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"Play ball!": A Study of Speech Variations and Characteristics of UK Sports Commentary
Halmstad University, School of Education, Humanities and Social Science.
2020 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesisAlternative title
"Play ball!" : A Study of Speech Variations and Characteristics of UK Sports Commentary (English)
Abstract [en]

This study uncovers how and to what extent UK sports commentaries vary in terms of speech variations and other sociolinguistic factors, such as social class and gender, in relation to the social status with which different sports are associated. It also analyses how the use of jargon, slang, colloquial forms of English, and other linguistic features are incorporated in the commentaries of the sports and how it affects the information expressed by the commentators. In order to do this, theories and scholarly work on variations in speech, phonological and sociolinguistic features will be applied to examples of recorded commentaries made during matches in five popular televised sports, namely football, cricket, rugby union, netball, and tennis. The primary data will consist of two-minute transcriptions made from matches from each sport. The study finds that there are speech variations in the commentators’ ways and that they relate, to some extent, to the social class associated with the sport which the commentators are commenting on. The variations also depend on the commentator’s role in the broadcast, whether or not they feature as the general commentator or as an expert in the particular sport. It also reveals how commentators rely on the use of jargon, slang and, colloquialisms to make the communication to the spectators/listeners efficient and entertaining. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. , p. 95
Keywords [en]
sports commentary, speech variations, sociolinguistics, accents, dialects, gender, jargon, slang, colloquialisms, sports
National Category
General Language Studies and Linguistics Specific Languages
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-43153OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-43153DiVA, id: diva2:1469401
Subject / course
English
Educational program
The Language Studies Programme - Processing and Editing Texts, 180 credits
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2020-09-22 Created: 2020-09-21 Last updated: 2025-10-01Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf