PhD N.Y. Berdysheva¹
PhD, Associate Professor G.Kh. Murtazina¹
PhD, Associate Professor N.G. Boykova¹
PhD M.B. Karazhaeva¹
PhD M.S. Golokova¹
1Lesgaft National State University of Physical Education, Sport and Health, St. Petersburg

Keywords: sports media, sports aggression, synonymic array, polysemy, psycholinguistics, emotionality linguistics.

Background. Modern literary Russian undergoes transformations that affect the meaning-forming lexical units and their connotations [5, 6]. For example, such words as ‘dashing’ and ‘monster’ have acquired new colloquial and public meanings equivalent of ‘brave, courageous, daring’ etc. [3, 7]. The national physical education and sports terminology is not immune to such modern semantic transformations – as demonstrated, among other things, by the term ‘sports aggression’. Traditionally, ‘aggression’ and ‘aggressor’ were applied mostly in the Soviet political contexts and media. In terms of the international law, aggression means “using armed forces of some state against sovereignty, territorial inviolability or political independence of another state” with “open hostility that triggers hostility in response” [1].

It should be mentioned that the national and foreign sport science gives a high priority to the sports aggression related issues in studies [2, 8, 9]. Is it appropriate to use the terms ‘sports aggression’ or ‘sports fury’ in modern sports contexts knowing their traditional meanings related to evil, cruelty, hostility? As provided by E.P. Ilyin, “sports aggression means the emotional state dominated by hostile irritation with a tinge of aggressiveness to own self (including annoyance by own failure, oversight, wrong decision etc.) or some other (like the referee’s unfair penalizing decision; fans who curse the athlete or team; coach who “pickles” the athlete on the bench, etc.)” [4, p. 7]. The author reminds that "some athletes deliberately wind up their anger before match notwithstanding the fact that they may be in rather friendly relations with the opponent in non-competitive settings”. In the emotional control domain, such spurred up sports aggression may help athletes mobilize and concentrate, although it is not unusual that it “somewhat blinds the athlete at detriment to the competitive techniques, tactics and versatility as the actions become stereotyped and stubborn when the athlete strive to stick to and prove own role model".

These terms are widely circulating in the colloquial and media contexts – with sports aggression increasingly used in positive connotations. We would give, for example, a few headlines: Salakhov about football: ‘sports aggression is always helpful (amfr.ru, 13.02.2019); Valery Muratov about skating: ‘sports aggression and passion helped Kulizhnikov make the world record’ (matchtv.ru, 03/10/2019); ‘sports aggression or insult? What will work out in the Spartak Football Club vs. Zenith Football Club clash?’ (Sportbox.ru, 1.09.2019). Linguistic analysis of the above shows that meanings and semantics of sports aggression and associating terms have made transformations in the emotional and apprehensive domains.

Objective of the study was to analyze the meanings of the term ‘sports aggression’ in the sporting young people’s communities.

Methods and structure of the study. We run an opinion poll of the Lesgaft National State University full-time sporting students’ (n=180) groups to analyze the modern semantic field of the term sports aggression, with the students sampled from the Russian Language and Speech Culture course under 49.03.01 Physical Education discipline. We sampled the academic boxing, kickboxing, taekwondo, athletics, sport dance and figure skating groups.

Results and discussion. Given on Figures 1 and 2 are the Lesgaft National State University students’ opinion poll data on their perceived meanings of the term sports aggression as neutral, acceptable, positive, unacceptable or negative.

Figure 1.  Perceived meanings of sports aggression: boxing, kickboxing and taekwondo groups

Figure 2. Perceived meanings of sports aggression: athletics, dance sport and figure skating groups

The above data demonstrate the difference in the perceived meanings of sports aggression by the boxing, kickboxing and taekwondo groups – versus the athletics, sport dance and figure skating groups. Most of the sample perceives sports aggression as a necessary component of the competitive spirit. About half of the sample feels reference to the athlete's negative emotions due to own failures, opponent’s actions or ref service. 100% of the sample reported facing such perceptions in trainings or media comments on sports competitions.

