Chapter 13Stylistics of sports English.docx

1、Chapter 13 Stylistics of sports EnglishChapter 13 Stylistics of Sports EnglishContents1. Introduction2. Definition and classification3. Stylistic analysis of sports English3.1 Stylistic Features of Sports English Headlines3.1.1 Structural features3.1.2 Functional features3.1.3 Cognitive features3.2

2、Stylistic Features of Sports English Texts3.2.1 Structural features: endocentric constructions3.2.2 Functional features3.2.3 Cognitive features4. Comments5. Research prospects6. Summary1. IntroductionNowadays, sports plays a crucial role in social and cultural life of modern society, where the devel

3、opment level of sports marks the degree of social civilization. With the galloping development of economy and the enhancement of international communication, sports has been attracting more and more attentions, especially after Chinas successful bidding for and holding of the 2008 Olympic Games. The

4、 language and personalities of sports have become part of our common vocabulary. It is also believed that sports journalism has been maturing since the final decade of the 20th century. It is adjusting and changing relations and standards involving sports and society (Garrison, 1993).Today, sports h

5、as become a major selling point for many comprehensive newspapers or daily papers, because of which there is an urgent need to analyze the stylistic features of sports English. However, people always find it difficult to comprehend what is covered when reading sports news, still harder when reading

6、those in another language. This does not mean that sports news is of extra obscurity, all for the contemporary sports news possesses many peculiar features except the general characteristic that all kinds of news have, which display in their vocabulary, sentence and discourse, as well as the cultura

7、l background. The speedy and prompt delivery of information in news reporting is considered prominent; therefore, news reporting language is novel, vivid and readable. Furthermore, sports news reporting, which is an important linguistic and social embodiment, is no longer a simple list of scores. Ac

8、tually, the contemporary news reporters also focus their attention on many things other than the competition itself, for example, the contract squabbles of athletes, drug or alcohol abuse by athletes, urine check, player tirades against fans or coaches, domestic violence by athletes and even the wed

9、dings and divorces of athletes.【这一段删去】Compared with other written registers of English, sports English has its peculiar features, which has been largely neglected by applied linguistics. Only a limited amount of research has been done in this field. Crystal and Davy (1969)【参考文献中需要列出来】analyzed “The L

10、anguage of Unscripted Commentary” for cricket; Plimton (1977) describes “The best American sports writing”; and Ferguson (1983) analyzed the language of American baseball. But their studies are related only to spoken commentary broadcasted on the radio. And in China, Zhang Jian (1994) and Wu Qianlon

11、g (2001) 【参考文献中需要列出来】studied several pieces of sports news respectively; Ju Yumei (2004) analyzed the stylistic features of sports news in English journals. Though some research has been done on the stylistic features of sports English, a systematic framework of the stylistics of sports English stil

12、l needs to be established with the rapid development of modern linguistic theories and disciplines.2. Definition and classification of sports EnglishSports English is a special type of English text. It is commonly accepted that sports English mainly refers to sports news reporting, which is an open

13、and free field in English journals. Generally speaking, sports English functions as a tool to deliver the fresh sports news to readers or listeners. It mainly serves to meet the sports enthusiasts interests in certain athletic items. So it may not be so serious as political news. Sports news reporti

14、ng covers a wide range, including football, basketball, volleyball, swimming, tennis, skating, golf, racing, etc. Therefore, it also has some peculiarities, such as focusing on athletics sports, being international and emotional, concentrating on recreational parts. Among the above features, the las

15、t one is of great salience, just as Meng Lianfen (2007: 219) put it, “Sports is defined as a source of diversion or physical activity engaged in for pleasure”.A sports news reporting consists of a headline, a lead and a body. When we read a newspaper, a headline is the most probable thing that comes

16、 first into sight. It has two requirements: to capture the essence of the event and to attract the readers attention. Like headlines, a lead is the first one or two paragraphs of a news story, which includes a summary of the most important material, some background and secondary material. The main p

17、art body contains the details of the sports news.Concerning the classification of sports English, there are different criteria. On the basis of the degree of elaboration, it can be divided into the following types: straight reporting, feature story, depth reporting and column. The first type-straigh

