) Also meiner Meinung nach (Pause 2’’) dass alle da weggeschaut haben, (Pause 1’’) das kann ich mir fast nicht vorstellen. (Pause 5’’) Was war da los? (Pause 3’’) Sicherungen durchgebrannt. (Pause 5’’) Und die Pfiffe werden ihn in den letzten Minuten jetzt verfolgen. (Pause 2’’) Denn diese Unsportlichkeit, die hat er nicht Not gehabt. Aber noch ist nicht klar. Vielleicht gibt’s noch ein Aviso. Denn der Schiedsricherassistent holt jetzt Elizondo heraus (Pause 2’’) und der sagt es war nix, glaub ich. Oder? Oder? (Pause 1’’) Er sagt es ihm. Um Gottes willen, was ist das für ein Karriereende! (Pause 1,5’’) Zinédine Zidane! Vor Minuten wäre er der gefeierte Held gewesen, mit einem Tor. Auch das ist unsportlich. Es war ein Kopfstoß gegen Grosso [sic], den Zidane nicht notwendig gehabt hat. ML: Well… JM: The assistant referee… ML: Ne… I was saying neither of the officials have seen this. (Pause 2’’) JM: It’s Zidane into the chest of Materazzi… that’s what it is (Pause 1’’) And Zidane, who was sent off in the 1998 World (Cup). If the referee has seen that, he’s surely in trouble again here. ML: He’s off. (Pause 1’’) There’s absolutely no doubt about it. [It’s violent conduct. JM: [He’s… JM: He’s already served one suspension in this World Cup for two yellows. ML: You know, the other thing as well, John? If it goes to penalties and he scores one. JM: What are the (Italians) (must) be saying to the referee that you and your assistant have missed this. Buffon has come tearing out of goal, made the point to both officials. [Neither… ML: [Well he… ML: Well, he has. But the problem is that, if they haven’t seen it, they can’t give it … (Pause 4’’) you cannot give something on somebody’s ‚says so’. Buffon, the referee’s Ÿ>Ÿ*>£ „... ¥^$ " (Ÿ ‰’ 1,9’’) : ><^ " Q^$ > €>€ ", Ÿ>>€‰ ‹> " $ >€ ¡ ‰ Š> >Q>-. (Ÿ ‰’ 4,5’’) “œ: ‡ , > >"  Q* ’ ”  * ˜˜^, ? (Ÿ ‰’ 1,5’’) : O , "> ‹>Š >"  > $ , > Š > >‹ " ‹>-> * P’"> (Ÿ ‰’ 0,9’’) - - ... ’  ... “œ: ‡ > >£‰£ "^ , ‹> ‰‹¡ Q • - "‰, Ÿ>€^€> ”  * ˜˜^ ^ €>|> ¥^$ " - Q P > Q^$ \‰‚‚>", ^ \‰‚‚>" Ÿ   „ Q>  ">Q^ Ÿ* Q $ ^Q>  , ^ ¥^$ " Ÿ* * "> Ÿ>"^€ , ‹> >" Q^">Q  (Ÿ ‰’ 0,8’’) “ €>†  Š Ÿ* $  Q^ , ^ > - ^ $>*>|^ $*‰’ „, Q $ -‹ (Ÿ ‰’ 0,9’’) *Š^*‰ Ÿ*^$P „ ‰$ ^ ¥^" $^" ¥^$ " , "> >" " Ÿ> € , >" " Ÿ> € … : ‡ „ Q > „ * Ÿ‰ ˜^„, ‹> $ † ^ ^ „"˜ " " Š*> ^ ^ Š " ¥^$ " ^ " Ÿ  – „ |> -‹ * ’>*Q  Q >‹ „… “œ: Q> " ‰$ "^ ¢‰"^, > " ‰$ "^ ¢‰"^, •>„, Q ’"  , > Ÿ>•>† " >, ‹> $ ¢‰"^, que acabo de ver (Pause 1’’) - Zidane C2: Zidane tiene que estar en la calle. CM: …está - debería ya de estar en la calle. CM: Y si no lo ha visto Materazzi, Zidane se va a despedir de un campeonato del mundo con alguna de las cosas que le han pasado a lo largo de su carrera. A veces le ha pasado esto. Ha perdido el control. Y la verdad es que yo quiero cerrar los ojos porque me parece que no merece Zinédine Zidane. A veces le ha pasado. Pero no merece Zinédine Zidane (Pause 1’’) irse de un campeonato. (Pause 1’’) Digo que no lo merece. A ver. Me explico. Lo merece porque eso es una agresión. Y ademas sin ninguna…(Pause 1’’) no hay no hay pelota en juego no hay nada. ¿Pero por qué le pasan estas cosas a Zidane a veces? ¿Y por qué le pasa hoy? Que le pase cualquier día. Pero me parece que... CM: Lo llama, lo llama el línea. C3: El linea le está llamando. (Pause 1’’) El linea le está llamando a Elizondo. (Pause 1,5’’) CM: El linea le está con Domenech, ha indicato Domenech adesso.. MC: Adesso ce l’ha con Makelele . Rivediamo. Zidane. SM: E sta parlando con Zidane. MC: Materazzi - uuh! (Pause 0,5’’) Questo è un gesto sconsiderato. SM: Strano. MC: È un gesto sconsiderato. SM: Zidane deve aver perso la testa. La stanchezza. Perché uno come lui non può fare una cosa simile. MC: È un gesto sconsiderato da parte di un grande campione. (Pause 2,5’’) La testata di Zidane sul petto di Materazzi. Una testata violenta che gli sarebbe costata l’espulsione immediata. (Pause 2’’) E ci dispiace che termini la sua carriera, se davvero la terminerà stasera. E fra le cose che ha fatto in questa finale rimarrà anche questa immagine. SM: Questa è una macchia. È una macchia per qualunque giocatore…ma soprattutto per un campione. MC: E pensate che i fischi da parte naturalmente dei tanti sostenitori francesi sono indirizzati a Materazzi. (Pause 2’’) SM: E adesso sono indirizzati anche da parte On voit Zizou. TG: Ouhh ! Ouhh ! Zinédine ! Oh ! Zinédine ! Pas ça, Zinédine ! JML: Pas du tout avec Trezeguet TG: Pas ça, Zinédine, oh non ! Oh non pas ça ! (Pause 1’’) Pas aujourd’hui, pas maintenant, pas après tout ce que tu as fait ! (Pause 2’’) Aïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïe ! (Pause 3’’) JML: Je pensais que c’était Trezeguet qui était dans le coup, ben pas du tout. Parce que c’était… TG: Oh non, Zinédine ! (Pause 3’’) JML: C’est très très très très très chaud entre Materazzi, Raymond Domenech… C3: et entre Didier, et entre Didier et Domenech… Ils essaient de faire intervenir le quatrième arbitre sur la télé. Non mais ça se fait pas, ça peut pas se faire comme… TG: Ça peut pas Il sort un carton, il sort un carton regarde Zidane… C’est carton rouge, oh non ! (Pause 1’’) Et voilà ce que je redoutais, c’est épouvantable, (Pause 3’’) c’est pas possible. (Pause 1’’) JML: Il n’y a même pas lieu de contestation. TG: Mais non, on peut pas contester, on peut pas <?page no="372"?> kein Verständnis für (Pause 5’’) Ein unwürdiges Ende, kein krönendes Ende, ein unwürdiges Ende. (Pause 1’’) Okay, er wird da ein bisschen gekniffen, gehalten von Materazzi. Sie reden. Beide sind des Italienischen mächtig. So, es geht weiter. Materazzi scheint da ein paar nette (Pause 1’’) und nicht so feine Worte gefunden zu haben. Und dann rastet er aus. Da knallen die Synapsen in die falsche Richtung. (Pause 4’’) Mann, Zidane, (Pause 1’’) du kennst das Geschäft seit so vielen Jahren. (Pause 2,5’’) Lässt sich verbal ein bisschen provozieren, und da knallt die Sicherung durch. (Pause 4’’) Eine große Fußballkarriere (Pause 2’’) geht so unrühmlich zu Ende. (Pause 6’’) Barthez ist jetzt der Kapitän, aber das ist nur eine kleine Formalie. (Pause 1’’) Wird die französische Mannschaft (Pause 2’’) diesen Verlust (Pause 1’’), ja diesen Schock (Pause 2’’), jetzt hier verknusen können? (Pause 3’’) Malouda hat gemeckert, hat dafür die gelbe Karte bekommen. Zidane muss hinaus und beendet mit roter Karte seine Karriere. (Pause 1’’) Korrekt gesehen vom Schiedsrichterassistenten. (Pause 1’’) Tadellos gemacht. Zugewartet ... Achtung! (Pause 3’’) Die ganze Vorgeschichte. Da war es noch gar nix. (Pause 5’’) Da