The Discourse of Online Sportscasting
Constructing meaning and interaction in live text commentary
| Masaryk University, Brno
This book offers the first comprehensive linguistic analysis of live text commentary, one of the most innovative online genres of modern news media. The study focuses on written sports commentaries in online newspapers that enable partial real-time audience involvement in the media text. Adopting an approach from interactional pragmatics, the book identifies the genre’s characteristic micro-linguistic features as well as its unique narrative structure. Live text commentary is shown to be a hybrid and multimodal text format – an internally complex form of media communication that combines elements of live spoken broadcasting, blogging, informal conversation and online chat. It aims to inform as well as entertain the audience: by using humour, banter and real or staged dialogue it seeks to create a sense of community among its readers – sports fans. The book will be of interest to many scholars in linguistic pragmatics, discourse analysis and social sciences, as well as to all others interested in modern online genres, news media and sports discourse.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 297] 2018. xxii, 303 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements | pp. xi–xii
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Abbreviations | pp. xiii–xiv
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Transcription conventions | pp. xv–xvi
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List of figures | pp. xvii–xviii
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List of tables | pp. xix–xx
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Preface | pp. xxi–xxii
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Chapter 1. Introduction | pp. 1–14
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Part I. Locating LTC
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Chapter 2. Conventionalized patterns of language variation | pp. 17–32
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Chapter 3. The linguistics of sports commentary | pp. 33–52
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Chapter 4. Live texts, blogging and journalism | pp. 53–84
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Part II. Analysing LTC
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Chapter 5. Material and characterization of data | pp. 87–117
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Chapter 6. Structuring the LTC: The event and liveness | pp. 119–139
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Chapter 7. From pre-match to post-match commentary | pp. 141–162
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Chapter 8. Managing event discontinuities | pp. 163–184
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Part III. Interacting through LTC
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Chapter 9. Creating co-presence | pp. 187–225
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Chapter 10. Threading and narrative layers: From interactivity to interaction | pp. 227–271
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Chapter 11. Conclusion | pp. 273–278
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Appendix
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Appendix
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References
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Index | pp. 299–303
“Jan Chovanec’s The Discourse of Online Sportscasting is a readable and insightful study of how live sporting events are reported in text form on-line. He uses this genre to explore several issues that are central to digital media: the emergence of new genres, the ways authors engage with readers, the development of conversationality, the use of intertextuality, and of course, the liveness that is a central part of our experience of sport. He is a subtle analyst with a thorough knowledge of the academic literature of several disciplines, and he also knows the culture of football. I recommend it for researchers on the discourse of emerging digital genres.”
Greg Myers, Lancaster University
“One of the recent forms of electronic communication in the internet are Live Text Commentaries (LTCs) on sports events, especially commentaries on football matches as they unfold. Jan Chovanec gives a superb and very readable introduction to this new genre, discussing its linguistic aspects with an emphasis on its pragmatic and communicative functions. I recommend the book to everyone who is interested in recent forms of internet communication (and in soccer).”
Hans Sauer, University of Munich
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The Discourse of Online Sportscasting addresses several central issues in media discourse studies, including temporality, narrativity and constructing co-presence in contemporary networked communication. In this book, Chovanec provides a nuanced and rigorous analysis of live text sports commentary, which is sure to be of interest to scholars of discourse and pragmatics whose interests extend well beyond this particular genre.”
Camilla Vásquez, University of South Florida
“The volume describes a remarkable journey of sports reporting from written coverage (newspapers), live audio coverage (radio broadcasts) and live audio-visual coverage (TV) back to written commentary, this time live, online and with audience interaction. Using the latest linguistic methods and resources it describes this new sportscasting genre which reflects the public's fascination by and addiction to digital technologies and the convergence between written and spoken language.”
Aleš Klégr, Charles University, Prague
“It is clear that the book provides an excellent basis for researchers of emerging media genres in and outside the field of sports communication. Because of its very clear structure and approach as well as its thorough but nevertheless focused treatment of theoretical foundations, this study is particularly suited to be used in teaching, either on sports communication more specifically or on media discourse and media genres more generally. Students planning to do a research project on any of these subjects will find this a very accessible and inspiring source and an excellent guide in methodology.”
Antje Wilton, University of Siegen, in Journal of Pragmatics Vol. 149 (2019), pp. 129-131
“This is a thorough description of its empirical domain. By placing on-line live commentary within the wider literature of register and genre, and sports commentary in general, this book provides a clear account of a new sports commentary genre.”
Koenraad Kuiper, University of Canterbury, in Language in Society, October 2020
Cited by
Cited by 7 other publications
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2020. Publications Received.
Language in Society 49:2 ► pp. 329 ff. 
Fedorova, Claudia, Vasily Argounov & F.V. Fetyukov
2022. Metaphorical conceptualization in national sports.
SHS Web of Conferences 134 ► pp. 00028 ff.
Felczak, Mateusz
2022.
In Video Games and Comedy [Palgrave Studies in Comedy, ],
► pp. 233 ff.
Johansson, Marjut, Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen & Jan Chovanec
2021.
In Analyzing Digital Discourses,
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Meier-Vieracker, Simon
2021. The evolution of football live text commentaries.
AILA Review 34:2 ► pp. 274 ff.
Xie, Chaoqun
2020. The pragmatics of internet memes.
Internet Pragmatics 3:2 ► pp. 139 ff.
Xie, Chaoqun, Francisco Yus & Hartmut Haberland
2021.
In Approaches to Internet Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 318],
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Subjects & Metadata
BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
BISAC Subject: LAN009030 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Pragmatics