the conflictual nature of metaphors in live basketball ......the vietnam war or to describe...

36

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805

Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbos / 2014, t. 16, Nr. 3

Svetimosios kalbos

The Conflictual Nature of Metaphors in Live Basketball Commentaries: A Corpus-Driven ApproachJurga Cibulskienė

Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Philology, Department of English Philology, Str. Studentų 39, LT-08106 Vilnius, [email protected]

Summary. The recent years mark a general tendency of metaphor analysis in the social world. Such ‘real world’ discourses as political, economic, educational, illness, art etc. have come into focus of cognitive metaphor researches. The current research addresses metaphor in sport dis-course, or to be exact, in basketball discourse of the 2011 European Basketball Championship. A corpus of 46 559 words of transcribed live basketball commentaries was constructed and analysed using AntConc concordance program. The findings show that the most characteristic conceptual metaphor in the analysed discourse is the conflict metaphor. After distinguishing metaphorical expressions which draw from the domain of conflict, the scenario which the conflict metaphor follows was determined: fight, attack, defence, victory, defeat, belligerents, weapons and exerting force, aggression, threat. Although most metaphorical expressions used in the analysed discourse are highly conventionalized and naturally comprehended as basketball terminology without realizing that there is close correlation between basketball and war, we cannot downplay their influence on the spectators’ subconscious minds. Extremely frequent use of the conflict metaphor is aimed at arousing the spectators’ emotions, or pathos, according to Aristotle. The commentator’s function is to affect the spectators and make them a part of the basketball game.

Keywords: basketball discourse, conflict metaphor, metaphorical expressions, metaphorical scenario, conflictual nature.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/zz.2014.012

ISSN 1392-8600E-ISSN 1822-7805

Žmogus ir žodis / Svetimosios kalbosMan and the Word / Foreign Languages2014, t. 16, Nr. 3, p. 36–60 / Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 36–60, 2014

http://dx.doi.org/10.15823/zz.2014.012

37

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

1. Introduction

Aristotle’s idea that metaphor is “the mark of genius” (2000, 32) has long been argued by cognitive scholars who claim that you do not need to be a genius to have a command of metaphor because it is a usual way of thinking and talking. The beginning of the 20th century witnessed logical positivists’ view that metaphor, being deviant as it violates linguistic rules and serves only ornamental and rhetorical function, is never used or to be used by scientists. The proponents of logical positivism claimed that the aim of sci-ence is to give accurate description of reality and scientific knowledge is the only kind of factual knowledge, whereas metaphorical language is meaningless and it seriously distorts the understanding of reality (Ortony, 1993, 2). However, empirical researches into discourse of science language (Wall, 2009; Rodriguez, Arroyo-Santos, 2011), which have been carried out for more than three last decades, completely denied logical positivists’ scepticism towards metaphors in science language. Thus, the comprehension of meta-phor as being pervasive in mind and language has greatly contributed to investigation of the relation between metaphor and the social world. Such ‘real world’ discourses as political, economic, literary, educational, illness, etc. have come into focus of cognitive metaphor researches. The current research addresses metaphor in sport discourse, or to be exact, in basketball discourse, which has not received as much attention as, for example, political discourse.

2. sport as a source domain

The vast majority of metaphor studies focus on sport metaphor viewing it as source but not as a target domain. They follow the pattern x is sport, and it seems that the most common source domain appears to be politics. A number of studies indicate that most metaphors in politics are systematically derived from the language of sport. Chudinov (2003, 121) claims that if politics is presented as sport in general or a particular type of sport, it contains the following elements bearing family resemblance to game: entertain-ment, contest, orientation towards winning, established rules, etc. Due to the fact that countries and cultures are different in their sporting preferences, they tend to employ different sport metaphors to conceptualize political discourse (Semino, 2008, 98). For example, Italian media tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi drew metaphors from football, which is one of the most popular sport in Italy, to establish himself in a positive light while running for elections (ibid.). The chess metaphor was typical of the Russian political discourse of a particular period, as Chudinov (2003) puts it. He classified types of sport which were used for metaphorical comprehension of political discourse in Russia and distinguished the following categories: sport lexemes of general meaning (for exam-ple, game, to play, to win), board games (chess, dominoes, cards, etc.), team sport games

38

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

(football, basketball, tennis, ice-hockey, etc.), different types of races (marathon, sprint, cycling, etc.). Also, Chudinov differentiated elements of mappings in the mentioned types of sport, calling them ‘frames’. This way in Russian political discourse, we see people who participate in sport (favourites, leaders, outsiders, champions, winners, losers, etc.) and who observe or disregard game rules (following or breaching rules, temporary or permanent disqualification of politicians, etc.).

Howe (1988, 89) maintains that sport metaphors present politics as a rule-bound contest between two opponents, and by using metaphors of specific types of sport, they attempt to achieve different rhetorical aims. For example, the use of a team metaphor creates a bond between politicians and the electorate, the use of a boxing metaphor conveys unpredictable political activities and creates aggressive image of a politician as a boxer. As Howe puts, sport metaphors are highly characteristic of two-party or multiparty political systems, whereas in authoritarian or totalitarian political sys-tems, which repress the opposition, “sports metaphors could function only to create an illusion of fair play in politics” (1988: 90). Segrave (2000) focuses on the change of sport metaphor in the language of politics in the USA. He claims that early political metaphors drew from the sport of boxing which later gave its way to the football met-aphor, which emphasized team cooperative attempts, unity and purposefulness (2000, 51), which, however, hid the danger of ritualization and celebration of politics as an entertainment spectacle where “football, like politics, becomes increasingly heroic, the preserve of men of mythic dimensions and capabilities, reducing the rest of the electorate to the role of spectator or fan” (ibid.). Moreover, American political dis-course is inconceivable without individual sport metaphors, which have been reigning at different periods in American history. For example, a horse-racing metaphor “with its references to front-runners and dark horses, long-shots and shoo ins, also rans and nose outs” (ibid.) occurs during election campaigns. Burnes (2011, 2169), similarly to Segrave, points out the importance of conceptualization of elections in terms of racing in British and French press reports covering 2008 parliamentary elections of Pakistan and 2008 presidential elections in the USA.

It is apparent that sport metaphor is fairly popular in political discourse. Semino (2008, 99) and Charteris-Black (Charteris-Black, 2005, 138–139) explain this fact by presenting several plausible reasons for this. First, sport is the domain which is easily comprehended by ordinary people and it has familiar and clear-cut scenarios. This way, complex issues of political life become more accessible to others. Second, while using sport metaphors politicians identify themselves with ordinary people and these metaphors tend to “create or establish a sense of common ground with the general public, especially where citizens are uninterested in politics or disillusioned with politicians” (Semino, 2008, 99).

Although politics is the most typical target domain which draws on the language of sport, there are other target domains such as warfare (Fiddick, 1989; Segrave, 2000), business (Cudd, 2007; Segrave, 2000), masculinity (Wörsching, 1999; Jansen, Sabo,

39

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

1994), sexual relations (Segrave, 2000), etc., which are also comprehended in terms of sport. Focusing on warfare as a target domain, Segrave (2000, 49–50) presents examples when politicians in the USA employed football metaphors to speak against the Vietnam War or to describe manoeuvres in the Gulf War. Also, he points out that the metaphor war is football serves for desensitizing the audience of war atrocities and establishing the ideology of hegemony. Fiddick (1989, 86) also claims that popular sport games like football, poker, wrestling and boxing escalated a conflict and played a significant role in shaping the way American leaders and other people viewed the Vietnam War.

3. sport as a target domain

Considerably fewer studies have been carried out to discuss sport as the target domain in comparison with the studies undertaken, concerning the source domain. Typically, scholars choose a particular type of sporting activity or event to see how it is conceptualized via metaphors. Simó (2009) investigates a range of source domains which are employed to conceptualize a chess game or a chess event in American English and Hungarian. Her findings indicate that about half of the source domains overlaps in both languages, which means that while speaking about chess games or events, both Americans and Hungarians use metaphorical expressions which come from the source domains of action, war, movement, physical properties, violent acts, etc. More-over, Hungarian authors use more metaphor types than their counterparts in America. Simó goes into possible reasons why such cross-cultural similarities or differences occur, providing insights about “inseparable and simultaneous effects of embodiment, culture and social context on our conceptualization” (2009, 57). Price (1991) maintains that the 1988 NCAA basketball tournament in the US was publicly referred to through religious metaphors such as final judgement, quest for the Holy Grail, the pilgrimage road. He assumes that the direct causality of this metaphor can be traced back to the game of bas-ketball as historically having religious roots. When the Reverend James Naismith created the game of basketball, it was motivated by Calvinist spirit that supports competition, and the idea lying behind the game was moral, Christian and hygienic way of life (Price, 1991, 51). Thus, Price admits that the basketball championship metaphors display the values underlying American society. Similarly to chess (Simó, 2009) and basketball (Price, 1991) metaphors, football is also abundant in metaphors (Vierkant, 2008; Thalhammer, 2010; Bommert, 2011).

A different stance to metaphors in sport is adopted by Ruiz and Hanin (2004) as they focus on metaphoricity of emotional states in karate athletes’ speech. The analysis of self-generated metaphors with accompanying descriptors of feeling states revealed that while describing their best and worst performances, the karate athletes were likely to use

40

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

the metaphorical images of animate (animals, human beings, mythical characters) and inanimate (vehicles, objects, plants, natural phenomena) agents. Moreover, the usage of the metaphors and interpretive descriptors was closely related to action readiness in performance and to the results of the performance.

Shields and Bredemeier (2011) analyse not a particular type of sport as a target domain but they focus on sport as a contest. Their findings indicate that if a contest is presented through the metaphor of partnership, genuine competition takes place, but if a contest is comprehended through the metaphor of war, decompetition occurs (2011, 33). The conceptual metaphors contest is war and contest is partnership have rich mapping structures with highly developed scenarios and different salient features of a contest are emphasized in each metaphor. For example, contest is war highlights “the consequential nature of some contests, emphasizing their seriousness and providing a kind of delicious tension (2011, 34)”. However, when the contest is partnership met-aphor prevails, “a person will certainly strive hard to win; still, the person will be even more concerned with pushing their own boundaries of performance. They will be more concerned with personal excellence than with demonstrating superiority over others.” (ibid). Also, the scholars present a list of implications of each conceptual metaphor when we think about a contest in terms of goals, motivation, view of opponent, view of rules, view of officials, playing and winning, emotional tone, etc. For instance, they claim that if contest participants are guided by the metaphor of partnership, their goals would be learning, mastery and pursuit of personal best. On the contrary, if contest participants rely on the metaphor of war, their goals would be domination, conquest and pursuit of superiority (ibid, 35).

A research into metaphorical nature of basketball as a sport activity was conducted by Toleikienė and Būdvytytė-Gudienė (2013). They used The Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language and the media texts dealing with the European Basketball Cham-pionship which took place in Lithuania in 2011. They focused on the concept of sport which includes sportsmen, coaches, referees, game rules and the activity of playing in basketball. Their findings show that there are three types of conceptual metaphors used in the Lithuanian basketball discourse: constellation, ontological and image-schema. Their in-depth research seems to be similar to the current research, but there are several aspects which differ significantly and which might produce contrasting results. First, the genre of texts from which the data were collected is markedly different as the previous research focuses on written discourse, whereas the current research uses transcripts of live commentaries. Secondly, Toleikienė and Budvytytė-Gudienė’s approach to metaphor analysis is more of qualitative nature as they look into typical conceptual metaphors and their realizations and they do not aim at frequency analysis, whereas the present research is of mixed type, i.e. it goes into quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Championship metaphors. Thirdly, the present study aims to focus only on conflict metaphors which seem to be abundant in the analysed discourse.

41

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

4. Aim and methodology

The paper aims to describe a case study – a basketball commentator’s metaphors in the European Basketball Championship 2011, which was hosted by Lithuania. The answers to the following research questions were sought: Is basketball metaphorically conceptualized as a conflict? If yes, what kind of scenario does the conflict metaphor follow? Although there was a considerable number of basketball matches during the Championship, not all of them were televised and commented by Lithuanian sport commentators. Thus, only the matches played by the host team were chosen as the focus of the study. All in all, commenting on seven matches between Lithuania and its rivals Serbia, France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Poland and Greece was transcribed, and, respectively, a corpus of 46 559 words was constructed. Though the matches were commented by the same commentator (Robertas Petrauskas), some of them additionally had a basketball colour commentator.