war amal überhaupt nix. So, Achtung, und jetzt kommt’s. So, Kopfstoß von Zidane. Also was in [sic] da in diesen großen Fußballer gefahren ist? Ehrlich gestanden, da verstehe ich ihn nicht. (Pause 2’’) Mit Rot muss er vom Platz. (Pause 3’’) Ein Kapitän (Pause 2’’), der eine Unsportlichkeit begangen hat, die ich nicht nachvollziehen kann. In einer Phase, in der seine Mannschaft dem Erfolg deutlich näher war. Aber Kompliment dem Schiedsrichterassistenten - er hat zugewartet, er hat alles gesehen. Der Schiedsrichter ist dann herausgegangen ... ... da gab’s noch Gelb für Malouda. (Pause 10’’) Egal, was möglicherweise verbal Grosso [sic] Zidane gesagt habe - diese Unsportlichkeit rechtfertigt nichts! So, damit Frankreich zu assistant, they’ve seen it, so they’re incensed, but the officials haven’t, so they can’t give it (Pause 2’’) JM: Lippi has come down the line, and is being restrained by the fourth official (Pause 1’’) there’s a push and a shove there on the Italian coach, or by the Italian coach (Pause 4’’) and the referee has gone across now, with his hand in his pocket JM: he’s been told about it. It’s off. It’s red. It’s Zidane (Pause 2’’) and the assistant referee … and the fourth official saw something, (there was) a bit of delay. Domenech (Pause 2’’) is sarcastically applauding (Pause 2’’) ML: You can’t argue with that JM: The referee, belatedly, the man who sent off Wayne Rooney, is about to send off Zinedine Zidane (Pause 2’’) ML: In terms of the decision, as long as they’ve seen it, it is impossible to argue against it. This is the incident. (Pause 1’’) Materazzi had an arm around Zidane there …(Pause 1’’) then they looked at each other (Pause 3’’) $^" Q ""> , ‹> ¢‰"^ Š^ ">|>- ^ Q $*‰|> € >. €>*^€! (Ÿ ‰’ 1,8’’) `>*„ –£^- (Ÿ ‰’ 1,3’’) Ÿ>*„ –£^- ‚^" ! ¥^" $^" ¥^$ " ‰$ „  „ Ÿ> „ (Ÿ ‰’ 0,7’’) Q Q>P€ Ÿ> $" € € ‹ , Ÿ> $" € € ‹ Q Q> - †^’"^. *>"^‹ ^ Ÿ >$^*‰  *Š^*‰ ¢ -€>"$ O>€ " (Ÿ ‰’ 0,2’’) ‰  ? “ P >Q *¡ ""> Ÿ* Q^ ">. “ P >Q *¡ ""> Ÿ* Q^ ">, > Ÿ* Q^ "> Ÿ>- ‚‰Š> ">€‰. € >‹ " Ÿ>"* Q^ „ " >€ ‹ €Ÿ^>"  ¥^" $^" ¥^$ ", € ^€ Q> •^£ ^ , "> ‚‰Š>  ‚‰Š> , Ÿ* Q^ ( / ->? )  Ÿ* Q^ ( / ->? ). , " Q *"> , ^ Š -‹ *| "^" ^- *Š^* Ÿ*> ^ ‰ Q •>$ ‰ ¥^" $^"‰ ¥^$ "‰, € Q |$ Š Q Ÿ>€^" ^ > Ÿ*>£ "^ ¥^’‰ Š> ¡^€ ‚‰Š> >€ Q>  >- >|>Q>* >-. (Ÿ ‰’ 1,5’’)  -‹ >|>Q>* ^ " Š‰$  "‰ ^ " Ÿ> Š> ¡ " Š‰$  ¥^" $^" ¥^$ " . “œ: O ! ” Q^$ ^, ‹> ”  * ˜˜^ ‹>-> ’ €‰. ”>†  Š  , >" ‹>-> ’ Ÿ> Ÿ>Q>$‰ ‰•>$ llamando a Elizondo, y Zidane se va a ir. (Pause 0,5’’) Se va a ir. (Pause 1’’) Se va a ir porque evidentemente si le ha visto no puede interpretar amarilla. (Pause 1’’) Se lo acaba de decir, Zidane va a ser expulsado. (Pause 1’’) ¡Qué lástima! ¡Qué tristeza de verdad! Zidane se va a marchar del partido. (Pause 2’’) Zidane se va a marchar del partido. (Pause 1,5’’) Se va a quedar con diez. (Pause 2’’) Pero sobre todo no es que se quede con diez, sobre todo es que Zidane va a tener que recordar este último minuto de su carrera deportiva de una manera tremendamente amarga. Como lo vamos a recordar todos porque (Pause 1’’) tantos años de grandeza de Zinédine Zidane en un terreno de juego, es una absoluta lástima que se vayan así. (Pause 1’’) Evidentemente le había agarrado ahí pero eso no es nada. C2: Es que de vez en cuando … yo me acuerdo de una jugada parecida una vez en el mundial de 1998 contra Arabia Saudí. En un partido intrascendente. CM: Algo le dice Materazzi. Algo le dice dei sostenitori italiani a Domenech che sta insultando - non, non sento le parole - ma sta insultando anche con i gesti Buffon. MC: Io ricordo Domenech alla guida dell’Under 21. Delle battaglie epiche. MC: Cartellino rosso. SM: Espulsione! MC: Rosso! Rosso per Zidane! (Pause 2’’) E qui è intervenuta la tecnologia. SM: Sicuramente. Ma è probabilmente anche il guardalinee di destra che aveva tutto il campo per poterlo vedere, a mio avviso. MC: Secondo me è intervenuta la tecnologia (Pause 2’’), non c’è, non c’è altro. Altrimenti ci sarebbe stata…(Pause 1’’) ci sarebbe stato il provvedimento immediato. MC: E comunque è un atto di doverosa giustizia. (Pause 1’’) Ci dispiace per un campione come Zidane. Qui ecco vediamo anche perché si è arrivati a questo. Materazzi colloquia con Zidane, confabula, qualche parola, si ferma Materazzi, gli dice qualcosa, e questa è la reazione di Zidane. (Pause 1’’) L’espulsione di Zidane è netta. Ma Elizondo ci ha messo un bel po’. Ricordiamo che Elizondo aveva espulso anche Rooney in Inghilterra/ Portogallo. contester. Sans (Pause 1’’) Même s’il s’est passé des choses avant. (Pause 1’’) Zinédine ne doit pas répondre, ne doit pas mettre ce coup de tête. (Pause 2’’) C’est pas vrai, c’est son dernier match, c’est la finale de la coupe du monde. (Pause 6’’) C’est pas possible. Ah non non non non non! (Pause 3’’) Sur l’image qu’on a vue on peut pas reprocher à l’arbitre argentin de sortir le carton rouge évidemment. (Pause 2’’) Mais c’est terrible. (Pause 3’’) C’est terrible. (Pause 1,5’’) On était dans un conte de fées jusque-là. JML: Oh, ce qui s’est passé avant, hein… TG: Et voilà, ça… JML: J’sais pas, on n’a pas vu, mais…(Pause 1,5’’) TG: Mais quoi qu’il arrive, il ne doit pas répondre, Jean- Michel JML: Absolument/ non non (Pause 0,5’’) Aucune (Pause 1,5’’) aucune circonstance atténuante TG: Aïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïeaïe ! (Pause 2’’) TG: Et c’est la dernière fois, et c’est la dernière fois, il nous a fait tant rêver, (Pause 0,5’’) il nous a donné tant de bonheur ! (Pause 2’’) Ah, c’est à pleurer ! (Pause 0,5’’) C’est à pleurer ! <?page no="373"?> [...] Wir wissen nicht - […] - was Materazzi ihm da ins Ohr geflüstert hat, aber das ist schnurzegal. zehnt. Zu spielen noch achteinhalb Minuten. why did this go on so long? ML: Well, I think words were obviously said, obviously Materazzi said something there JM: You can’t excuse that. (Pause 3’’) Zidane’s career ends in disgrace. (Pause 3’’) ML: You can’t boo the referee… JM: The fourth man to be sent off in a World Cup Final (Pause 1’’) two Argentines in 1990, and Desailly - of all people - in ’98… and Zidane goes (Pause 1’’) France will play the remainder with ten men (Pause 2’’) … ML: Well, there’s no doubt that Materazzi said something ...and, just as he turned his back, it was obvious he said...as to what it was, we can only speculate. JM: There’s a yellow here for Malouda, I think. Somebody else got a yellow there in the fracas, in the argument. I think it’s Malouda. (Pause 5’’) Well, the World Cup Final explodes. The man who dismissed Wayne Rooney for the step (Pause 2’’) dismisses