Language in Sport

This collection showcases the language of “doing” sport, emphasizing the real-time talk of players and coaches during training and games toward elucidating real-time language use and encouraging effective sporting pedagogies. While there is established work at the intersection of linguistics and sport, this book places a particular focus on real-time participation, as opposed to media reporting or post-match commentary.

The volume is divided into two sections which look at language in action in sporting contexts, with the first part dedicated to player communication and the latter on coaches’ engagement with players, to explore such issues as team building, leadership, player guidance, and instruction through language. Examples are drawn from a wide range of sports across levels, including basketball, volleyball, Formula 1, rugby, cycling, and skiing across professional, amateur, and youth leagues. Taken together, the volume makes the case for an integrated social and linguistic perspective on language use in sport in real time to better understand its impact on players, foster more inclusive sporting pedagogies, and continue to grow sport research in interdisciplinary directions.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars in language and communication, applied linguistics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and the sociology of sport.