Football Discourse Research Articles

Football live text commentary as a speech genre (Based on materials in English and Ukrainian languages)

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the speech genre “live text commentary” within the football discourse. The analysis procedure covers seven criteria, with the help of which the communicative-pragmatic genre aspects are examined in English and Ukrainian languages. The addresser’s communicative goal and the recipient’s corresponding model have been identified. The narrative content of the communicative event has been clarified. Potential preceding and subsequent speech genres have been identified. The peculiarities of the verbal realization of the author's communicative goal have been taken into account. The results of the research have assisted in determining the leading characteristics of the hybrid genre. Common and distinctive features in the represented languages have been established.

МОВНЕ РІЗНОМАНІТТЯ ФУТБОЛЬНОГО ДИСКУРСУ В УСНОМУ МОВЛЕННІ КОМЕНТАТОРІВ

The article characterizes the linguistic diversity of football discourse in the oral speech of commentators on the video material of the match between the football teams Dynamo and Minaj. The theme of football language in the scientifi c work of Ukrainian scholars is well developed qualitatively, but not quantitatively. However, there are already sig-nifi cant studies at the intersection of discourse studies and diachronic sociolinguistics. Scientists are also actively studying the football vocabulary of the present time.Spoken language is very dynamic and changeable, so the question arises of its normalization, analysis, and identifi cation of specifi c characteristics in various aspects, especially in the lexical linguistic system as the most sensitive, changeable, and open to external trends. The spoken language, like the written language, is diff erentiated by the spheres of use: formal and informal, professional and non-professional (slang).Special attention should be paid to the football discourse, which verbally serves the most popular sport in the world in general and in Ukraine in particular – football. In gen-eral, discourses are characterized by some hierarchy. This type of discourse is thematically focused on a football game and uses all linguistic tools, including terms and slang, for this purpose. A sports commentator acts as an intermediary between players and spectators. The lexemes recorded in the commentator’s oral speech were explained using various sources: currently available dictionaries of sports and football terminology, an explanatory dictionary, a dictionary of slang, and data from sports websites. The author reveals the linguistic phenomenon of delayed slangisms, which has not yet been studied in the scientifi c literature. Their nature in morphemic, lexical and stylistic dimensions is characterized

Мессізалежний vs мессізалежність: iсторія двох неологізмів у футбольному інтернет-дискурсі

In modern football discourse, speakers often verbalize actions, phenomena, signs and processes associated with the team leader, which creates the image of an idol, a star. This leads to the creation of neologisms that can enter different languages and be codified in lexicographic works. The article analyzes the history of the neologisms мессізалежний ( Messidependent) and мессізалежність ( Messidependence) in the football internet discourse of European languages. It is proved that the components ‑ залежний (‑ dependent) and ‑ залежність (‑ dependence) are suffixoids. It was found that the innovations мессізалежний ( Messidependent) and мессізалежність ( Messidependence), which derive from the surname of the Argentinian football player Lionel Messi, were coined on the basis of Spanish at the end of the 2000s. Spanish‑language variants were actively used by the football linguistic community, which led to their calquing in other European languages, including Ukrainian, and their lexicographic fixation in online dictionaries. The history of the formation and development of these neologisms is determined by extralinguistic factors related to Lionel Messi’s football career, first of all, his inspirational play for the Catalan team “Barcelona” and the Argentine national side. The availability of calqued equivalents in more than 20 European languages confirms the internationalization of football language, the tendency towards its monosemantic character, its common mutual understanding and demonstrates the interaction of different lexical systems.

THE PICASSO OF OUR FOOTBALL: REALIZATION OF INTERDISCURSIVITY THROUGH ARTISTIC MODALITIES IN THE SPANISH DISCOURSE OF FOOTBALL