Zinédine Zidane. ¥^" $^" ¥^$ " ^’ Š> ¡>|> ‚‰Š> , €>†  Š  , > Š > >‹ " ^ >‹ " >Š^$">. > ‰$ „ " ¡ >Q. ", >Š Q "">, ^ " Q^$ Ÿ> ‰Ÿ ¥^$ " . €‰ Ÿ>$ ’ ^. > Ÿ>$ ’ Š> >Q>- *Š^*, >>*>€‰, Q Q>– >‹ * $ , Ÿ>$ ’ \‰‚‚>". $"^€ >Q>€, ¥^" $^" ¥^$ " (Ÿ ‰’ 0,8’’) " $>^|* Q  Q>- Ÿ> $"^- € ‹ ^ ‰$ „  „ Ÿ> „ Q $>Ÿ> "^ "> Q* €„. : > ’$ , >" ‹">, " Ÿ* Q ”  * ˜˜^: >" Ÿ*>Q>˜^*>Q … - - … ¥^$ " , ^… (Ÿ ‰’ 1,5’’) ’$ , >" ‹">, *‰$"> Ÿ*^"„ >*>"‰ ^ ¥^$ " , Q >€ ‹^ , >" >* |^*>Q . “>’€>†">, ‹> > ’ ‚‰Š> . “œ: ” ‰$ (Ÿ ‰’ 0,3’’) ” ‰$ Ÿ> ‰‹  †P ‰– *>‹ ‰, @ ~ ”, ‹> > ’ * ’|>Q>* , " Q *"> , ’ Ÿ „˜^– *Š^*‰, >Š Q "">, > ‰† "  Q †">, Ÿ>>€‰ ‹> | Q"> , ‹> Ÿ> „ ‰$ P" ¥^$ ". >, ^ > -, „ $‰€ –, €>†  -‹ ^’€ "^ *^"‰ € ‹ " *^  ¡  $ „ |* $‰ >Q. : , ‹> >" " Materazzi. Pero da igual. C3: Es una… CM: Da igual. C3: Es una lástima. No, no hay justificación. Porque por más que, diga lo que le diga Materazzi me parece que…(Pause 1’’) Pero…(Pause 2’’) Y además que le pase a Zidane. Que le desequilibre alguien como Materazzi. Es el mundo al revés. C3: Es verdad. Es verdad, ¿eh? (Pause 1’’) Materazzi tiene que pegarle una patada a Zidane porque pasa de largo. (Pause 1’’) Y pierde, pierde el partido la gran figura, y sí éste era suyo el partido. Se hubiese llevado la copa del mundo, hubiese pateado el penal seguramente. Otro penal más con la categoría de Zidane. (Pause 2’’) C3: No lo merece la final. CM: Y ahora Francia además se puede venir abajo también. Pierde un hombre para lanzar un penalti de los mejores que tenía Francia. Esto sí que es… Además de hacerse un daño a sí mismo, ha hecho un daño al equipo tremendo. (Pause 2’’) C3: ¡Qué lástima! Bueno, bueno, bueno, Qui, secondo me, è intervenuta la tecnologia. SM: Sì, perché l’arbitro stava correndo verso la parte opposta e quindi non poteva vederla. O è la tecnologia o il guardalinee, a mio modo di vedere. MC: È chiaro che la tecnologia c’entra. C’entra probabilmente anche Medina Cantalejo. Ma è chiaro che il supporto delle immagini c’è stato. SM : Ah beh sicuramente, eh! CP: Marco MC: Sì, Carlo CP: Mi sembra che sia stato ammonito anche Malouda. (Pause 1’’) C’è stato un cartellino giallo qualche istante fa proprio. MC: Grazie Carlo, preziosa questa tua precisazione. MC: Francia in dieci uomini. (Pause 1’’) Una macchia enorme sulla carriera di Zidane. (Pause 1’’) SM : Sì. Incomprensibile. <?page no="374"?> €>†   " Q ‰ ^ *‰ >Q>$^ … - - … >€ "$>-… - - … > € - ^ ’ Ÿ " •. (…) “œ:  $^>" |‰$^… €… - - … ” ¡^€ > |‰  $^>" , "> Q> Q^$^ … >Ÿ„ † (“^ ^- / Q^$^ - >{` „ `<‚ ), ^ Š „ Š $^" Q "" € *Š^*>€, ’$ €>†"> Š > * ’>Š*  „, >" ‹">, Ÿ> ‰Ÿ >€ ”  * ˜˜^. : “^ >*, ‹ "> |>Q>*„, „ Q ¡> >  >- >"˜>Q ^, ^… Ÿ*> > "  >Q. “œ: > > ‚‰Š> . ” |>Q>*^€ > >€, ‹> € ‹, Q > ^‹^ >  *>Q • >  Q>Q >€ "$, €>†  Š  " Ÿ* $ ’‰ € €,… ^ † ^ >€‰ € ‹‰ " Ÿ* $ ’‰ €> ^. >, „ $‰€ –, " Ÿ* $ ’‰ €> ^. R $‰€ , ‹> € ^€ ^ QQ^$‰ >Q *¡ ""> $*‰|> . pues a ver lo que le pasa al partido. <?page no="375"?> 372 References Adelmann, Ralf / Keilbach, Judith / Stauff, Markus (2001): „Soviel Gefühle kann’s nicht geben! “ Typisierung des Feierns und Jubelns im Fernsehsport. In: montage/ av. Zeitschrift für Theorie und Geschichte audiovisueller Kommunikation 10/ 2, 43-57 Battacchi, Marco W. / Suslow, Thomas / Renna, Margherita (1997): Emotion und Sprache. Frankfurt a.M. et al.: Peter Lang Doleschal, Ursula / Hoffmann, Edgar / Reuther, Tilmann (eds.) (2007): Sprache und Diskurs in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Slawistische Perspektiven. München: Otto Sagner Eggert, Hartmut / Golec, Janusz (eds.) (1999): „…wortlos der Sprache mächtig“. Schweigen und Sprechen in der Literatur und sprachlicher Kommunikation. Stuttgart / Weimar: Metzler Fiehler, Reinhard (1990): Kommunikation und Emotion. Theoretische und empirische Untersuchungen zur Rolle von Emotionen in der verbalen Interaktion, Berlin: de Gruyter Drescher, Martina (1997): French interjections and their use in discourse. In: Niemeyer/ Dirven, 233-246 Drescher, Martina (2003): Sprachliche Affektivität. Darstellung emotionaler Beteiligung am Beispiel von Gesprächen aus dem Französischen, Tübingen: Niemeyer (+ reviews by Arnulf Deppermann in: Gesprächsforschung 5 (2004), 84-90 and by Eva Lavric in: Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 121 (2005) 4, 663-665) Ghita, Andrea (1997): Pragmatic aspects of silence. In: Pietri, 377-388 Günthner, Susanne (1997): The contextualization of affect in reported dialogues. In: Niemeyer/ Dirven, 247-276 Günthner, Susanne (2000): Vorwurfsaktivitäten in der Alltagsinteraktion. Grammatische, prosodische, rhetorisch-stilistische und interaktive Verfahren bei der Konstitution kommunikativer Muster und Gattungen, Tübingen: Niemeyer Kryk-Kastovsky, Barbara (1997): Surprise, surprise : The iconicity-conventionality scale of emotions. In: Niemeyer/ Dirven (eds.) 155-169 Kurzon, Dennis (1998): Discourse of silence. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: Benjamins Marten-Cleef, Susanne (1991): Gefühle ausdrücken. Die expressiven Sprechakte. Göppingen: Kümmerle Müller, Cornelia / Ingwer, Paul (1999): Gestikulieren in Sprechpausen. In: Eggert/ Golec, 265-282 Niemeyer, Susanne / Dirven, René (eds.) (1997): The language of emotions. Conceptualization, expression, and theoretical foundation, Amsterdam et al.: Benjamins Philips, Susan U. (1995): Interaction structured through talk and interaction structured through ‘silence’. In: Tannen / Saville-Troike, 205-213 Pietri, Etienne (ed.) (2005): Dialoganalyse V. Referate der 5. Arbeitstagung Paris 1994. Tübingen: Niemeyer Šaronov, I.A. (ed.) (2005): Smocii v jazyke i re i. Moskva: RGGU Stadler, W. (2007a): Prolegomena zu einer Pragmatik des Schweigens. In: Doleschal et al., 283-297 Tannen, Deborah / Saville-Troike, Muriel (eds.) (1995): Perspectives on silence. Norwood / New Jersey: Ablex Wierzbicka, Anna (1999): Emotions across languages and cultures. Diversity and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Yakovleva, Elena (2004): Deutsche und russische Gespräche. Ein Beitrag zur interkulturellen Pragmatik. Tübingen: Niemeyer The Innsbruck Football Research Group Eva Lavric, Gerhard Pisek, Andrew Skinner, Wolfgang Stadler, Erika Giorgianni Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät Universität Innsbruck Innrain 52 A-6020 Innsbruck e-mails: eva.lavric@uibk.ac.at, gerhard.pisek@uibk.ac.at, andrew.skinner@uibk.ac.at, wolfgang.stadler@uibk.ac.at, romy95@libero.it http: / / www.uibk.ac.at/ msp/ aktuelles/ sprache_fussball/ <?page no="376"?> 6. FOOTBALL AND MULTILINGUALISM <?page no="378"?