English and Dutch terms in Belgian Dutch soccer reporting: a mixed-methods approach

ABSTRACT

English is no doubt the language of soccer. At the same time, many countries have over the past century introduced heritage alternatives for English soccer terminology. This paper aims to better understand the resulting choices that need to be made between sports terminology borrowed from English (e.g. keeper) and heritage alternatives (e.g. Dutch doelman). Two studies on Belgian Dutch mass media soccer reporting are presented. Study 1 charts the frequencies of English words and heritage alternatives for 20 soccer concepts in three genres for 38 journalists, revealing a highly variable presence of English. Study 2 reports on a thematic analysis of semi-structured expert interviews asking three journalists to reflect on the position of English terminology in (their own) reporting. Though study 1 reveals a dispersed pattern, the interviewees in study 2 report they do not see a need for more uniform practices or top-down language policies. At the same time, they believe that commentators, pundits, and journalists should adapt usage patterns. Overall, the results of our innovative mixed-methods approach allow us to better understand how the language of soccer has been and is being shaped through the interaction of the individual and the collective, the local and the global.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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2. Crystal, English as a Global Language; De Wit, “Internationalization of Higher Education Nine Misconceptions”, 6–7; and Booij, “English as the lingua franca of Europe”, 347–357.

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8. Osterhammel and Petersson, Globalization; and Seidlhofer, “Lingua franca English”.

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12. Matras, Language Contact; Winter-Froemel, Entlehnung in der Kommunikation und im Sprachwandel; and Zenner, “Cognitive Contact Linguistics”.

13. Hoffer, “Borrowing”, 541–548; Duckworth, “Zur terminologischen Grundlage der Forschung auf dem Gebiet der englisch-deutschen Interferenz”, 35–65; and Onysko, Anglicisms in German.

14. Galinsky, “Stylistic aspects of linguistic borrowing”, 35–72; Chesley and Baayen, “Predicting new words from newer words”, 1343–1374; and Hock and Joseph, Language History, Language Change, and Language Relationship.

15. Zenner, Backus, and Winter-Froemel, Cognitive Contact Linguistics.

16. Following conventions in usage-based linguistics, we mark concepts with small capitals and lexicalizations with italics.

17. Zenner, Speelman, and Geeraerts, “Cognitive sociolinguistics meets loanword research”, 749–792.

18. Onysko and Winter-Froemel, “Necessary loans – luxury loans?”, 1550–1567; Rohde, Stefanowitsch and Kemmer, “Loanwords”, 265–275.

19. Zenner, “Cognitive Contact Linguistics”, 37.

20. But for an example of research focusing on the speaker’s evaluation, see Vaattovaara and Peterson, “Same old paska or new shit?”; and Crombez, Ghyselen, Winter-Froemel, and Zenner, “The socio-pragmatic parameters steering the reported selection of Anglicisms or their Dutch alternatives”.

21. Van Meurs, English in Job Advertisements in the Netherlands.

22. Though see Berthele, “Googling Toubon”, 275–293.

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26. Booij, “English as the lingua franca of Europe”, 347–357.

27. For an overview, see Zenner, Speelman, and Geeraerts, “Macro and micro perspectives on the distribution of English in Dutch”, 1019–1064.

28. Zenner, Speelman, and Geeraerts, “A sociolinguistic analysis of borrowing in weak contact situations”, 333–346.

29. FIFA, “From 1863 to the Present Day”.

30. Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Speelman, Convergentie en divergentie in de Nederlandse woordenschat.

31. Ibid., 37.

32. Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Bakema, The Structure of Lexical Variation.

33. Szerovay, Itkonen, and Vehmas, “‘Glocal’ processes in peripheral football countries”, 497–515.

34. On language usage vs. language regards, see Preston, “The influence of regard on language variation and change”, 93–104.

35. In order to protect the identity of the reporters interviewed for the study, no further details are provided on the matches and on the TV channels and newspapers sourced for the construction of our database.

36. Geeraerts and Grondelaers, “Purism and fashion”, 53–68.

37. Onysko, Anglicisms in German, 10.

38. Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Speelman, Convergentie en divergentie in de Nederlandse woordenschat.

39. Edmonds and Hirst, “Near-synonymy and lexical choice”, 105–144; Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Speelman, Convergentie en divergentie in de Nederlandse woordenschat.

40. Zenner, Speelman, and Geeraerts, ‘Cognitive Sociolinguistics meets loanword research, 749–792.

41. Geeraerts, Grondelaers, and Bakema, The structure of lexical variation.

42. Zenner, “Cognitive Contact Linguistics. The macro, meso and micro influence of English on Dutch” (PhD diss., KU Leuven, 2013).

43. Zenner, Speelman, and Geeraerts, “Cognitive sociolinguistics meets loanword research”, 749–792.

44. Van Meurs, English in Job Advertisements in the Netherlands, 134.

45. Van Meurs, English in Job Advertisements in the Netherlands.

46. Patton, Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods, 347–349; Weiss, Learning from Strangers, 54–55.

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48. Maguire, “Globalization, sport and national identities”, 978–993; Naglo and Waine, “Constructing national football cultures”, 9–23; Dolan and Connolly, Sport and National Identities; and Szerovay, Itkonen, and Vehmas, “‘Glocal’ processes in peripheral football countries”, 497–515.

49. Wilton, “‘We have a grandios saison gespielt’”, 1–31.

50. Maguire, “Sport, racism and British society”, 94–123.

51. Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization and Football; Giulianotti and Robertson, Globalization and Sport; and Szerovay, Itkonen, and Vehmas, “‘Glocal’ processes in peripheral football countries”, 497–515.

52. Lewandowski, “The Language of Soccer – a Sociolect or a register?”, 21–32.

53. Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 247.

54. Wilton, ‘“We have a grandios saison gespielt’, 1–31.

55. Deppermann, “Interview als text vs. interview als interaktion”, art. 13.

56. Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner, and Fillenbaum, “Evaluational reactions to spoken language”, 44–51.