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the implementation of areas of interdiscursivity of the Spanish-language football discourse through the perspective of the categories of arts. The study is empirical and aims to trace the tendency to interdiscursivity, which is embodied through metaphors in the period of 2012-2021. By its nature, sports football discourse is an open and subjective construct, which is also characterized by an obvious social nature and carries on itself a sign of the society in which it functions. The study of this phenomenon requires an interdisciplinary approach, which is implemented in a constant dialogue with other discourses. The article presents a number of examples from the press (Marca, As, Mundo Deportivo, Sport, El País, El Mundo, rtve.es) and books on football, which demonstrate an open nature of the Spanish-language football discourse and the implementation of interdiscourse in field of arts in general (the game as a work of art, as crafts), and its specific fields. In particular, we trace the involvement of painting and fine arts, famous artists, literature (epic, poetry, ode, myth, allusions to famous works), theater and cinema. Special attention should be paid to the Spanish picaresque, music in the broadest sense, including ballet and dance, music groups, Spanish cultural realities (flamenco, Spain as a country of autonomies, national literature and gastronomy, holidays, the world of bullfighting). The pragmatic function of such markers in football articles is to verbalize a vivid picture of a sports event on paper, increase the drama of victory or defeat, celebrate the victory of the winners or criticize their behavior or actions, which in turn becomes possible due to the adjacency of sports football discourse with an artistic one.

Ivan Bobersky as the creator of the Ukrainian football terminology in Halychyna

This article analyzes the football terms proposed for use in the Ukrainian football discourse by a well-known public figure, the founder of the national physical education and sports tradition Ivan Bobers’kyi. Emphasis is placed on the basic approach of Bobers’kyi to the development of the Ukrainian football terminology – the search for specific equivalents to foreign names (se-mantic derivation) and the creation of terms on national grounds (morphological and syntactic word formation), which would be clear to the general public, easily perceived and assimilated. The most important thematic groups of football vocabulary used by Bobers’kyi in his text-book Zabavy i Hry Rukhovi. Chast III. Kopanyi Miach (Entertainments and Moving Games) have been singled out. The content of these groups of names is demonstrated through a series of syno-nyms to outline a special concept at the initial stage of term formation. Also, modern analogues to the football terms of the early 20th century, unknown today to both football fans and profes-sionals and linguists, are presented. It is argued that the football terminology suggested by Bo-bers’kyi in the first Ukrainian football textbook Kopanyi Miach (Football) proved successful in the creation of the names of football concepts on a national basis. In fact, there are more Ukrai-nian names in all the thematic groups of football vocabulary used by the author in this manual than borrowings, barbarisms, and hybrid names found in the text. Bobers’kyi did not copy foot-ball terminology used in other European languages but searched for a verbal definition for foot-ball concepts trying to preserve the spirit of the native language. In an effort to demonstrate the richness of his native language and its word-formation potential, Bobers’kyi coined the Ukrai-nian term for football kopanyi miach (a kicked ball) – a term that most accurately conveys the dy-namics of the football game itself. It is emphasized that Ukrainians owe to Bobers’kyi not only the dissemination of informa-tion about football but also the beginning of the Ukrainian football discourse in the native lan-guage and the creation of football terminology on a national basis. Keywords: football discourse, Ukrainian football terminology, Ivan Bobers’kyi, native terms, loan-words.

Linguo-Stylistic peculiarities of football discourse in modern sport public ISM

The article describes linguo-stylistic features of football discourse in modern sports. Football is an event of cultural significance and it is not only an integral part of the social, cultural and cognitive direction in the modern world, but also a special linguistic reality. The concept of football as a linguistic-cultural phenomenon of modern reality reflects important features of language. In this article we tried to define the linguistic and stylistic features of football discourse by examining football as a linguistic-cultural concept that is an important element of language.

“They could be good players if they trained”: exploring the football discourse of five-year-old boys and girls

ABSTRACT This article is part of an ethnographic study that aims to explore the power relations that are created around football in a school located in Portugal. The data collected show that the social and cultural conceptions that exist around football serve to exclude both girls from this sport and also children with lesser sporting skill. However, we found that boys who were excluded from this sport did not always aspire to reach the dominant masculinity represented by the game of football. At the same time, boys who play football sometimes combined hegemonic behaviours of masculinity with other less oppressive behaviours. This article tries to confirm the existence of a model of ‘flexible masculinity’ which serves as an analytical tool for future research on the construction of masculinities in young children.