> 375 IRENE GIERA, ERIKA GIORGIANNI, EVA LAVRIC, GERHARD PISEK, ANDREW SKINNER AND WOLFGANG STADLER (THE INNSBRUCK FOOTBALL RESEARCH GROUP) THE GLOBALIZED FOOTBALL TEAM: A RESEARCH PROJECT ON MULTILINGUAL COMMUNICATION International football teams can be seen as complex linguistic ecosystems in which players and coaches with different mother tongues and cultural backgrounds interact with each other. In particular, mixed international teams with large numbers of foreign players might seem likely to meet problems caused by language and communication barriers. Despite linguistic (and cultural) barriers, effective communication within the team is vital for efficient and goal-oriented interaction and co-operation at all times. Types of communication range from everyday practice sessions, tactical instructions and analyses before, during and after a match, to conflicts with referees and contact with fans and the media. In communicative processes, multilingualism (foreign-language communication), lingua franca communication and non-verbal semiotic systems interact in many different ways, while improvisation and proactive language strategies (language training, translation services) all complement each other. The problems arising and the coping strategies in such situations are the subject of the research project described, which will focus on international clubs from various countries; data will be collected through interviews, observation of practice sessions and matches, as well as audio and video recordings, including both examples of difficulties and of successful approaches to the problems in question. Apart from a detailed description and analysis, the aim of the project is to produce a handbook of guidelines as a service to international football clubs. The first part of this paper gives an overview of the planned project, while the second part presents first results based on interviews with an international player/ trainer and a referee. 1. Introduction The international structure of modern football teams (but of other sports teams as well) represents a great challenge for clubs. A trainer with a specific language and cultural background has to form a team with players speaking different mother tongues and coming from countries with different cultures; this team has to be as successful as possible, also from a financial point of view. In this context the question arises how communication works in multilingual teams and how team members understand each other on the verbal and non-verbal level. At the same time there might also be questions concerning the integration of the players in the club and their cultural identification with a club, with its culture and country. We may suppose that multinational football teams have developed special communication strategies for dealing with the challenges typically present in a “globalized team”. The Innsbruck Football Group is planning a research project, “Communication strategies in multilingual football-teams: Achieving exemplary <?page no="379"?> 376 practice” 1 , which aims at studying these strategies in great detail and which will be presented in this article. Despite linguistic (and cultural) barriers, effective communication within the team is vital for efficient and goal-oriented interaction and co-operation at all times. Types of communication range from everyday practice sessions, tactical instructions and analyses before, during and after a match, to conflicts with referees and contact with fans and the media. A corpus of transcribed tapeand video recordings of different international clubs from several European countries represents the basis for this analysis, which aims at examining and subsequently improving the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies that have been developed to cope with communication problems as well as all the characteristics of communication in multinational football teams. The study focusses on communication within the team, that is, communication between trainer and players on the one hand, and communication between the players themselves on the other hand. It will also deal with the linguistic and cultural integration of new players. Applying the methods and procedures of conversation analysis, a detailed corpus analysis will be carried out. This analysis is approached by the researchers without prejudices and expectations; even so, certain hypotheses will need to be formulated. So it can, for example, be supposed that in coping with communication barriers, multilingualism and, as a consequence, the phenomena of ‘code choice’ and ‘code switching’ play an important role. Lingua-franca communication could - at least in some cases - be important as well. Moreover, it can be assumed that in the process of mutual understanding an important role is played by non-verbal semiotics systems (like facial expressions, gestures, body language, graphic representations of game situations etc.), other players acting as interpreters, the common frame of reference and the fact that football playing is mainly a practical activity. 2. Purpose of the research and its aims This project aims at analyzing communication in multilingual international football teams. The following three questions are of particular interest: (1) How does communication work in multilingual teams? (2) What are the reasons that make communication work - or not work, i.e what strategies and structures have been developed by the different clubs to make communication successful? (3) How can these strategies be improved to make communication more effective and to enable new players to integrate more quickly? In order to answer these questions, selected teams will be examined. In a pilot study, three Austrian clubs will be analysed, namely Red Bull Salzburg, FC Wacker Innsbruck and SV Josko Fenster Ried. First of all, this study will contribute to exploring the technical possibilities (for instance, recording the discussion of strategies before the game and during half time). At the same time, by critically analyzing the pilot study itself, the best way of combining the different methods for gathering data (observation, videoand audio recording) should be found. 1 The project was presented to the Austrian Research Fund (FWF) in February 2008. It has so far received grants from the Austrian-Czech Cooperation 2008 and Innsbruck University (through the Swarovski sponsorship programme 2007). <?page no="380"?