Metaphorical expressions were identified by applying a two step procedure. First, a piloting manual search for metaphors was employed in order to find out the most recurrent and salient metaphorical key words. The advantage of manual search is that close reading of the transcribed texts also enables the researcher to distinguish novel metaphors, which is rather problematic and challenging when applying a corpus-driven method. After a manually collected list of metaphorical key words had been drawn up, a corpus-driven approach was applied. The constructed corpus of 46 559 words was analysed by using AntConc concordance program. It has to be noted that metaphoricity of the key words was decided by applying the slightly adapted version of the methodology designed by MIPVU (2010). According to it, the meaning in context of the key words was established first. Then it was determined if a key word “has a more basic contemporary meaning in other contexts than the one in the given context” (Semino, 2008, 11), and if the basic meaning was incongruent with the contextual meaning, the key words were marked as metaphorical. It has been found out that the key words mostly become metaphorical when they form particular collocations. Further, the obtained metaphors were catego-rized according to the source domain they represent. In other words, it was decided what scenarios are followed while conceptualizing a basketball match metaphorically.

5. Results and discussion

Having used the AntConc Concordance program as a tool which helps to identify and count metaphors, it became obvious that the discourse of basketball live commentaries is abundant in metaphors. All in all, 3080 metaphorical tokens were identified, which means that 66.15 metaphorical tokens were used per 1000 words, and which is an enor-mously high number of metaphors.

42

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Figure 1 shows how metaphorical expressions distribute across different source do-mains. It is obvious that the metaphor of conflict significantly stands out in the analysed discourse as it consists of 1420 metaphorical tokens, which make up 46.1% (see Figure 2). The conflict metaphor is understood fairly broadly here as it covers the metaphors of war, force and aggression. The second conceptual metaphor which distinguishes in its high numbers is the metaphor of journey, having 648 metaphorical tokens, which make up 21.1% (see Figure 2). Also, it is noteworthy that playing basketball is quite often conceptualized in terms of money transaction with 287 metaphorical tokens, which make up 9.3% (see Figure 2). Obviously, the high numbers of metaphorical tokens indicate that the above mentioned conceptualizations of basketball game are the most typical in the analysed discourse. However, we cannot downplay the importance of other concep-tualizations such as balance, entertainment/performance or cognitive abilities, which make up 186 (6%), 175 (5.7%) and 170 (5.5%) metaphorical tokens, respectively. The conceptual metaphors of illness, natural phenomenon and mechanism make up an insignificant part in comparison with the previously indicated conceptualizations.

Figure 1. The number of metaphorical expressions across different source domains in basketball live commentaries.

43

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Figure 2. Relative frequency of conceptual metaphors across different source domains in basketball live commentaries.

5.1. conflict metaphorsAs it was indicated previously, the conceptual metaphor of conflict is perceived as

an umbrella metaphor encompassing such conceptual metaphors as war, force and aggression. De Landtsheer (2009, 66–69) maintains that metaphors have different rhe-torical power and divides them into six categories, attaching the highest power to category 6. As she points out, category 4 includes disaster and violence metaphors and their threatening character implies a stronger emotional involvement of the message sender and the message receiver. Thus, the conflict metaphor, which is likely to be another name for violence, seems to be not only statistically significant in the analysed discourse but it also carries a strong emotional and rhetorical impact.

The findings show that basketball as a target domain is mainly conceptualized as a conflict. Although the conflict metaphor stands in a hyperonymical relation to the war metaphor, very often both terms are used synonymously and it feels that using the war term instead of the conflict term here better explains the nature of the relationship between the two domains – sport and war. The question arises which originated first: war or sport? If we define sport as “an activity that you do for pleasure and that needs physical effort or skill, usually done in a special area and according to fixed rules” (OALD), it is likely that the first early humans were not involved in sport per se, though some traces of it can be observed in ritual performances. It comes as no surprise that different his-torical sources indicate that people have fought against each other since the beginning of humanity, whereas the origin of sport is traditionally associated with the start of the Olympic Games. The official website of the Olympic Games (www.olympic.org) presents a

http://www.olympic.org

44

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Greek myth which explains the origin of it and which says that Zeus fought and defeated his father Cronus for the throne of the gods and afterwards he built a temple in this valley which was called Olympia and, eventually, religious festivals held there turned into the Olympic Games. Although the official website of the Olympic Games puts emphasis on the mythical and religious aspects of the origin of the Games, peace and the shared spirit of the participants, it should also be noted that the prehistory of the Olympic Games is first and foremost associated with Zeus and Cronus fighting. It seems that from antiquity onwards, ancient past sport bore direct and significant relation to war as it was played as a substitute of war or preparation for war in peaceful periods of life. Thus, sport could be defined as a pacifistic form of war.

Although the symbolic war function of sport has been lost over the years and nowa-days sport has become a symbol of peace and shared values across nations, the language of sport does not seem to have lost its initial war-like vocabulary. A prominent English novelist and essayist George Orwell pointed out that sport “is just war minus the shooting” (1945) and a prolific American sportswriter John McCallum said that “sportcasters and sportswriters carry around mental thesaurus that seems to be compiled at the Pentagon” (2001). Also, as Jansen and Sabo state, ‘‘the language of sport/war represents the values of hegemonic masculinity (i.e., aggression, competition, dominance, territoriality, instru-mental violence) as desirable and essential to the social order’’ (1994, 10). The conducted research is likely to confirm these words as more than 46% (1420 tokens) of metaphors are of conflict character.

After distinguishing metaphorical expressions which draw from the domain of con-flict, it was determined what scenario the conflict metaphor follows. The scenario of the conflict metaphor is presented in Table 1.

Table 1. The scenario of the conflict metaphor.Scenario ele-

ments Example Tokens

Attack Reikia bent poros atakų, kuriose pavyktų išsipančioti iš graikų gy-nybos gniaužtų.(At least two attacks are needed to release themselves from the Greek defence grip.)

434

Fight Ir serbai visada kovoja iki galo ir visada stengiasi ir su jais reikia žaisti būtent taip.(The Serbs are always fighting to the end and they always try hard and this is the way we need to play with them.)

283

Defence Reikia bent poros atakų, kuriose pavyktų išsipančioti iš graikų gy-nybos gniaužtų.(At least two attacks are needed to release themselves from the Greek defence grip.)

221

45

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Scenario ele-ments Example Tokens

Victory Jie yra kariai, mes irgi esame kariai ir laimėti gali tiktai stipriausias.(They are warriors and we are also warriors, so only the strongest can win.)