«А ці зросли богатирі на київському полі: „Канева”, Сабо і „Базіль”, „Лобан”, Турянський, „Срібло”». (Прізвиська українських футболістів совєтського періоду)

The nicknames, which come into being as supplementing the person’s official name, are informal anthroponyms by which the environment individualizes or characterizes a person. Marking people with nicknames is a characteristic feature of the football discourse in the whole world. In Ukrainian linguistics, informal person’s names of football players have not been the object of study yet, that is why their analysis is still topical.
 The aim of the article is to analyze informal names of football players who played in the Ukrainian teams in the 20-80s of the ХХth century. It enables scholars to trace the tendencies in creating informal personal names and also can contribute to drawing social-linguistic conclusions about anthroponym usage in sports discourse.The basic method of the study is discursive analysis of the facts taken from printed sources (first of all from the Ukrainian sports media of that time) and their interpretation. Among diverse ways of creating football players’ nicknames in the Soviet period, the most effective were various transformations of players’ surnames, most often by truncating last names. A lot of nicknames were created by cutting football players’ first names or surnames and also by adding to them suffixes with diminutive semantics. Many informal names are the diminutive forms of the players’ names. Among this type of nicknames, there are those created according to the Ukrainian patterns and also in accordance with the Polish, Hungarian, and Russian patterns of creating diminutive forms of names. During that period, the patronymic names were used as nicknames for the first time. There were a lot of informal names which were created metaphorically on the basis of people’s appearance or character features, or both at the same time.
 Analysis of the Ukrainian football players’ nicknames in 20-80s shows that the motivational basis for those anthroponyms creation is the player's surname, its diminutive form, and features. The ways of creating those names involve metaphors and parts of surnames. The prospects of the studies are tracing dynamics of creating football players’ nicknames in various periods of the Ukrainian football development.

“You Ought to Play Football!” Football Terminology in the Literary Works by Yurii Smolych as Representation of the Ukrainian Football Discourse in the Naddniprianshchna Regional Lexicon in the First Half of the ХХth Century

Diachronic analysis of the football terminology creation in the Ukrainian language does not only allow reviewing its functioning in special contexts which are usual for this layer of vocabulary, but also provides a basis for determining the use of the football nominations in the literary texts. Yurii Smolych is practically the only writer from Naddniprianshchyna region of the interwar period who touched on the football topic in his literary works. That is why the review of his texts is very important for clarifying the specificity of the Ukrainian football nominations development in the Naddniprianshchyna region. The main goal of the research is the analysis of the selected football lexicon from the literary works by Yurii Smolych. Comparison of it with special football nominations which functioned for naming the same football notions in Halychyna before World War II can provide further opportunities for tracing peculiarities of the Ukrainian football discourse in Naddniprianshchyna in the first half of the ХХ century.
 The analysis of the Ukrainian football vocabulary which was used in Yurii Smolych’s literary texts has revealed that the author uses extremely wide range of special football terms. The analyzed 19 groups of football nominations manifest that the foreign loanwords in names of a football game, its parts and football tournaments, names of a team and unions of teams, names of the game moments dominate. The majority of the original names concern the lines of football players on the playing field, names of fans and their actions. Both the loanwords and genuine Ukrainian nominations are the base of the groups denoting names of football uniform and the results of football games and their quantitative indicators. Ukrainian lexemes and hybrid derivatives form the main part of the nominations regarding football equipment, names of football actions, variety of kicks, training activities, names regarding peculiarities of a football game, whereas foreign loanwords prevail in the nominations of football players and the names of a football field and its parts. Thus, in his literary works Yurii Smolych has involved various lexical units concerning the most important thematic groups of football lexicon in which loanwords and hybrid nominations prevail. It is characteristic of the football discourse in Naddniprianshchyna, unlike the football language in Halychyna, where genuine Ukrainian nominations prevailed over loanwords in the first half of the ХХ century.
 
 Key words: Ukrainian football discourse, Yurii Smolych, literary text, football terminology, thematic groups of football names.
 
 Sources
 Smolych, Yurii. «Nashi tainy». Smolych, Yurii. Dytynstvo; Nashi tainy; Visimnadtsiatylitni. Kyiv : Naukova dumka, 1987, pp. 136–377.
 Smolych, Yurii. «Ia vybyraiu literaturu». Smolych Yu. Tvory. 6 vols. Vol. 6. Kyiv, 1973, pp. 582–602.
 