> 377 Afterwards the main study of the project will focus on major international clubs in Europe. Visits to one club in each of the following countries are planned: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, England and Russia. The selection of clubs will, of course, have to be flexible, depending on which clubs are interested in participating in this project at all. The first clubs which will be contacted are the ones that regularly hold their summer trainig camps in Austria: Lazio Rome, Arsenal London, Real Madrid and Spartak Moscow. By observing the training sessions and team discussions and by interviewing trainers and players, the difficulties and strategies for successfully coping with communication barriers will be found out and analysed. The starting point of the study is the hypothesis that successful clubs have also developed successful strategies to overcome difficulties. The project is interdisciplinary in its nature (Romance languages, English, Slavic languages, translation studies) 2 . It aims at describing the football team as a multilingual and multifaceted ecosystem. Our study will record, describe and analyse the communicative behaviour of all the participants within this complex sytem. Our aim is to develop an efficient strategy that can serve as a model, integrating existing strategies that have proved to be successful and discarding those that are less successful. We aim first and foremost at producing a (descriptive) scientific study of the specific communication processes and strategies in multilingual football teams; the results of this study will be published as a book. But our approach is also prescriptive, one of the aims being the development of a handbook based on our research results, which will provide the clubs with the specific know-how generated by our study. Ultimately, this might even lead to a consulting service offered by members of the research team. Interviews with trainers (for instance, Costantini 2006) and the study of the scanty secondary literature on this topic (especially Kellermann / Koonen / van der Haagen 2006) suggest that communication does indeed play an important role in in multinational football teams. However, until now research has largely ignored this topic, and only the way communication takes place has been examined to some extent; improving the strategies has not been dealt with at all, and a reference model has not been created yet, either. 3. State of research Football has always attracted the interest of researchers. Linguists have mainly dealt with the language of football reporting and commentary (for instance, Brandt 1983 and 1988, Müller 2004, Mackenzie 2004/ 2005), with the use of metaphors in the language of football (for example, Döring / Osthus 1999, Buchauer 2004), with football jargon or with the terminology of football (for instance, Puyal Ortiga 1972, Nomdedeu Rull 2004). There are also some works which analyse football from a media studies or 2 See the composition of the research team, with Eva Lavric and Irene Giera coming from Romance linguistics, Gerhard Pisek and Andrew Skinner from English linguistics, Wolfgang Stadler from Slavic philology and Erika Giorgianni from translation studies. (We are grateful to Carmen Konzett, an English and Romance linguist specializing in conversation analysis, who contributed to the methodological part of the article without actually being a member of the research group.) <?page no="381"?> 378 cultural studies point of view (for instance, Horak / Reiter 1991, Adelmann / Parr / Schwarz 2003, Settekorn 2007). Works from the fields of psychology and sports science (for instance, Brosius / Tullius 1993, Winkler / Reuter 2000) can be quoted as well. 3 Only very few works deal with real interaction in team sports. Three decades ago Digel (1976) wrote on language and speaking in team handball, and in 2005 Fiedler wrote a paper - in the form of an interview - on communication between trainer and players in basketball teams from the point of view of the trainer. Until now the specific topic of football has only been dealt with in a book by Schilling (2001), who writes about communication between trainer and players in amateur football, and in an article (Kellermann / Koonen / van der Haagen 2006) in which the language situation in Dutch and British football clubs is examined. Schilling (2001), who bases his work on ethnographic and conversation analytic methods, is not interested in multilingualism and in communication within the team. Instead, he focusses his attention on the way trainers interact and on “representing the structures of the social world of top-level amateur football.” (Schilling 2001: 17) The article by Kellermann / Koonen / van der Haagen (2006) examines the language situations in Dutch and - to a lesser extent - British clubs from the point of view of club managers and trainers, as well as from the perspective of the players. This study is an analysis of the present situation; the authors are, on the one hand, interested in studying the language situation in the clubs and, on the other hand, in depicting the attitudes of both sides - i.e. club management and players - towards the topics of language, language choice and language acquisition. The article also analyses how foreign players are helped by their clubs in learning the new language. As mentioned above, the main focus is on the Netherlands, whereas the situation in English clubs is only briefly touched on. This article can basically be seen as a summary of the opinions of Dutch clubs playing in the first and second leagues on the relevance of language, and especially the knowledge of the Dutch language, with some comments on the situation in England. The way team members (players and trainer) really interact is not examined in any detail. The survey was made through telephone interviews (with the manager or the press spokesperson) and questionnaires sent to the players by post. The teams were not directly observed by the article’s authors. To date, no descriptive study has been made that describes the (linguistic) interaction in multilingual football teams and that aims at improving the observed processes on the basis of a prescriptive approach, even if successful communication and the knowledge of the club’s language are generally considered to play an essential role (see Fiedler 2005, Constantini 2006, Kellermann / Koonen / van der Haagen 2006). The very fact that no other article in the present volume focusses on multilingualism phenomena in football teams confirms how little this issue has been addressed so far and encourages us to include this project description in the volume, in spite of it being merely ‘work in progress’. 