Fighting words: a corpus analysis of gender representations in sports reportage

Abstract

In this study, we explore linguistic constructions of gender in US sports reportage concerning two related basketball altercations: the Pacers–Pistons NBA fight in 2004 and the Shock–Sparks WNBA fight in 2008. We use a combined corpus and qualitative textual analysis to investigate coverage from the days immediately following the fights and to compare that coverage to sports reportage more generally. Our analysis reveals key differences in narrative focus; for example, that NBA coverage is most interested in blame assignation in the isolated event, while WNBA coverage concerns gender and the league writ large. Such patterns, which are realised linguistically in both explicit and implicit ways, contribute to the ‘othering’ of women and women athletes in the increasingly important sports-media-commercial complex.

Intersections of nationality, gender, race and crime in news reporting: The case of Oscar Pistorius – Olympian and murderer

“…Our research falls into the broad area of corpus-assisted or corpus-based discourse analysis, which is increasingly used to examine identity representations across media (e.g. Jaworska and Krishnamurthy, 2012;Baker et al, 2013;Hunt 2015) and, more recently, to explore the representation of sport and/or athletes, such as work by Aull and Brown (2013), Caple (2013), Jaworska (2016) and Jaworska and Hunt (2017). CADS utilises the quantitative tools of Corpus Linguistics to identify patterns of ideological interest in large bodies of language data.…”

Women, Who Climb - A Corpus Linguistic Tour Description with Potential Danger Zones

“…This study found that the concept of masculinity is referred to much more frequently overall, and that femininity is often represented focusing on the topic of gender differences and disparities (and not so often in more general texts). An analysis of linguistic constructions of gender in US sports reportage (basketball) revealed that reporting on the women's basketball league is always marked and thus contributes to the 'othering' of women and women athletes in sports news reporting (Aull, Brown 2013). Ismail (2016), investigating gendered keywords in Malaysian sports news discourse, moreover found the gender marking of sports competitions and associations and that female athletes are often associated with emotions.…”

Aivan loistava syöttö - Arvottava diskurssi suomalaisessa urheiluselostuksessa

“…Selittävänä tekijänä voisi olla esimerkiksi se, että miesten sarjojen pelaajat ovat yleensä katsojille tutumpia, minkä vuoksi pelaajien nimet nousevat useammin esiin selostuksen aikana (kulttuurisesta selitysmallista ks. Aull & Brown, 2013).…”

“…esim. Aull & Brown 2013;Billings, Halone & Denham, 2002;Campbell & Bebb, 2020;Kivelä, 2018). Molemmissa tutkimushaaroissa on havaittu runsaasti esimerkkejä hegemonisista rakenteista, joita urheilussa käytetty kieli rakentaa ja ylläpitää.…”