 References
 Protsyk, Iryna. ““Football Teaches to Defend and Gain”: Thematic Classification of Ukrainian Football Terminology at the end of the ХІХth – Beginning of the ХХth Centuries”. Herald of L'viv Polynechnic National University “Problems of Ukrainian Terminology”, no 842, 2016, pp. 151–7.
 Protsyk, Iryna. ““He has become Anardent Supporter of Football for All his Life”. Ukrainian Football Terminology in Literary Works in the 30–40-ies of ХХ Century”. Zapyski z ukrains′kogo movoznavstva, iss. 24, vol. 1, 2017, pp. 318–28.
 Protsyk, Iryna. “Football Terminology of the 1st Half of the 20th Century in the Text”. Terminolohichnyi Visnyk, iss. 4, 2017, pp. 281–8.
 Struhanets, Yurii. Semantyka, struktura, funktsionuvannia futbolnoi leksyky v ukrainskii literaturnii movi pochatku XXI stolittia. PhD Thesis Abstract. Ivano-Frankivsk, 2016.
 Struhanets, Yurii. “Funktsionuvannia futbolnoi leksyky u khudozhnii movi”. Vitchyzniana nauka na zlami epokh: problemy ta perspektyvy rozvytku: materialy XX Vseukrainskoi naukovo-praktychnoi internet-konferentsii (30–31 Jan. 2016, Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi), iss. 20, 2016, pp. 122–4.

“Three strikes on goal in the first half”: vocabulary of the official football discourse in artistic works by Serhiy Zhadan

Background. Ukrainian football discourse and the aspects of the functioning of the football vocabulary in the texts of artistic style has become of great interest over the last few years due to the influence of linguistic and extra-language factors. The multi-genre works (poetry, prose, essayism) by Serhiy Zhadan where football nominations for official and informal football discourses were recorded are the object of the study.Purpose. The purpose of the research is to find out the variety of football vocabulary used in Serhiy Zhadan’s artistic texts, to reveal the semantics of football names of official football discourse and to classifythem according to the thematic principle.Methods. Linguistic observation and lexicographic analysis of recorded football lexemes are the main methods of research used in the article.Results. The following groups of football nominations are singled out according to the analysis of the vocabulary of the official football discourse, which functions in the texts of art by Serhiy Zhadan: the names of the football game, the names of the football match, its variants and parts of the game, the names of football buildings and their parts, the names of football teams (general and proper names), the names of players and other persons involved in football, the names of the football equipment and the football uniform, the names of the rules of the game, the names of the game moments and violations of the rules of the game, the name of the match results, the names of football actions, the names of football tournaments, match reports and tournaments, statistics, and the names of footballers and football functionaries.Discussion. The analysis of the actual material found in the artistic texts of Serhiy Zhadan showed that the author used a varied vocabulary from the most important thematic groups of football vocabulary, which is quite natural because S. Zhadan is a long-time supporter of the game of millions, an active football fanand captain of the Ukrainian writer’s football team. It is necessary to consider the football nominations of official and unofficial football discourses used in the author’s texts in detail in the future.Article received 04.09.2018

Word Formation Strategies and Semantic Relations in Football Discourse

This paper explores the word formation processes and semantic relations in football discourse. It aims to investigate the type of word formation and semantic relations of words that are associated with the written football discourse. Knowledge of word formation with semantic relations of words is very relevant in enriching or expanding vocabulary power in English. It facilitates the learning of English words and aids effective communication. Application of word formation knowledge can solve the problem of inadequate or limited vocabulary power among the learners and users of English language in a second language situation. English as Second Language (ESL) learners cannot acquire vocabulary and affixes knowledge in the classroom alone, adequate attention need to be paid to using materials from the media, that is both print and electronic media. This will assist in improving their vocabulary development. There are different types of word formation strategies in English namely: blending, clipping, back formation, coinage, reduplicatives, borrowing, compounding, acronyms and abbronyms. At the lexico-semantic level, we have synonyms, antonyms and lexical repetition. Keywords : word formation, vocabulary, media, affixation, abbronyms, synonyms, discourse DOI : 10.7176/RHSS/9-8-07 Publication date : April 30 th 2019

ФУТБОЛЬНЫЙ ДИСКУРС: ЯЗЫКОВАЯ ВАРИАТИВНОСТЬ И НАЦИОНАЛЬНАЯ СПЕЦИФИКА (НА МАТЕРИАЛЕ ФРАНЦУЗСКОГО И АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКОВ)

The article is devoted to the urgent problem of increasing speech communication efficiency in football environment with the aim of achieving full mutual understanding between its participants. Since each culture has its own way of playing football, its tactics to achieve victory, its manner of supporting teams, difficulties in the process of the communication of multilingual participants in football discourse arise. In this work, the author, analyzing the variants of the football language, its lexical, syntactic, stylistic peculiarities, concludes that for successful communication in a foreign language the ethno-cultural studies of the cognitive-pragmatic aspect of the discourse being considered are necessary, and it is also important to choose the right version of the language and style of communication, which is suitable for the given socially conditioned and professional situation.

