Football language is arguably the world’s most widespread special language, where English has played – and still plays – a dominant role. The present study reports on the influence of English in terms of direct loans in this field, as manifested in 16 European languages. Based on a set of 25 English football words – dribble, goal, offside, hooligan, etc. – the investigation shows that while direct borrowing is common, there is a great deal of variation between the languages studied, Norwegian exhibiting the highest number of foreign loans and Finnish the lowest. The significance of the resulting patterns is discussed, providing some tentative explanations of the phenomena noted, where linguistic, sociolinguistic and cultural factors are taken into account.

Football language may be regarded as the world's most widespread special language, where English has played a key role. The focus of the present study is the influence of English football vocabulary in the form of loan translations, contrasted with direct loans, as manifested in 16 European languages from different language families (Germanic, Romance, Slavic, etc.). Drawing on a set of 25 English football words (match, corner, dribble, offside, etc.), the investigation shows that there is a great deal of variation between the languages studied. For example, Icelandic shows the largest number of loan translations, while direct loans are most numerous in Norwegian; overall, combining direct loans and loan translations, Finnish displays the lowest number of English loans. The tendencies noted are discussed, offering some tentative explanations of the results, where both linguistic and sociolinguistic factors, such as language similarity and attitudes to borrowing, are considered.

Football language, like other special languages, is not only of lexical interest. It is also special by virtue of various syntactic and semantic features, related to the situational context of football. Two areas of verb syntax, involving transitivity, are in focus: the omissibility of certain contextually recoverable "football objects" (e.g. Iniesta passed [the ball], Messi finished [the attack]) and the occurrence of "unconventional" objects of certain verbs (e.g. Their third goal killed the match, Manchester United sold Ronaldo to Real Madrid). Thus, like other special subject areas, football creates its own semanticpragmatic framework, paving the way for constructions and collocations that deviate from those applying in general language.

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Basically, Content and Language Integrated Learning, CLIL, aims at increasing language learners’ exposure to a foreign language by using it as the medium of instruction when teaching ordinary school subjects, e.g. biology and history. It is nowadays a widespread educational approach in Europe and research into CLIL is attracting increasing interest. However, research on the effects of CLIL in the Swedish context is scarce. To remedy this to some extent, the large-scale, longitudinal CLISS project, focusing primarily on CLIL as well as non-CLIL students’ proficiency and progress in written academic English and Swedish in upper secondary school, was launched in 2011. In this article, the CLISS project is accounted for in some detail, and the results from the first round of English receptive vocabulary test are presented. As this test, known as the Vocabulary Levels Test, was administered at the very outset of the CLIL experience for the CLIL students, these results represent baseline data. Findings reveal that already from the start, the CLIL students outperform the non-CLIL ones, and also that the males have a larger vocabulary than the females in both groups of students. Some possible reasons for these results are discussed.