CC BY
46ФИЛОЛОГИЯ
UDC 81
M.V. Laskova, S.A. Zinyakova
Southern federal university Rostov-on-Don, Russia [email protected]
THE LANGUAGE CHARACTERISTICS IN BROADCASTING DISCOURSE
[Ласкова М.В., Зинякова С.А.
Языковые особенности в телевизионном дискурсе]
Television is considered to be the most powerful and major of all media. Television led to emerging of different types of sport commentary. Thus, live commentary demands more skills from sport analyst than just telling the viewers what they can see on their TV sets. This definitely requires more tension and puts more pressure to entertain an audience in a way that elaborated the picture. Football statistics, comparisons, various historical information, different reviews of football matches help to elaborate commentaries. With the help of various language peculiarities the sport analyst attracts audience attention and keeps it during the whole football match. The language used in live commentaries decreases the gap between the commentator and football viewers.
Key words: sport commentary, slang, idiom, metaphor, charactonym, ellipsis.
Television gave commentators a possibility to compete in the football commentary art, with a lot of explanations, comments, errors, judgements, during the match. In the process of football game developing new terms, contributing to better understanding, are invented which definitely helps to quicker information perception [7, p. 95]. One also should avoid a subjective language. The language used by the sport analyst during the live transmissions decreases a gap between the football commentators and the viewers. The character of football commentary is always like a conversation between friends, it presupposes the close relation between the commentator and the audience [7, p. 347]. Special techniques are employed in sport commentary for achieving realism and entertainment [1, p. 78].Today the analyst should use unique angles to engage the viewers by accompanying a football match with lively and entertaining commentaries [11, p. 196]. Oral communication presupposes a connection between the football analyst and the audience, as using of colloquial speech in the live transmission establishes
familiar situation for the viewers [7, p. 347]. Right sport commentary is a combination of objectivity, entertainment, and narration. The commentator should present a faithful description to actions, taking place in the field, but at the same time introduce audience interest and uncertainty by fluent and informal commentaries [1, p. 83]. Professional skills of the sport analyst in a greater degree influence on the commentary quality, various cliches and also speech formulas are peculiar for sport analysis, take place in the field.
Englishman Pierce Egan is usually considered by many people to be the father of sport slang. Communicating with barmen, criminals, vagrants, actors and soldiers, Egan introduced their language into his sport articles in the beginning of 1800s [12, p. 151]. Slang is considered to be the most significant and typical feature of sport commentary, slang occasionally can be taken for commentator's error by the inexperienced viewers [7, p. 308]. There some entertaining examples of football slang can be considered. For instance, the word combination "lifting the silverware" should be understood as "to become a champion" as football winners often lift their trophy up, it is usually a big silver cup with two handles on each side, also football players may kiss it, when the cup is presented to them. The next interesting instance "backheel" denotes to score a goal behind the opponent command. "He's having a mare" - mare is a reduction of the word nightmare, this slang word combination characterizes an unfortunate play of a footballer. "That was a hospital pass" with the help of this word combination the commentator characterizes a dangerous pass of a football player. Another word cannot be left without attention "matchwinner"- denotes a player, who scores the winning goal. A "header'' can be also a player, who heads or is good at the ball leading. There are also a great number of words, where the suffix -er often can be observed, for instance, passer, striker, scorer, crosser. The expression "to be on a yellow card" denotes to obtain one serious warning on the ground of rules violation. "Shot on a goal" often characterizes an attempt to score a goal. The word "supersub" can often be used to describe a player, who repeatedly scores goals as a substitute. By the word "stepover" one can characterize a set of moves around the ball, but without goal score, which is realized to confuse an opponent player. The word combination "A game of two halves'' describes a game, where the final result can differ from the score at half time [2].
As it can be distinctively seen with the help of slang the commentators not only give their bright estimation, but also approaches the viewers as they employ simple and understandable phrases not only for football aficionados but also for people, who for the first time switch on their TV sets.
The sport broadcasters should use familiar vocabulary to require and maintain the audience interest for the football programmes. This is realized with the help of conversational style which introduces sport phrases, familiar lexicon and idioms [1, p. 82]. An idiom is an expression that reports something different from its literal meaning, and that cannot be conjectured from the meanings of its separate words, an idiom can only be comprehended as whole expression to preserve the meaning. There is a row of football idioms, having strongly penetrated to minds that can be employed not only in football commentaries, but also can be encountered in daily life. For instance the idiomatic expression, "to move the goalposts'', denotes to dishonestly alter the conditions and rules of a procedure during its development. The idiom, "to kick someone around' - to harshly mock at somebody. The expression "to watch from the sidelines'" denotes a position where somebody watches the situation instead of taking a direct part in it. The idiomatic word combination "to know the score" can be comprehended as to be familiar with the main facts of the situation [6].