174

Exerting force, aggression, threat

[...] taip žaisdami lietuviai gali sutraiškyti visus varžovus. (playing like this Lithuanians can crush all their rivals.)

123

Defeat Na, išskyrus galbūt Pasaulio krepšinio čempionato pusfinalį Turkijoje, kurį šita jauna Serbijos komanda pralaimėjo.(Except the semi-final of the World Championship in Turkey when this young Serbian team was defeated.)

106

Belligerents Jie yra kariai, mes irgi esame kariai ir laimėti gali tiktai stipriausias.(They are warriors and we are also warriors, so only the strongest can win.)

72

Weapons [...] o ispanai turi labai daug ginklų puolime.(Spaniards have a lot of weapons in attacking.)

7

Total 1420

5.1.1.The element of attackAs it can be seen from Table 1, the most numerous element of the conflict metaphor

scenario is that of attack, which encompasses 434 tokens of metaphorical expressions. The lexical realization of this element is fairly diverse and it is presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Lexical realizations of the attack element.Lexical realization Tokens ataka (attack n.), (ne)atakuoti ((not to) attack v.), atakuojantis (attacking), kon-trataka (counterattack)

164

prieš (against) 184puolimas (attack n.), užpulti (attack v.) 55reidas (raid) 10(įsi-/pri-/prisi)šaudyti (shoot) 10šūvis (shot) 4persekioti (persecute) 4kibti į atlapus (fly at sb) 2šturmuoti (to storm sth) 1Total 434

The noun lexeme ataka (‘attack’) and its verb, participle and noun derivatives (ne)atakuoti (‘(not to) attack’), atakuojantis (‘attacking’) and kontrataka (‘counterattack’) are

46

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

extremely numerous direct metaphorical expressions (164 tokens) showing the conflictual nature of the basketball game. The findings indicate that the noun ataka (‘attack’) usually collocates with the words indicating the agent of the attack, for example, komandos ataka (‘team’s attack’), varžovų ataka (‘rivals’ attack’), lietuvių, britų, serbų, prancūzų ataka (‘Lithuanian/British/Serbian/French attack’); the sequence of attacking such as pirmoji (‘first’), papildoma (‘additional’), paskutinė (‘last’), finalinė ataka (‘final attack’) or positive adjectives graži (‘beautiful’), įspūdinga (‘impressive’), sėkminga (‘successful’), rezultatyvi (‘high scoring’), greita (‘quick’). If we analyse the collocational pattern VERB+attack, we see that it reminds of all stages of war attack. First, the following collocations have been observed: (ne)surengti ataką (‘(not to) arrange an attack’), pradėti ataką (‘start an attack’), etc. Consider the following example:

(1) Nikas Kalatisas rikiuoja savo komandą atakai. ‘Nick Calathes is aligning his team for the attack.’

Second, the attack can be continued, accelerated, stopped, or repelled and the fol-lowing lexemes signify these stages: (pra)tęsti, pagreitinti, (pri-/nesu)stabdyti, pralaužti ataką. Eventually, the attack is finalized and in the basketball discourse the collocation (už)baigti ataką (‘to end an attack’) implies achieving score. Furthermore, the verb atakuoti (‘attack’) is used either in neutral context or with positive adverbs užtikrintai atakuoja (‘to attack confidently’), drąsiai atakuoja (‘to attack bravely’), taikliau atakuoja (‘to attack more accurately’).

The concept of attack is also expressed in other ways. The noun lexeme puolimas (‘attack’) and its equivalent verb (už)pulti (‘to attack’) were used 55 times in the analysed basketball discourse. The lexeme reidas (‘raid’) (10 tokens) belongs to the same semantic field of attack and can be considered as a synonym. Less frequent metaphorical expres-sions which have to do with attacking are (įsi-/pri-/prisi)šaudyti (‘shoot’) (10 tokens), šūvis (‘shot’) (4 tokens) and they imply using a gun firing bullets. Although the metaphorical expressions persekioti (‘persecute’) (4 tokens), kibti į atlapus (‘fly at sb’/to get to one’s collar’) (2 tokens), šturmuoti (‘to storm sth’) (1 token) are not particularly numerous, they can be considered as being more novel in comparison with other metaphorical expressions of attacking and, this way, they are intended to arouse the spectators’ avid interest.

The most frequent metaphor to describe the attack is the preposition prieš (‘against’) (184 tokens). In the Lithuanian language, the preposition ‘against’ has two meanings. The first meaning is temporal and it means “before” (for example, prieš rungtynes (‘be-fore the match’), whereas the second meaning is “against”, implying conflictual nature (for example, Mantas Kalnietis prieš Dirką Novickį. (‘Mantas Kalnietis against Dirk Nowitzki’). While analyzing the metaphoricity of the preposition prieš (‘against’) using AntConc concordance program, the cases of the preposition used in the first meaning were rejected, whereas the cases of the preposition used in the second meaning were counted as underlying the conflict metaphor. Therefore, the results indicate that the

47

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

pattern of one basketballer playing against another or the metonymical pattern of one country playing against another country seem to be extremely frequent. For instance:

(2) Taigi, antrose rungtynėse po pergalės prieš Izraelį vokiečiai laimėjo bene svarbiausią mačą pirmajame Europos krepšinio čempionato etape.

‘So, in the second match after the victory against Israel, the Germans won perhaps the most important match in the first round of the European Basketball Champi-onship.’

To sum up, although most metaphorical expressions used to conceptualize the ele-ment of attack are highly conventionalized, their frequent use in the basketball discourse implies the importance of being active and taking the leader’s position while playing basketball.

5.1.2. The element of fightThe element of fight stands in hyperonymical relation to the previously analysed ele-

ment of attack as any fight includes attacking, defending, winning or losing. However, I have distinguished this element as separate because it does not explicate if the fight has to do with attacking or defending. Therefore, it has to be pinpointed that this element assumes a very general character and it constitutes the second largest group of the con-flict metaphor scenario, totalling 265 metaphorical tokens (see Table 3).