De la furia española al buen juego: los orígenes del "tiquitaca"

Los estilos de juego nacionales forman parte de la configuración de la construcción de una identidad nacional en el interior de los países, en especial en lo referido a los deportes más populares. En España, este estilo futbolístico ha pasado de ser identificado con la furia española a serlo con el tiquitaca. Hasta ahora, los análisis que se han llevado a cabo sobre este proceso se han centrado en el análisis de los medios de comunicación como generadores de discursos que buscan reproducir un consenso social hegemónico. Este estudio pretende ampliar el campo de estudio a las prácticas concretas de los deportistas profesionales y a sus identidades y cultura compartida. De este modo, a través de 31 entrevistas en profundidad a futbolistas y entrenadores de élite y a periodistas y árbitros, se reconstruye el cambio de discurso en el fútbol español a principios de los años noventa, coincidiendo con la irrupción del cambio de modelo de negocio del fútbol profesional, para comprender que supuso al mismo tiempo una modificación de las prácticas de entrenamiento y de juego, y que prácticas y discursos se alimentaron mutuamente para modificar la comprensión hegemónica del fútbol en España.

‘Highlander Ithimu yezwe lonke!’: intersections of Highlanders FC fandom and Ndebele ethnic nationalism in Zimbabwe

Football is one of the most emotive cultural forms through which people experience and express nationalism. The study demonstrates intersections of Zimbabwean Premier Soccer League (PSL) team – Highlanders FC fandom and Ndebele ethnic nationalism in Zimbabwe. This nationalism challenges state narratives of a ‘united Zimbabwe’ and advocates for secession of Bulawayo and Matabeleland provinces to form an ‘independent Ndebele nation’. Literature on Zimbabwean football has under-theorized its interface with football discourse. The author was an observer as participant in Zimbabwean football stadia for a four-year period observing terrace rituals, especially songs and chants during Highlanders FC matches. In-depth interviews were also conducted with selected fans to get clarity on observed issues. The study concludes that while discussing secession is criminalized and condemned as ‘tribalism’ in Zimbabwe, Highlanders FC fandom is a critical site where some people express feelings and aspirations towards establishment of a separate ‘independent Ndebele nation’.

Football Terminology of the 1st Half of the 20th Century in the Text

Functioning of football vocabulary in artistic texts has become the centre of attention of Ukrainian linguists over past years. In this research analysis of football terminology of the 1st half of ХХ century in the little-known comedy with afootball plot written by the inhabitant of Lviv Ivan Kernytskyi «Korol striltsiv» (the footballer who scored the most goals) (Krakiv – Lviv, 1943) has been made. In this article an attempt has been made to trace how a Ukrainian writer of interwar period, while writing a humorous play with a football plot, used special football vocabulary which was actively forming in the Ukrainian language in the 1st half of ХХ century. The aim of the research is to demonstrate the variety of functioning of football terminology in the 1st half of ХХ century in the structure of an artistic text on the football theme. On the basis of the analysis of functioning of football terms of the 1st half of ХХ century in comedy by Ivan Kernytskyi it has become possible to find out the following: 1) in this work terminological units from the most important thematic groups of football vocabulary have been used; 2) the largest are the following thematic groups of football terms: names of football actions (kopaty, kopaty miacha, hraty, hraty na vorotakh, hraty na pravomu luchnyku, hraty pryzemno, hraty hostro, favliuvaty, kosyty, rozbyvaty, patalashyty, striliaty bomby, braty miach na nohu, nakynuty hostre tempo, nakynuty vysoku hru, trenuvaty, vyhraty zmahania, pereity do ekstra-kliasy), names of participants of a football match (futbolist, kopun, pravyi luchnyk, strilets, korol striltsiv, pomich, zirka, futbolna zirka, zirka ukraiinskoho sportu, sportova zirka, prymadonna, zmahun, sportovets, sportsmen, suddia), names of football games, battles, tournaments, football institutions (futbol, miach, kopanyi miach, sport, zmahannia, futbolni zmahannia, vyrishni zmahannia, zmahannia za mystetstvo, persha polovyna, mystetstvo, druzhyna, kliub, sportovyi kliub, sportive tovarystvo), names of a football field, football equipment (hryshche, hryshche kopanoho miacha, polovyna hryshcha, krylo, karne pole, vorota, brama, shtantsiata, futbolivky); 3) among the stated terms lexemes used in direct meaning prevail; 4) there are terms which have undergone semantic transformations, first of all, they have gained figurative sense. Observations over functioning of football terminology in the analyzed drama has made possible to find out certain tendencies of formation of national football terminological system during its most intensive period of development; in particular, it has been shown how selection of one, the most used term out of the synonymic row was made and how polysemy was created. Thus, the humorous play by Ivan Kernytskyi is an authentic source of valuable information about development of Ukrainian football discourse in the 1st half of ХХ century.

