Associate Professor, PhD Sh.R. Yusupov
Kazan (Volga region) Federal University, Kazan

Keywords: corporate style, language specifics, commentator, sport journalist, information service methods, stylistic figures, sport dialect.

Background. Studies of the sports journalistic language will be designed to address a number of successive missions.

First, due priority needs to be given to a technological mission, i.e. the initiatives to improve the technical tools applied by sport journalists. The modern progress in multimedia technologies both has given the means to step up the sport event coverage standards and determined the new requirements to a professional journalist’s background. A modern journalist must be professional and fluent in applying a wide range of special tools in his/ her work to cover sport events in the most efficient manner. This mission largely implies the sport journalist’s professionalism in a studio and in front of cameras in live broadcasts, with a variety of media resources being involved to support the processing and coverage of sport news in particular and sport information on the whole.

Second, due attention should be given to the relevant education, knowledge and skills improvement initiatives designed to give a sport journalist a set of relevant theoretical and practical knowledge and skills in the following fields:

– Language and speaking culture, including due fluency in the relevant special sport terminology including slang terms;

– Social, legal, economic and political background; and

– Media industry, including traditional and social mass media organizations and internet sources specializing in the sport coverage services.

Objective of the study was to analyze the current situation with the sport journalistic language and classify the key tools and methods of sport information coverage process.

Methods and structure of the study. The study was designed based on a questioning survey of the sports journalistic community and a historical analysis to find and explore the chronological timeframes and key progress stages of the modern sports journalistic language toolkit.

Study results and discussion. In opinion of Almaz Gafiyatov, Sports Content Chief Editor of “Novy Vek” [New Age] Broadcasting OJSC: “A sports journalist should, above all, always keep track of every sport news to be well up in authentic information about the sport events; in addition, he should perfectly know the rules and specific aspects of one or another sport discipline and be well informed about individual athletes”.

Evgeny Evnevich, Staff Correspondent of “Match TV” Broadcasting Company, said the following: “A sports journalist must be knowledgeable enough both within and beyond the thematic background so as to be well informed in the relevant key economic, social and political issues”.

Generally, the respondents from both the journalistic and athletic communities were found to believe that a modern sport journalist must keep track of the events in the subject field and persistently improve his/her professional knowledge and skills.

The third mission is of special interest as it requires the journalist to:

– Find the most efficient means to report/ comment/ analyze sports information;

– Work out and perfect his/ her individual trademark style to facilitate the information being reported in the most multisided, appealing and fascinating manner; and

– Be able to spur and keep up interest of the audience to the reported content.

Almaz Gafiyatov, Sports Content Chief Editor of “Novy Vek” [New Age] Broadcasting OJSC said: “Every journalist develops his own reporting style depending on what mass media vehicle he works for, what are his responsibilities and what exactly he wants to deliver to the reader or spectator. The broader is the experience and the higher is the versatility of the sport journalist’s individuality, the higher is the role of his trademark style in how the information is reported”.

In addition, the individual reporting style of a sport journalist is largely dependent on the editorial policies and overall stylistics of the mass media vehicle he/she works for. Some mass media organizations require the journalists being very concrete in reporting the information and avoid “play on words”, excessive emotions and some other language specifics. Other agencies may give high priority to analyses, personal views of the anchors/ reporters, elements of humour, irony or criticism in how the information is covered etc. [3]. However, the modern information reporting, commenting and analyzing styles are generally dominated by the key specific traits of the common sports journalistic language with some recent changes in sport journalism on the whole and its language stylistics in particular.

Many sports journalists tend to believe that the ongoing evolutionary trends in the sector are dominated by the technological advancements, new ways to report the sport information, higher contribution of the online information etc., whilst the sports journalistic language have stayed largely the same for the last few years.

To provide an insight to the recent evolutionary changes in the national sports journalism, we should first consider the key events in its history. It was in the early XIХ century that the sport journalism came into being as a part of the global mass media culture. First reports on the horse racing events and boxing matches for the sweepstakes were published in the USA [1]. Later on, the emerging sport press played an increasingly important role in different sport disciplines being popularized in the sports-interested and supporting social strata.

It was in the early ХХ century that sports commenting business emerged and has been rapidly on the rise since then as a new sector in journalism, and the sport journalistic language evolution with its specific traits has been determined by the sector mission.

Radio broadcasting was the first development stage of the sport commentary as a genre, with such formats as radio discussion, radio report and radio newspaper being the most popular broadcasting standards. It was the inability of the audience to watch the sport event that largely determined the style and specifics of the-then sport journalistic language.

The reporter’s speech was required to be highly illustrative and colourful, with high tempo and intensity of the reported information and versatility of the stylistic tools and expressivity boosting skills to help attain the key objective of the commentary. The commentator was required to keep track of every action of the athletes, expressively report it to the audience and find time for the necessary background information.

At the next stage, the radio broadcasting capacities were complemented by the TV reporting formats that effectively turned the audience into real-time supporters and participants of the sport events.