Table 3. Lexical realizations of the fight element.Lexical realization Tokens

kova (fight n.), (ne-/at(si)-/iš(si)-/pa)kovoti (fight v.) 199kautis (combat v.) 14dvikova (duel n.) 11priekinė linija (front line), gynybinė linija (defence line) 7 +1=8taktika/nis, taktiškai (tactics, tactically) 7mūšis (battle n.) 5(pasi)grumti (struggle v.) 5kovingas, kovingumas (combative, combativeness) 5revanšas (revenge) 4(nesi)galynėti(s) (wrestle with sb.) 3išsivaduoti (to free oneself from) 2kariauti (to be at war) 1strategija (strategy) 1

265

48

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

The most frequent lexical realization of the fight element is the noun kova (‘fight’) and the verb (ne-/at(si)-/iš(si)-/pa)kovoti (‘fight (back/off)’), which make up 199 meta-phorical tokens. Such adjectives as lengva (‘easy’), rimta (‘serious’), atkakli (‘persistent’), dramatiška (‘dramatic’) precede the noun kova (‘fight’). Moreover, the purpose of the fight is indicated as ‘fight for the possession of the ball’ (kova dėl kamuolio) and the most common collocations following the pattern VERB+fight are (ne)nusiteikę kovai (‘be (not) fight-minded’), pasiruošę kovai (‘be ready for the fight’), (pra)laimi kovą (‘win/lose fight). The lexemes following the verb kovoti (‘fight’) indicate either the rival (for example, kovoti prieš ispanus (‘fight against Spaniards’)), either the ultimate goal (for example, kovoti iki galo (‘fight to the very end’), kovoti dėl aukso (‘fight for the gold’), or the possession of the ball (for example, kovoti dėl kamuolio (‘fight for the possession of the ball’). It is noteworthy that the latter collocation is used ca. 70 times, which makes more than 35% of the fight element. Although the mentioned metaphorical expressions are highly conventionalized, one metaphorical expression alluding to Cervantes’s Don Quixote stands out in the discourse (see Example 3). This metaphor describes young and promising basketball player Jonas Valančiūnas, who despite his desperate attempts to be useful in the court, fails to be successful.

(3) Jonas Valančiūnas ir toliau kovoja su visais vėjo malūnais visose aikštės pusėse. ‘Jonas Valančiūnas further fights against all windmills in all sides of the court.’

It has to be noted that the verb kovoti (‘fight’) is very often used with the prefixes iš-, at-, which indicate that the action is completed and the meaning of it becomes “to win”. Another typical prefix pa- shows the process of fight and determinedness not to surrender so easily. The findings indicate that the verb kovoti when it is used with the prefixes iš-, at- and pa- does not imply any fight against somebody or something. Rather, it builds up absolutely positive expectations associated with future prospects and which are confirmed by using such notions after the verb iškovoti (‘to win’): the first place, gold medal, bronze medal, the NBA championship ring, pass to the Olympic Games, victory, a title (see Example 4). Also, the adjective derivative kovingas (‘combative’) and the noun derivative kovingumas (‘combativeness’) are examples of the same root word kova (‘fight’).

(4) Ispanijos komanda, komanda, kuri iki šio vakaro žygiavo irgi be pralaimėjimų kaip ir ir lietuviai ir kuri šiandien padarys viską, kad iškovotų šią pergalę.

‘The Spanish team that was marching without losing, the same as Lithuanians, will do anything today to fight (=achieve) this victory.’

Although the verb kovoti (‘fight’) and its derivatives are the most typical and frequent in the analysed discourse, there are other verbs which express the same idea and which are used interchangeably. For example, the verbs kautis (‘combat’) (14 tokens), (pasi)grumti (‘struggle’) (5 tokens), kariauti (‘be at war’) (1 token) are synonyms of the previously analysed verb and their usage is analogical.

49

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

It seems that the noun dvikova (‘duel’) (11 tokens) and the verb (nesi)galynėti(s) (‘(not to) wrestle with sb.’) (3 tokens) do not belong to the war domain as the former is more associated with some kind of disagreement of honour between two people which is set-tled by duelling, while the latter is likely to belong to the domain of contact sport such as wrestling. However, as both concepts have conflictual nature, they were ascribed to the fight metaphors.

Moreover, basketball game is sometimes conceptualized as a battle (mūšis) (5 tokens) in which some kind of strategy (strategija) (1 token) and tactics (taktika, taktinis, taktiškai) (7 tokens) are adopted. The linguistic realizations of the concepts of revenge (revanšas) (4 tokens) and freeing oneself from the rivals (išsivaduoti) (2 tokens) do not seem so numerous in comparison with fighting.

Thus, the findings indicate that the fight element is extremely frequent in basketball discourse, which shows its importance, and mostly it is realized through the lexeme of kova (‘fight’) and its diverse derivatives.

5.1.3. The element of defenceThe conflict metaphor scenario presupposes not only attacking or fighting but also

defending is likely to play an important role in the basketball discourse. The analysis shows that the element of defence is similarly prominent with 221 metaphorical tokens (see Table 4).

Table 4. Lexical realizations of the defence element.Lexical realization Tokens gynyba (defence), gynybinė (defensive) 102(apsi)ginti(s) (to defend) 79(iš/pa)saugoti (save, retain) 25išgelbėjo (rescue) 8atsilaikyti (withstand an attack) 6nenusileisti (stand one’s ground) 1

221

The lexical realization of the defence element mostly has to do with the noun gynyba (‘defence’) (102 tokens) and the verb gintis (‘defend’) (79 tokens) and their derivatives. The collocational pattern ADJECTIVE+gynyba (‘defence’) is the most productive and the adjectives preceding the noun fall into two groups. The adjectives in the first group can be described as indicating type of defence, for example, aikštės, zonos, asmeninė, vienas prieš vieną gynyba (‘court/zone/personal/man-to-man defence’). The second group comprises adjectives which have a positive or negative evaluative component: aktyvi, ide-ali, gera, kieta, judri, dviguba, agresyvi, susispaudusi, susilpnėjusi gynyba (‘active/ideal/

50

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

good/tough/agile/double/aggressive/pressing/weakened defence’). Example 5 shows this collocational pattern in context:

(5) Vakar Ispanijos rinktinė būtent šitos agresyvios gynybos dėka, na aišku gal ne visai taip tiesiogiai, bet metė 35 baudų metimus […].