3 See also the comprehensive football (/ sports) and language bibliography at the end of this volume. <?page no="382"?> 379 4. Communication in football: Tasks and functions This project starts from the three main tasks communication has in football: 1) Communication in order to convey information; 2) Communication as a means of facilitating integration in the team, which is associated with feeling at home in the club and, as a consequence, in the society and culture of the respective country as well; 3) Communication in order to convey emotions. Communication in order to convey information relates to the trainer especially, in so far as he has to communicate with all the players in the same way. He must make sure - in particular during training sessions and strategy discussions, but also in private conversations - that he can be understood by all the players, at least to the extent that it is clear what he wants them to do. In this respect the trainer can, if necessary, make his message more efficient by also using non-verbal communication. If the team fails to perform, the mass media may well attribute this failure to the trainer’s lack of linguistic competence and argue that he is not able to provide the correct instructions to the players so that they can play successfully. The fact that players are sometimes not able to communicate with each other is often perceived to be less relevant. Unsuccessful communication among players may, however, lead to the formation of subgroups within the team, which also jeopardizes the integration and the personal well-being of a player in his new environment. Furthermore, it can be assumed that this, in turn, influences the performance of both the individual player and of the whole team. Moreover, the knowledge of the club language in certain cases seems to contribute to a more effective integration in so far as the effort of the new player to learn the foreign language makes him better accepted by the other players. 4 Parallel to the integration into the new team, social integration into the new country and its culture takes place (see Kellermann / Koonen / van der Haagen 2006). Communication outside the team (i.e. communication between individual team members and people outside the club, for instance, journalists, doctors, postmen, mechanics, et al.) is, of course, also relevant. In our study, this type of communication will not be directly accessed through observation, but only through interviews. Finally, language appears to be an important tool for conveying emotions (for example, towards the referee, the other players, on the field, during the training sessions or interviews). Being unable to speak the language of the club can also be frustrating when, for example, a player has scored three times in a single match and cannot be interviewed because he doesn’t even understand the questions asked by the reporter (cf. Constantini 2006). In this context it is interesting to observe that the first words players usually learn in a new language are words expressing strong emotions (insults, swearwords, words expressing feelings of happiness). 5 4 In particular this might be the case when a well-known player joins a club in a so-called ‘football developing country’, which may cause a certain social gap between him and the rest of the team. On the other hand, in international clubs with many foreign players this aspect might play a less important role. 5 The Innsbruck Football Research Group has already done research on emotions in sport, taking into consideration different cultures (see Lavric / Pisek / Skinner / Stadler / Giorgianni in this volume). <?page no="383"?> 380 5. Peculiarities of multilingual football communication The specific structures of football teams also raise some special questions concerning language and communication. First of all, a multilingual football team represents an extremely complex field from a linguistic point of view; it can be seen as a special case of a multilingual working environment. 6 In a team consisting of international members each individual player and each trainer has his personal “linguistic biography”, that is, each player and trainer acquired one (or maybe even two) mother tongue(s) as a child and has learned other languages during his education and/ or his football career. So in the team several different mother tongues will be spoken which co-exist with other languages which each player can speak at different levels. This leads to the following questions: Who in the club speaks which language(s) with whom? Which language(s) does the trainer speak and how does he communicate with his team? How effective is the communication by means of the languages used between trainer and players, on the one hand, and among the players themselves, on the other hand? In this context, strategies of ‘code choice’ and ‘code switching’ have to be described. Furthermore, it cannot be assumed that each player is able to communicate with all the other players. Trainers also work with interpreters in some cases to communicate either with individual players or with the whole team. 7 When looking at the structure of a team, one also has to take into account possible groupings of players of the same nationality and language (though one should not disregard internal rivalries within players of the same group). Moreover, one should not forget that language acquisition is a dynamic process, i.e. the individual linguistic development strongly depends on the amount of time a player or a trainer spends with a club or in a country. It is a fact that a new language can be more or less ‘foreign’ (for a Spanish-speaking player Italian is obviously less foreign - foreign in the sense of new and different - than for a Russian player) and that the speed of the language acquisition process may be largely determined by the origin and linguistic background of a player or a trainer and by the language of the new team. Finally, one has to examine the role of communication that involves using a ‘lingua franca’, which by no means has to be English, but depends on the country and the mother-tongue and/ or foreign language backgrounds of the players (cf. Constantini 2006). The central question is what the criteria are according to which a certain language becomes a ‘lingua franca’ in a team or in a club. One has to examine not only the role of the respective country’s, language but also the influence of the linguistic situation within the team and the influence of the club’s management (in this regard, see Kellermann / Koonen / van der Haagen 2006). Besides the complexity of the linguistic field, the specific kind of communication in a football team also has to be taken into account. In football (as in other team sports as well) the participants communicate not only verbally but also in a non-verbal way. Facial expressions, gestures and body language, on the one hand, and graphics illustrating strategies and tactical moves as well as video studies of the 6 See a series of publications by Lavric: Bäck / Lavric (forthcoming), Lavric 1991, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007 and forthcoming a, b, c, d, e, f, g, as well as Lavric et al. (forthcoming). 