Study results. As things now stand in modern sport journalism, its language combines the traditional formats and the information reporting/ commenting/ analyzing tools that have been formed for the past decades. Presently one of the key concepts of journalism on the whole and sport journalism in particular is the reporter’s compliance with the ethical rules of speaking and political correctness that generally tolerate no rude language and other forms of verbal aggression including the so-called “hostility language”, with the journalist being always expected to act in a highly tolerant manner and with maximum respect to the commonly accepted fair-play and Olympic principles.

The present situation of the national society and culture largely determine the journalist language stylistics in the sport event coverage and commenting, with the following key traits of the modern language:

– Sport reports are basically designed in a newspaper journalistic style, with the colloquial/ informal language styles being acceptable in some cases in the event coverage and commenting process;

– Elements of irony are also acceptable in the reports for emotional colouring of the report and to spur up attention of the audience;

– Different iterations and inversions are recommendable in the live sports commentary to step up the expressivity of the report;

– Information given to the audience by the commentator is to be supported by the key figures and statistical data to reinforce the factual aspect of the sport comments for the audience. It is acceptable and recommendable for a sport journalist to report the match statistics, goals, accurate passes and takeovers scored by individual players and teams on the whole;

– It is often beneficial for the coverage of a sport event being emotional, highly illustrative in wording and individual vision of the event by the journalist;

– Metonymy is a stylistic figure often applied by the best sport commentators when they, for instance, compare the leading players with panthers, foxes, hawks, gunners etc. and thereby apply the positive contents of the symbols both to the player and the club or team, increasing emotionality, enthusiasm and expressivity of the report [2];

– It is typical for the modern sport journalist language being extremely saturated with words of foreign origins, with both formal foreign replicas and colloquial forms being acceptable. In football and other team sports, for instance, such terms as “hat trick” or “poker” are now generally used in application to three or four goals scored by one player in the same game, respectively;

– Most of the foreign terms used in modern sport journalism are replicated from English equivalents, and their broad application may be considered acceptable since the terms and definitions have been long in use by the sport community and fully understandable for the audience, particularly when it comes to such common terms as foul (infraction of rules), time (part of the game timeframe), referee (judge), goalkeeper etc. Despite their foreign origins, these terms have been commonly accepted by the national sport community;

– It is common for the modern sport language to combine the neutral wording with colloquial and even slang terms to colour the report by extra expressivity and emotions – when, for instance, a sport commentator applies the term “mustard plaster” meaning the yellow card;

– Grammatical structure of the modern sport journalistic language is broadly tolerant to syntactical constants with imperative mood, personal pronouns etc. that may be considered efficient tactical tools of communication so that the audience could feel being closely involved in the sport event in a friendly and appealing environment.

Conclusion. The modern sport journalistic language is still in progress, with special emphasis being given to a variety of aspects including the following:

– Intentional and skilful application of the relevant stylistic figures, lexical expressivity stressing tools, tropes etc.;

– High emotionality and expressivity;

– Trademark style of every journalist;

– Wide variety of the sport-specific terms and expressions forming a unique sport dialect; and

– Increasing preference of the colloquial and common language tools and reporting styles easily understandable and acceptable for the audience.

Highly skilful and talented applications of the above methods and tools to improve the speaking culture may be referred to as the sport journalist’s/ commentator’s/ reporter’s mastery. It is the talent-driven choice of language tools and styles of the event reporting, commenting and analyzing process that largely determines the coverage of sport events by the modern mass media organizations, the coverage being, in its turn, instrumental for the social attitudes and interest to sport accomplishments and challenges being duly cultivated and maintained.

References

1. Alekseev K.A., Il'chenko S.N. Sportivnaya zhurnalistika (Sport journalism: Master's textbook). – Moscow: Yurayt, 2014. P. 42-55.
2. Guttsayt R.L. Yazykovaya igra v rechi sportivnogo kommentatora (Language game in sports commentator's speech) // Mediaskop. – 012. – Is. # 1.
3. Chernikova E.V. Osnovy tvorcheskoy deyatel'nosti zhurnalista: ucheb. posobie (Fundamentals of journalist's creative activity: Study Guide). – Moscow: College of Media and Publishing, 2012. P. 173-222.

Corresponding author: rinatbox@rambler.ru

Abstract

The article explores the evolutional trend in the modern sport journalistic language, with a special attention to the evolution of sports journalism on the whole and variation trends in the sport topics coverage styles. Modern developments in the sports industry including the technological improvements in the industry in many aspects including the event coverage technologies require new practical skills, abilities and competences being mastered and developed by a sport journalist. A top priority should be given t o persistent progress of the sport journalistic language in the context of these trends, with a reasonable codification and adaptation of the language to the broad audience.

One of the key problems of modern sports journalism is journalists’ abilities, knowledge and skills to secure high quality, correctness and adequacy of the event coverage, including comments and information analyses. The evolution process of the modern sports journalistic language is dominated by the constant improvements in sport event coverage methods that are driven, among other things, by the language code transformations. It should be noted that the modern sport journalists need to give a due priority to the growing demand for the political correctness in language.