‘Yesterday the Spanish team because of this aggressive defence, of course, not so directly, but they had 35 free throws […]’

The verbs in the pattern VERB+gynybą (‘defence’) are the following: dvigubinti, pra-laužti, įveikti (‘double/breach/defeat’). Moreover, some more patterns can be observed where the noun gynyba (‘defence’) is used in the locative case. First, the nouns klaidos, skylės, darbas gynyboje (‘mistakes/holes/work in the defence’) indicate either failure or emphasis on hard work while defending the hoop. Next, the verbs dirbti, išsirikiuoti, at-silaikyti gynyboje (‘to work, line up, withstand in the defence’) also imply endeavours to be successful while defending the hoop, while the fairly common collocation prasižengti gynyboje (‘to commit a foul in the defence’) indicates the opposite – inability to success-fully defend the hoop.

The verb ginti (‘defend’) is either used self-reflexively gintis (‘defend oneself ’) or the following objects follow the verb: nuo atakos, vienas prieš kitą, prieš krepšininką (‘against attack, man-to-man, against a basketball player’). Also, it has to be noted that the verb gintis (‘defend’) is typically used with the prefix apsi- which indicates a completed action and in this case, it means that the players have successfully defended themselves (or their hoop). The adjectives in the collocational pattern ADJECTIVE+(apsi)ginti range from fairly neutral to rather emphatic ones: gerai, labai gerai, sėkmingai, lengviau, aktyviai, intensyviai, kietai, agresyviai (‘well, very well, successfully, easier, actively, intensively, toughly, aggressively’). Though it might seem that some adjectives assume an aggressive character, undoubtedly they carry positive connotations because being aggressive in basketball is a desirable feature. Moreover, the verbs atsilaikyti (‘withstand an attack’) (6 tokens) and nenusileisti (‘to stand one’s ground’) (1 token) are used synonymously with the verb (apsi)ginti (‘to successfully defend oneself ’). Consider the following example:

(6) Luolas Dengas tiesiog gynėsi labai kietai, tačiau pakartojimo metu matyti kad tos ribos kuri skiria agresyvią gynybą nuo pražangos neperžengė.

‘Luol Deng was defending himself very toughly but it is obvious from the repeat that the boundary which separates aggressive defence from a foul wasn’t overstepped.’

One more verb which falls in the group of defence is related to saving or retaining somebody/something. The verbs saugoti (‘protect’) or self-reflexive saugotis (‘protect oneself ’) (25 tokens) also express defending one’s position or not letting the rival to score points (saugotis (‘protect oneself ’), saugoti žaidėją (‘to prevent a rival player from scoring points’), saugotis tritaškių (‘to guard against three-point scoring’). The verb (iš)gelbėti (‘rescue’) points out to a situation which seems to be hopeless and the commentator

51

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

admits that nobody can rescue the team unless it turns out that somehow miraculously a player rescues the team. Consider the following examples:

(7) Paulius Jankūnas iš esmės dabar išgelbėjo Lietuvos komandą šioje atakoje […] ‘Paulius Jankūnas rescued Lithuanian team in this attack.’(8) […] na, jeigu Simas nepataiko, vadinasi mūsų išgelbėti nebegali niekas, […] ‘If Simas doesn’t score points, it means that nobody can rescue us this evening.’

All in all, a high number of metaphorical expressions dealing with the defence element shows that although this part of the scenario is not the most important, its significance cannot be downplayed.

5.1.4. The elements of victory and defeatThe conflict or war metaphor scenario presupposes one or another way of conflict

resolving. In other words, a conflict can be settled by winning or losing. The game of basketball follows the same pattern and lexical realization of victory (174 tokens) or defeat (106 tokens) makes a significant part of all metaphorical expressions of the conflict metaphor (see Table 5 and Table 6).

Table 5. Lexical realizations of the victory element.Lexical realization Tokens

laimėti (win) 82pergalė (victory), pergalingai (victoriously) 60įveikė (defeat v.) 18nugalėjo (defeat v.) 9sutriuškino, triuškinančiai (smash v., crushing defeat)) 5

174

Table 6. Lexical realizations of the defeat element.Lexical realization Tokens

pralaimėjimas (defeat n., loss), (ne)pralaimėti ((not)to lose) 95nepasiduos (not to surrender) 4nusileisti (concede) 4žala (damage) 2kapituliuoti prieš (capitulate) 1

106

52

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

The concept of winning tends to be mostly emphasised through the verb laimėti (‘win’) (82 tokens) and the noun pergalė (‘victory’) (60 tokens). The concept of winning has to do with several ideas. The findings indicate that winning is first associated with the final outcome of the championship or match: laimėti (Europos čempionato) auksą (‘to win the gold (of the European Championship)’), sidabro medalį (‘silver medal’), mačą (‘match’), rungtynes (‘match’), susitikimą (‘match’). Consider the following example:

(9) Lietuva irgi buvo šitame klipe dėl to, kad 2003-siais metais lietuviai lietuviai laimėjo Europos čempionato auksą […]

‘Lithuania was also in this clip because in 2003 Lithuanians won the gold of Eu-ropean Championship […]’

Next, winning is often related to a particular part of a match: laimėti atkarpą (‘to win a section’), ketvirtį (‘quarter’), kėlinį (‘half ’), pirmąją dalį (‘the first part’). Also, there were some cases when winning a fight between two players was emphasised: dvikovą (‘duel’), kovą (‘fight’), akistatą (‘confrontation’). Other quite frequent collocations are laimėti kamuolį (‘win a ball’), laimėti prieš Lietuvos komandą, serbus, vokiečius, britus, turkus, Ispaniją (‘win against the Lithuanian team, Serbs, Germans, Turks, Spain, Great Britain’), etc. Consider Example (10):

(10) Vokietija niekada niekada nėra laimėjusi prieš Lietuvos komandą […] ‘Germany has never ever won against the Lithuanian team […]’

The words preceding the noun pergalė (‘victory’) carry positive connotation: įtikinama (‘persuasive’), dešimties taškų (‘ten-score’), pelnyta (‘well-deserved’), ga-lutinė (‘final’), labai reikalinga pergalė (‘badly needed’). If we take a look at the pattern VERB+pergalė (‘victory’), it is obvious that victory is conceptualized as an ontological metaphor, i.e. an entity which can be carried (atnešti), given as a gift (padovanoti), picked like a flower (skinti) or reached and touched by hand (siekti) (see Example (11)). Also, the verbs implying fight are quite common in the collocations with victory: iškovoti (‘win by fighting’), pakovoti dėl (‘fight for’), išplėšti (‘tear off’). It is obvious from Example (12) that other verbs laukti (‘wait for’), švęsti (‘celebrate’), sveikinti su (‘congratulate with’), įtvirtinti (‘consolidate’) are likely to be associated with joyful entertainment (Example (12)).