7 Cf. Karl Ritter and Alfred Riedl, Austrian trainers of the Saudi Arabian U-19 and U-17 national teams (Constantini 2006), as well as Otto Rehagel in his highly successful work with the Greek national team. <?page no="384"?> 381 opponents, on the other hand, are essential for conveying information. Verbal and nonverbal means of communication act synergetically, the non-verbal aspect helping to make multilingual communication more successful. In order to achieve the intended optimization of the integration process in general and of the adopted communication strategies in particular, it is important not only to analyse how communication works within the team, but also to scrutinize the tools for learning the language provided by the club. The following questions have to be addressed in this context: Does the club promote linguistic integration at all and, if so, how does this happen? How are new trainers supported? Do players and trainers accept the offer to help them improve their language skills? If this is not the case, why do they not accept it? Finally, it is important to find out how effective the measures taken by the clubs really are. Are these just token gestures or does language promotion really matter to them? 8 Since language acquisition is a dynamic process and players often stay for several years with a club or in the same country, one should distinguish between shortterm strategies, used when a player or a trainer joins a new team (for example, interpreters, language courses, etc.), and long-term strategies, which are instrumental for players for developing their linguistic abilities and for integrating into the team, and for trainers to communicate fluently with the team. At this point the role played by ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ interpreters has to acknowledged. The latter are usually experienced players who have been with the club for a long time and therefore speak the language of the club and of the country well enough to be able to act as interpreters for new players (above all for those coming from their own country) and to help them integrate. The question also arises whether the language(s) spoken by the players and especially by the trainers - who have to communicate with all the players of the team, as explained above - play(s) an important role when they are signed on. How important is, for instance, the correct use of the target language, or is it enough simply to communicate? In this respect one should not forget that in football communication has to be conveyed not on a theoretical level, but practically. Language acquisition on the pitch during training sessions (and perhaps during the game as well) may be seen as following the principles of ‘total physical response’ or of ‘trial and error’. An additional aspect not to be disregarded when clubs offer conventional language courses is the fact that players may not be familiar with the Latin alphabet, but with the Cyrillic or the Arabic alphabets instead. Moreover, as explained above, each player has his own linguistic background. This background determines whether a player needs individual help, for example, or more or less time for learning a new language than other players who are in the same situation. A winning strategy should always address the individual needs of the players or of the trainer. Even though verbal and non-verbal communication are the central topics of this study, more general cultural aspects also have to be taken into account in so far as they affect communication within a team. For example, political and ethnic conflicts may hamper communication and have negative effects on the homogeneity of the team and its ability to perform successfully. 8 Regarding these questions, it is necessary to bear in mind that only clubs seriously interested in language promotion can be expected to be sympathetic to this project. On the other hand, measures in clubs with active language promotion may fail for various reasons. <?page no="385"?> 382 6. The method: Interaction analysis and sociogram The first phase of the project will be centered on the collection of empirical data. We are planning to closely observe the chosen teams and to interview players and trainers (in addition to observation and interviews, audioand video-recordings will be made), thus collecting a large data basis for our research. Approximately 45 hours of interaction will be recorded, transcribed and analysed. All material will, of course, be anonymised. This first phase of the project will focus on fundamental communication schemes within the teams (choice of a specific language or of a specific medium/ channel of communication, involvement of translators, etc.), in order to generate questions and hypotheses for the analysis of the recorded and transcribed material. The analysis itself will be guided by the methods and principles of conversation analysis - and thus of ethnomethodology - as developed by Garfinkel (1967). This approach has the advantage of giving a very complex and comprehensive account of communication, allowing researchers to analyse the interaction of all means of communication (facial expressions, gestures, pauses, overlaps, etc.). Hence communication is not only reduced to what is explicitly said. This is of particular importance in football communication, where gestures and diagrams of strategic and tactical moves play a special role. Our analysis will therefore include elements of linguistic anthropology, which focuses on the situational interplay of language, gestures, body postures and the use of artefacts (e.g. a football). (See the groundbreaking studies by Goodwin 1981 and 2000.) One of the great advantages of