Nigerian football: a case of social media and sport insider information

The increasing use of information and communication technology, particularly social media, has extended the reach of football discourse beyond traditional boundaries determined by in-groups of administrators, other football stakeholders and legacy media gatekeepers. Privileged football information refers to football information that would otherwise be restricted to insiders and may include ongoing, real-time or proposed decisions or events by football administrators, players, and other key football stakeholders. The relative anonymity of social media provides football administrators, insider journalists, player agents and others who have access to privileged information, with a communication channel to clandestinely disseminate the information. The paper explores possible motivation of an insider, Muyiwalawal, who posted insider information on Eagles Nest, a discussion board for Nigerian football fans, before and during the 2014 World Cup. We also report on the impact of the information on members of Eagles Nest. We find that the insider in this case is motivated by identity as an insider, prestige and member appreciation. Additionally, we find that persuasive impact of the information narrative is dependent on recipient's interpretation of narrative fidelity.

Modern English football fandom and hyperreal, ‘safe’, ‘all-seater’ stadia: examining the contemporary football stage

Through a critique of various social, cultural, political and technological changes in English football as a result of the Taylor report into the safety of football stadia post-Hillsborough in 1989, this paper explores the way in which the modern ‘safe’ all-seater stadium is often experienced by fans in a hyperreal and relatively passive fashion. The paper then considers some of the challenges posed by these developments and the potential for fans to renegotiate and adapt in the face of a middle classing of football discourse. Finally, the paper examines the social control agenda inherent within the neoliberal development of all-seater stadia, whilst highlighting the response of the English Football Supporters Federation and their ‘Safe Standing Campaign’. The paper will conclude by offering a tentative critique of an innovative response by Manchester City F.C. supporters and their participatory ‘Poznan’ celebration in all-seating areas based on auto-ethnographic interpretation.

‘Bhora Mugedhi versus Bhora musango’: The interface between football discourse and Zimbabwean politics

Football is the most popular sport in Zimbabwe and across the globe. It has been asserted elsewhere that the game is not limited to scoring goals on the pitch but that this also occurs in politics and power struggles. This study explores the interface between football discourse and politics during elections in Zimbabwe in July 2013. The study is based on the premise of a neo-Gramscian perspective which views popular culture (including football) as a terrain of ideological struggle. It utilises an ethnographic approach to make a ‘thick description’ of the relationship between football discourse and contemporary Zimbabwean politics. The study employs critical discourse analysis on purposively selected political campaign speeches, political advertisements, songs by politicians, and comments posted and circulated in social media such as Facebook and Whatsapp during and after the election period by ‘ordinary’ Zimbabweans. The findings suggest that political parties, specifically the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) appropriated football images, symbols, metaphors and discourses in their campaign communications. Zimbabwe symbolically became a football pitch where these two main rivals battled to score political points. ‘Ordinary’ Zimbabweans resembled the fans and/referees in the game whose vote symbolically became the act of scoring goals for ZANU PF; while for MDC-T it was akin to giving a red card to the ZANU PF party.

Conflict-Construing Metaphors in Nigerian Football Discourse

This paper examines conflict-construing metaphors in Nigerian football discourse. Particular emphasis is placed on ascertaining metaphorical expressions, conceptualisations and the implicit experiential-ideology from a Cognitive Analysis approach with insights from Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Discourse Processing Theory. In the selected football discourse, a total of sixty news items were selected randomly from the online version of the Punch Newspaper, Kick Off and Complete Sports, covering a two-year time span:20 11 to 2012. On the basis of the identified metaphorical expressions, our findings reveal that sports journalists draw from our social memory of duel and war to conceptualise FOOTBALL IS A DUEL and FOOTBALL AS WAR. Thus, with the backgrounding of the fun associated with football, spectators and players tend to ensure victory since victory has nothing to do with fun.