(11) Ir Lietuvos komandai šiandien šiandien norisi padovanoti Lietuvai pergalę. ‘And today Lithuanian team wants to present (=deliver) Lithuania with a victory.’(12) Montenegro, tai yra Juodkalnijos, komanda šventė pergalę rezultatu 70–65. ‘Montenegro team celebrated the victory with the result 70–65.’

Metaphors typically appear in clusters. Usually these clusters are manifestations of the same conceptual metaphor. However, there are cases when conceptual metaphors merge. Example (13) shows the blend of two conceptual metaphors – the metaphor of

53

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

conflict (victory) and the metaphor of journey (grįžti į kelią (‘to come back to the path‘), kelias link (‘the path to’).

(13) […] bet kokiu atveju pradėti čempionatą pralaimėjimu ir po to vėl atsitiesti ir grįžti į pergalių kelią visada yra nelengva […]

‘[…] to start the championship with defeat and to unbend (=recover) again and come back to the path of victories is not so easy […]’

Furthermore, the verbs įveikti (‘defeat’), nugalėti (defeat’), sutriuškinti (‘smash’) have much in common with the fight element of the conflict scenario. However, Lithuanian prefixes į-, nu-, su- express the completed action and these lexemes tend to express vic-tory. The pattern įveikti (defeat)+OBJECT is the most frequent and the second part of this pattern is expressed through the following metonymically and not metonymically used notions, for example, Italy, Germany, the Poles, Turkish team, opponent, rivals, a particular basketball player (e.g. Joel Freeland, Simas Jasaitis). The verb nugalėti (‘defeat’) is followed by similar objects as the verb įveikti (‘defeat’) but it is typically preceded by adverbs having evaluative component: nesunkiai (‘easily’), nelengvai (‘not easily’), tikrai labai sunkiai (‘with difficulty’).

The element of defeat in the conflict metaphor scenario is used slightly less frequently than the element of victory (cf. 106 vs. 174 tokens). In most cases (95 tokens), linguistically it is realized through the verb (ne)pralaimėti (‘(not to) lose’) and its derivative noun pra-laimėjimas (‘defeat’, ‘loss’). The pattern TEAM+pralaimėti (‘lose’) is most characteristic of the analysed discourse. However, two more patterns have been observed. The pattern pralaimėti (‘lose’)+DIRECT OBJECT explains what can be lost while playing basketball, for example, pralaimėti kovą (dėl atšokusių kamuolių) (‘to lose a fight of rebounding)’), bronzines rungtynes (‘the bronze match’), dvikovą (‘duel’), pirmąjį ketvirtį (‘the first quar-ter’), pirmąją rungtynių dalį (‘the first part of the match’), ketvirtfinalį (‘quarter-final’). It has to be admitted that the concepts following the verb pralaimėti (‘lose’) are almost identical as the ones used after the opposite verb laimėti (‘win’). The concepts used after the verb in the second pattern pralaimėti (‘lose’)+INDIRECT OBJECT have to do with nationalities or countries and they are the following: Latvijai (‘against Latvia’), Angolai (‘against Angola’), prancūzai pralaimėjo graikam (‘the French lost against the Greeks’), būsimiems čempionams (‘against future champions’). Consider the following example:

(14) […] po to buvo 2005-ųjų toks nedidelis revanšas, kada prancūzai sutriuškino mus ketvirfinalyje, tačiau pusfinalyje prancūzai pralaimėjo graikams dramatiškai – per 40 sekundžių 3 taškų persvarą iššvaistė Prancūzijos ekipa, ir pralaimėjo būsimie-siems čempionams.

‘[…] then there was revenge in 2005 when the French defeated us in the quarter-final, but in the semi-final the French lost against the Greeks dramatically: in 40 seconds the French team wasted a 3 point-lead and lost against the future champions.’

54

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

The noun pralaimėjimas (‘defeat’, ‘loss’) collocates with the verbs patirti (‘experience’), išgelbėti nuo (‘rescue from’). A very common case is when the commentator indicates the result related to the defeat. For instance, pralaimėjimas 4 taškų skirtumu/rezultatu (‘defeat by 4 points’). Also, the adjectives preceding the noun assume negative and sad character, for example, skaudus (‘painful’), sunkus (‘heavy’), dramatiškos kovos (‘dramatic fight’).

Although other metaphorical expressions like nepasiduoti ir kautis iki galo (‘not to surrender and fight to the end’), nepasiduos ir nenuleis rankų (‘won’t surrender and won’t let the hands down’), tikrai nepasiduos (‘won’t surrender indeed’), nenusileisti (‘not to concede’) are not numerous but they show active position, combative mood, determined-ness not to surrender so easily.

To conclude, it seems that the basketball game is more victory-oriented as the com-mentator focuses more on the concept of winning than on the concept of defeat. However, the importance of defeat cannot be underestimated.

5.1.5. The elements of belligerents and weaponsThe conflict metaphor scenario inevitably involves people who are in fight. 72 met-

aphorical tokens, which name the people in basketball discourse, were distinguished (see Table 8). Also, the concept of weapons is closely related to people in fight. It has to be admitted that the explicit realization of it through the lexeme ginklai (‘weapons’) constitutes an insignificant part of the analysed scenario (see Table 9).

Table 8. Lexical realizations of the belligerents element.Lexical realization Tokens

puolėjas (a forward) 22gynėjas (a guard) 18snaiperis (a sharp shooter, a sniper) 13štabas (staff) 6kovotojas (a fighter) 5

kariai (warriors) 2sirgalių armija (army of fans) 2strategas (strategist) 2gelbėtojas (saviour) 1nugalėtojas (winner) 1

72

55

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Table 9. Lexical realizations of the weapons element.Lexical realization Tokens

ginklai (weapons) 77

The data show that some basketball terms are completely different in Lithuanian and English and they are motivated by different conceptual metaphors. One of the prime examples is a forward, an English term, which is motivated by the conceptual metaphor of movement, while the analogical Lithuanian term puolėjas (‘attacker’) is motivated by the conceptual metaphor of conflict. Consider the following example:

(15) […] todėl kad kada Lietuvos rinktinės vidurio puolėjai yra aktyvūs baudos aikštelėje ir verčia ten varžovus dirbti stipriai ir sunkiai, tada lengviau kvėpuoti ir visiems kitiems.