When surveyed on acceptability of verbal aggression in sports comments and media, the different sports groups were of different opinions. It is important that students understand that journalists make resort to verbal aggression deliberately to spice up some competitive moments and interest of the audience. The poll data on perceptions of sports aggression and analyses found the following opposite connotations.

Positive connotations: excitement, clash, struggle, indignation, willpower, charge, courage, motivation, mind-setting, overcoming, rage, self-criticism, strength, composure, stamina, rivalry, aspiration, fight, firmness, confidence, stubbornness, perseverance, extreme effort, emotional peak, energy peak, energy, cool mind.

Negative connotations: aggression, fury, hostility, anger, annoyance, anger, revenge, discontent, resentment, hatred, intolerance, failure, resentment, despair, bitterness, hindrance, failure, irritation, ferocity, rage.

Final question of the opinion poll on perception of the term sports aggression in public speech as normal, neutral, acceptable, positive, unacceptable or negative - found a unanimous perception of the term as normal and acceptable in mass media and communities for its special expressiveness.

Conclusion. Linguistic and stylistic analyses of the Lesgaft National State University students’ opinion poll data give reasons to conclude that the term sports aggression traditionally perceived as negative undergoes semantic transformations in the national mass media and sports communities. Growing use of this term in sports media and communities has transformed its perceived meaning into positive. A special role has been played in this process by mass culture that promoted and consolidated positive connotations of the term sports aggression. This means that language of the national mass media naturally transforms with the ongoing socio-cultural transformations with the relevant implications for the modern colloquial and literate Russian language.

References

1. Kuznetsov S.A. Great Dictionary of Russian language. St Petersburg: Norint publ., 2000. 1536 p.
2. Zakamornyiy S.O. Formation of physical education university students’ competence in prevention and correction of athletes' aggression. PhD diss.. Siberian state un-ty of physical culture and sports. Omsk, 2012. 192 p.
3. Ilyin D.N. Development of lexical semantics. Positive processes. Negative meaning of the word in Russia. Rostov-on-Don; Taganrog: Southern Federal University publ., 2018. 150 p.
4. Ilyin E.P. Sports Psychology. St. Petersburg: Piter publ., 2008, 590 p.
5. Kirillova N.B. Medialogy. Moscow: Akademicheskiy proekt publ., 2015. 424 p.
6. Murtazina G.Kh., Boykova N.G., Berdysheva N.Yu. et al. Precedent phenomenon in sport toponymy. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2019. No. 9. pp. 50-52.
7. Pankratova O.A. Linguosemiotic characteristics of sports discourse. PhD diss.. Volgograd, 2005. 204 p.
8. Smirnova V.V. Dynamics of personal characteristics of athletes in psychological support process (case study of elite wrestlers). PhD diss.. St Petersburg, 2012. 252 p.
9. Kavussanu M. Moral behaviour in sport: A critical review of the literature. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2008. No. 1, pp. 24–138.

Corresponding author: yournetnata@gmail.com

Abstract

Objective of the study was to analyze meanings of the term ‘sports aggression’ in the sporting young people’s communities.

Methods and structure of the study. The authors run an opinion poll of the Lesgaft National State University full-time sporting students’ (n=180) groups to analyze the modern semantic field of the term sports aggression, with the students sampled from the Russian Language and Speech Culture course under 49.03.01 Physical Education discipline. We sampled the academic boxing, kickboxing, taekwondo, athletics, sport dance and figure skating groups

Results and discussion. Linguistic and stylistic analyses of the Lesgaft National State University students’ opinion poll data give reasons to conclude that the term sports aggression traditionally perceived as negative undergoes semantic transformations in the national mass media and sports communities. Growing use of this term in sports media and communities has transformed its perceived meaning into positive. A special role has been played in this process by mass culture that promoted and consolidated positive connotations of the term sports aggression. This means that language of the national mass media naturally transforms with the ongoing socio-cultural transformations with the relevant implications for the modern colloquial and literate Russian language.