18、t news, which seems to be one of the most clearly defined text categories, tells readers what happened in a straightforward account. It not only stands up to the test of purpose-oriented genre story, but also sets apart from other major newspaper text categories by a number of stylistic features. Su

19、ch as the following piece, the readers will get a piece of direct and straightforward information about this NBA game from the report.EAST RUTHERFORD, N. J., Dec. 7 Jason Kidd returned Friday night from, depending upon whom you believe, his bout with migraine headaches or his one-game protest, but h

20、e was of little help to the struggling Nets. With Kidd unable to get untracked until late in the fourth quarter, the Nets lost, 96-89, to the Houston Rockets. (from the New York Times, Dec. 8, 2007)Feature story can be anything about sports, which can usually entertain the readers. Take the followin

21、g as an example:Things have been bad in Houston the last two weeks and Yao is getting desperate. The night before the disaster in Philadelphia in another lopsided loss against a decidedly average Toronto team, an exasperated Yao said, “I feel this is the worst game I ever had in my career.” He only

22、had to wait about 24 hours before putting on an even worse performance, shooting an intolerable 3-of-11 against Sixers a team the Rockets beat by 50 points last season.Others have argued that Yao is not the one who is the problem. Yu Jia, the well-known Chinese sports commentator, wrote on his blog

23、that teammate Tracy McGrady is the Rockets “No 1 problem” and he is the one who should be coming off the bench. (from China Daily, Dec. 13, 2007)The aim of this sports English text is not to deliver some news to readers, but to amuse them. It is just a featured story about a crisis of the leadership

24、 in Rocket Yao Ming or McGrady.The third type depth reporting attempts to put a news event into perspective by relating it to other events or reports. Basically it is a concrete and detailed sports news report, which demonstrates【这样用是否准确？is considered 】 to be authoritative. For example,The last one

25、- a column is the ultimate in journalistic freedom. It lets the writer indulge in creative expression and personal opinion that would not be tolerated in any other kind of story (Bell, 1991: 237). A sports columnist can pass judgments. Based on the standard whether it is a report on game, sports Eng

26、lish can be classified into two types: match sports English and non-match sports English. The former one describes the matches directly, and is the main form of sports English; while the latter portrays something outside the matches, such as some privacy about athletes. The following one belongs to

27、the non-match sports English:CARSON, Calif., July 13 David Beckham began his soccer career in the United States on Friday with a stadium reception that was part crusade, part contrived spectacle, as if it had been jointly produced by Billy Graham and World Wrestling Entertainment. Music blared, conf

28、etti cannons exploded and about 2,500 fans of the Los Angeles Galaxy attended the introduction, some chanting, “Theres only one David Beckham,” others singing his name to the theme from “The Flintstones.” Some 600 media types from 10 countries chronicled Beckhams brief appearance. He wore a smoky gr

29、ay suit and drew a verbal yellow card for calling his sport “football,” before correcting himself, saying, “Ill get used to that.” (from the New York Times, July 14, 2007 ) Due to the rich resource of sports English and its diversified features, we are to analyze its stylistic features in the coming

30、 section.3. Stylistic features of sports EnglishTraditionally, stylistic analysis usually gets its concentration on the graphical level (including punctuation, pictures, etc.), lexical level (including word length, word classes, word forms, etc.), grammatical level (including sentence length, senten

31、ce structures, etc.) and semantic level (including rhetoric devices, cohesive devices, etc.). In combination with different schools of linguistics, we are intended to analyze the stylistics features of sports English from structural, functional and cognitive perspectives. In addition, because of the

32、 particular salience and significance of the headlines in sports English, our demonstration will focus on the headline and also the body of sports English. Concerning with corpus, we will select associated material from those celebrated newspapers-The New York Times, The Times, The Mirror, The Guardian, The Associated Press and The China Daily.3.1 Stylistic features of sports English headlinesNarassinha (1998: 10) said, “If journalism is an art, the headline is its heart. This is applicable to all headlines, whatever it is for news reports, articles or editorials. By glancing at headlines