A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SELECTED FOOTBALL MATCHES COMMENTARIES IN THE 2022 FIFA WORLD CUP

Abstract

The goal of football commentaries is to captivate viewers and provide a more profound comprehension of the game beyond what is seen on the field. Existing studies on football commentaries have focused on syntactic analysis, the discourse features, and pragmatic features, exploring various Arabic and European football matches but none have explored the football commentary sequence, rhetorical strategies, and the Generic Structure Potential of football commentary. This study therefore examines the commentary sequence, rhetorical strategies and the Generic Structure Potential in the 2022 FIFA World Cup final and quarter-final matches. The study adopted Ansary and Babaii’s (2004) discourse Generic Structure Potential (GSP) to reveal the Generic structures present in the football commentaries. The study showed that eight macro-structural elements characterized the generic structure potential of the football commentaries. Out of these, six were obligatory; two were optional, while three of them were iterative. The obligatory elements identified were Introduction [INT], Exposition [EXP], Half Analysis [HFA], Halftime Analysis [HTA], Post Halftime Analysis [PHTA] and Post Match Analysis [PMA]. The optional elements were Pre Match Analysis (PRMA) and (PEN), while the iterative elements were Half Analysis {[HFA]}, Halftime Analysis {[HTA]} and Post Halftime Analysis {[PHTA]}.The study further showed that there was a prevalent use of technical terms, statistical and historical information, and vivid descriptions; more importantly the exposition of the sequences the football commentaries follow. The study concludes that there is a distinctive discourse of football commentary and suggests that the model could be applied to other football commentaries.