In American football the idiomatic phrase "to drop the ball" means to commit the major mistake, as in American football it is rather important to hold the ball without dropping it. The idiom "sideline" serves to denote that somebody is not incorporated into the action, as players on the sideline are evidently not in the game, if the player is hurt or ejected, he is apparently a sidelined. The word "fumble" in football denotes the situation, when a player loses ball possession, nowadays this idiom can be observed not only in football games, but also in everyday life, for example, "Kate fumbled her keys in her messy rucksack'. The expression, "the game plan", serves to denote elaborated plan of the football game, as coaches analyze plan for every team they play with in the field [5].
Thus, it can be seen that football idiomatic expressions are peculiar as for English, so American languages, providing a fluent characteristics to the actions and situations, taking place as in the field, so in usual life. One can observe that not only football commentators, but also usual people enrich their vocabulary with football idioms, mightily penetrating in common conversations. There are
a great number of mainly football idioms in the language as football game is considered to be the most famous and popular game in the whole world, occupying a major part of people life, correspondingly influencing the lexicon and idiomatic expressions employment.
Commentators resort to metaphor using to describe movements of football players and actions, taking place in the field. Metaphor is a figure of speech, which provides a hidden comparison between two objects. Metaphor is considered to be ubiquitous phenomenon in language, and more specifically in football language. According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, metaphor is appeared to be one of the most important tools, helping to comprehend partially, what cannot be comprehend totally [8, p.134]. The researches provided an interesting parallel between military and football actions. Analyzing the fragment from a football match broadcast one can easily emphasize metaphors, based on war vocabulary. For instance, "Realistically speaking, though, Pellegrini's charges are left battling for a top-four spot between now and the season's end. That win over the Baggies last week, when battling from a goal behind fairly early on, coupled with defeat for fifth-placed Manchester United at Tottenham Hotspur the following day, has left the Citizens well in control of their own fate at this late stage of the campaign. Fourth place is very much theirs to lose" [3]. Thus, as one can observe from the instance, separated from the live broadcast, about five metaphors, having military implication can be found in one broadcast fragment. Also such metaphors, peculiar for military topic as, for instance, attack, beat, captain, defence, often can be found in football language. For instance, defender is a player, who tries to protect the goalposts from score. In accordance with these examples, one observes how military lexicon can be shifted to football one, and this transition is realized by virtue of metaphor.
To create a corporate feeling majority of commentators employ charactonyms in the commentary [7, p. 353]. Charactonym is given for some peculiar special features as in appearance, so in behavior of a sportsman or can represent the derivation from a surname. The football commentators even invented new charactonyms during the live transmissions. This can be characterized as a close connection between the football teams and commentators. For instance, Bastian Schweinsteiger received the charactonym "Swine" according to the derivation from his surname, as the first part of it Schwein is translated from German as swine. The
same situation is occurred with the English footballer Frank James Lampard, he also got his nickname "Lamp-post" or "Lamp"", as his surname is concordant with the word lamp. For instance, Wayne Mark Rooney an English football player and also the captain of the football command "Manchester United" obtained the charactonym "Shrek" mainly on the ground of his formal resemblance with this personage. The other instance, based on formal resemblance is charactonym "El nino" which is translated from Spanish as a "baby"" and belongs to Fernando Jose Torres, this nickname the football player received also by virtue of his young face expression and maybe also because of his early talent revelation. Also it is worth mentioning that Stuart Pearce an English footballer got the nickname "Madman"" as he possessed a very impetuous temper [10]. As it can be noticed sport commentary is impossible without charactonyms as they give a pretty quick description to the football players, coloring commentary, making it livelier and merrier, they come into the sport history.
Ellipsis is another repeated event, characterized by omission of one or several words insignificant for meaning expression. Ellipsis is considered to be rather significant feature of the sport commentary, as majority of the football actions are well observed with the help of television without additional explanations. It can be clearly noticed when during active football actions the commentator particularizes the footballers short names without their circumstantial action clarifications, to speed up their speech and report the most relevant information on match and historical background [13]. For instance, Diego Costa, Willian, Navas, Williaaan, Costaaa...goal by Chelsea. In this example, one can observe how the commentator omits the verbs and notices only the footballers, exactly before the goal was scored. There the commentator does not use verbs in the sentence, but creates a strong tension with the help of intonation.
To conclude, television contributed to sport commentary development, making the football the most popular game all over the world. To create a kind of significant performance the commentators resort to numerous speech devices. One can notice that with the help of various sport commentary peculiar features using, such as slang, idioms, metaphor, charactonym, ellipsis, the football commentators try to animate the viewers attracting their attention. There in the article one pays attention to the most bright and frequently used peculiar features in the speech of football commentators, which can be easily heard during every football match commentation.
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_20 апреля 2016 г.
