Linguistic Comparison of Men's and Women's Football Highlight's Commentary in Matches of English National Team

Tsishevska D. Linguistic Comparison of Men's and Women's Football Highlight's Commentary in Matches of English National Team: bachelor’s thesis : 035 Philology / supervised by T. Biletska. Kyiv, 2025. 97 р.

This paper presents a linguistic comparison of men's and women's football highlight commentary in matches of the English national teams. The object of this study is English-language football television commentary as a type of sports discourse. The subject encompasses the use of cohesive devices and figurative language in male and female football TV commentary, with particular attention given to lexical units, syntactic structures, pronoun reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunctions, metaphors, and idioms. The research investigates how gender influences cohesion and figurative language in football commentary and their communicative functions in live sportscasting.
The bachelor's thesis is divided into two main parts. The first part outlines the theoretical foundations of sports discourse and its evolution, including its key linguistic and pragmatic features, and examines gender representation in sports media. The second part presents a comparative analysis of male and female football commentary from English national team matches, focusing on linguistic patterns such as vocabulary, syntax, cohesive devices, and stylistic choices, as well as the portrayal of players and teams and gender biases present in the commentary.
The analysis reveals shared conventions and distinct gender-based differences in football commentary. Both male and female commentary use fragmented syntax, rapid pacing, pronouns, ellipsis, and exclamations for narration, evaluation, dramatization, and engagement. However, male commentary shows greater lexical density, complex nominal structures, and more idioms and metaphors, often for evaluation or dramatization. Female commentary prefers concise syntax, more subordinate clauses, and a balanced narrative focusing on teamwork and technical execution. This linguistic disparity reflects and reinforces gender biases, portraying men as iconic heroes and women through narratives of growth and resilience.