conversation analysis is that it allows an analysis ‘from the inside’, i.e. one that is based on the linguistic and visual data collected. This is possible thanks to the principle of ethnomethodology (Garfinkel 1967), according to which participants in a social interaction (= ‘members’) always make clear to each other the meaning of their actions (e.g. of their linguistic utterances). This means that they will always ‘contextualize’ their utterances (Gumperz 1976, 1992), showing, for example, by switching their code or by using a specific lexicon that they are passing from the official, formal part of the interaction to a more informal, private part. Conversation analysis thus allows, on the basis of the hints given by the participants themselves, to pinpoint and analyse the relevant contexts and structures of a given interactional episode. For our project this means distinguishing different moves of the conversation (e.g. greeting, trainer’s instructions, analysis of the game, private and professional chat, etc.) as well as the individual acts of communication (e.g. ‘explaining something’, ‘defending one’s opinion’, ‘telling a story’, ‘complaining’, ‘praising / blaming somebody’, etc.) and analysing in detail their sequence, function and structure. Another principle of conversation analysis is the concept of interactional, collaborative construction of all aspects of social reality. Participants interact with their different perspectives towards social reality; they negotiate as to which perspective (or which combination of perspectives) will constitute the relevant frame, the relevant context, for the current interaction. This is of great importance especially in multilingual and multicultural contexts like football teams with players of different origin. Here, negotiating the context means first and foremost negotiating language choices. This is an issue that has to be settled anew in every encounter, even and especially if there is no extrinsic authority to set up rules. Language choice has to be negotiated in every single <?page no="386"?> 383 situation, and this choice also affects and indicates the relationships between interactants. This can take place through different channels: verbal, paraverbal (prosody), non-verbal (facial expressions, gestures, body posture), but also through discourse-structuring features like pauses, overlaps or repairs. All these factors are taken into account and put into relation in a conversation analysis study. Our project aims to show how this negotiation works in the context of multilingual football teams in the context of spontaneous informal speech as it occurs during training sessions and matches, as well as how language issues are dealt with in a long-term perspecive: a football team is a very closely related group - at least for one season - and its members are likely to develop special techniques, be they conscious or unconscious, to settle their language choice conflicts. In order to discover these long-term strategies and to analyse them in a larger context, it is necessary to go beyond traditional conversation analysis methods by carrying out a broader ethnomethodological field study. Only if we combine a detailed analysis of various ‘snapshots’ (i.e. the data gained throug audioand video recording) with a thorough longitudinal study based on observation and interviews can we hope to gain relevant findings. Furthermore, several ‘data sessions’ (another conversation analysis method: analysis sessions in a group) will have to be held in order to prevent a biased approach to the data (expectations, hypotheses, etc.) and to examine them from various angles. Such data sessions can be held within the project group, but they will also have to be organized (e.g. in the context of scholarly conferences) with researchers who are not familiar with the project in order to get different views concerning the data. Data sessions consist, at first, of an uncommented presentation of the data, which generally leads to a refinement of the transcriptions. Then the group either tries to answer a specific research question dealt with by the researcher who has presented the data, or it looks at the material without a specific aim and just comments on and analyses any relevant issues that might come up. One more method that seems very promising when it comes to the study of communication in multilingual football teams is the sociogram (see Oswald 1977), where relationships and communication processes within a group are depicted graphically through a kind of network. In our case it will be the choice of language as well as additional aspects like gestures, illustrations, etc. that can be shown through a multi-coloured scheme. The adaptation of the sociogram method to the study of communication and especially language choice issues was suggested in Lavric (2000) and Lavric (2001); it was then applied by Mrázová (2005) in her study of the communication processes in the foreign department of a Paris bank. Her scheme showed, however, only the communication network surrounding one single working place. In the case of a football team, the graphic depiction would have to show the communication processes within the whole team, as well as with the coaching staff, their languages and their modalities/ channels. Such a graphic overview can be very revealing, as it is known that there are similar schemata showing the interaction of the players during a game, which could be compared with the sociogram of the training and strategy meeting sessions, for example. Significant parallels are likely to emerge between the two. In general, our research needs to have two dimensions on the time axis, which have to be investigated through different methods: on the one hand, there is a long-term <?page no="387"?> 384 and habitual aspect which can be analysed through questionnaires and interviews (Who speaks which language with whom? How much is spoken, when and why? ), dealing with long-term solutions and changes (see the studies by Lavric 2000 and 2001 in a university language department). And there is a snapshot-like short-term aspect which has to be investigated through observations, recordings, and transcriptions (e.g. How did the team communicate during a particular strategy meeting or training session? ). Both aspects are complementary, the first one providing the background for the second. And both are of great importance. Of course, in all these aspects the study has to include not only the team itself, but also