‘[…] that’s why when centre forwards of the Lithuanian team are active in the restrict-ed area and make the opponents work hard, then it is easier for others to breathe.’

Although the term puolėjas (‘an attacker (=forward)’) is the most prominent (22 to-kens), the other term gynėjas (‘guard’) does not significantly lag behind (18 tokens). One more concept which is recurrent is snaiperis (‘a sniper’ (=sharp shooter)). Other cases of the element belligerents are not particularly numerous but they show a considerable diversity of the conflict metaphor scenario: the concepts štabas (‘staff’) and strategas (‘a strategist’) indicate people who are responsible for efficient running of a team; the players are presented as kovotojas (‘a fighter’), kariai (‘warriors), gelbėtojas (‘a saviour’), nugalėtojas (‘a winner’); solid fan’s support is referred to as sirgalių armija (‘an army of fans’). What is interesting with the last example is that we have a blend of two conceptual metaphors of illness and conflict because if to translate the lexeme sirgalius into English, it would mean a person who is ill, though it is used in the meaning of ‘a fan’.

On the one hand, this part of the conflict scenario is not particularly developed in comparison with other parts, on the other hand, the metaphorical expressions which name the people in fight along with other parts of the scenario confirm the existence of the conflict metaphor in our minds.

5.1.6. The element of exerting force, aggression, threatThis part of the conflict metaphor scenario stands out in the analysis as containing

extremely aggressive, threatening concepts of sheer force. It has to be noted that although the element of exerting force, aggression, threat is numerous enough in the analysed discourse (123 tokens), there are no particular lexemes which would prevail among the others. Table 10 shows that there is a considerable variety of aggressive lexemes, ranging from 1 to 22 metaphorical tokens.

56

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Table 10. Lexical realizations of the exerting force, aggression, threat elementLexical realization Tokens

jėga (force) 22(pa/nepa/pra/su)laužia (break) 16(pa-/pri-/pasi-/susi-/nepri-/už-)spausti (press v.); (pasi)spaudimas (pressing) 12mušti (beat) 9stiprus (strong), stipresnė (stronger), stipriausias (the strongest) 9agresyvus (aggressive) 9siausti (storm v.) 7galingas (powerful) 6(pra-/į-/at-)kerta (cut v.) išsikirtinėjimas (cutting) 4pavojingai/-us/-iausiai/-as (danger, dangerous(ly)) 4(į-)smeigti (stab v.), 3smūgis (į) (hit n.), smūgiuoti (hit v.) 3sunaikinti (destroy) 3(nesi-/iš-)plėšyti (tear v.) 3grėsmė (threat), grėsmingai (menacingly) 3nužudyti (kill) 2užaštrinti (sharpen) 2dominuoti (dominate) 2išgąsdinti (frighten) 1nukalė (hit sb.) 1žiaurūs (cruel) 1sutraiškyti (crush) 1

123

However, the lexeme jėga (‘force’) is one of the most characteristic lexemes, which denotes either basketball players or using force in the court, as it is shown in Example (16) and (17).

(16) Kol kas didžioji serbų jėga yra Nenadas Krstičius […] ‘Nenad Krstič is still the greatest force of the Serbs […]’(17) Nepavyko Martynui Pociui jėga pralaužti varžovų gynybos baudos aikštelėje […] ‘Martynas Pocius failed to break the defence by force in the opponents’ restricted

area.

The other lexemes fall into two groups. The first group contains verbs and their noun derivatives which metaphorically express basketball actions in a particularly aggressive way: (pa/nepa/pra/su)laužia (‘break’), (pa-/pri-/pasi-/susi-/nepri-/už-)spausti (‘press’),

57

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

(pasi)spaudimas (‘pressing’), mušti (‘beat’), siausti (‘storm’ v.), (pra-/į-/at-)kerta (‘cut’) išsikirtinėjimas (‘cutting’), (į-)smeigti (‘stab‘), smūgiuoti (‘hit’), sunaikinti (‘destroy’), (nesi-/iš-)plėšyti (‘tear’), nužudyti (‘kill’), užaštrinti (‘sharpen’), dominuoti (‘dominate’), išgąsdinti (‘frighten’), nukalti (‘hit sb.’) sutraiškyti (‘crush’). Moreover, taking into con-sideration that the Lithuanian language is synthetic, it has been observed that the verbs exhibit a tendency of being used with prefixes pa-, pri-, pra-, už-, į-, at-, iš-, su- which, in turn, show the completed action. Thus, it can be maintained that the verbs expressing aggressive actions are more result-oriented, i.e. the commentator tends to focus on the achieved results in the court.

The second group of lexemes contains adjectives and adverbs describing the features of the actions performed in the court. Similarly to the verbs, these adjectives also seem to be of forceful or aggressive character: stiprus (‘strong’), stipresnė (‘stronger’), stipriausias (‘the strongest’), agresyvus (‘aggressive’), galingas (‘powerful’), pavojingai(-as/-iausiai) (‘dangerously’, ‘(the most) dangerous’), žiaurūs (‘cruel’).

To summarize, although the element of exerting force, aggression, threat is not sta-tistically the most important element of the conflict metaphor scenario, it is likely to show and prove the metaphorically conflictual nature of the basketball game.

6. Conclusions

Historically, many types of sport grew out of military context. Therefore, the relation-ship between war and sport, which can be considered as a subtype of conflict, seems to be direct and causal. The research aimed to answer the posed research questions if bas-ketball is metaphorically conceptualized as conflict and if yes, what kind of scenario the conflict metaphor follows. The answer to the first question is more than positive because the data indicate that conflict metaphors make up more than 46% of all metaphors which confirms that basketball tends to be conflictual by its very nature. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrated that the conflict metaphor has a well-developed scenario with its participants and actions typical of conflict: fight, attack, defence, victory, defeat, belligerents, weapons and exerting force, aggression, threat.

The number of metaphorical tokens indicates that the focus is more on taking an active stance – attacking (434 tokens) and fighting (283 tokens). The game of basketball involves not only attacking but also its opposite, which is defending. However, in com-parison with attacking, the element of defence does not seem so significant (221 token). The conflict scenario is further unfolding with another pair of opposition victory (174 tokens) and defeat (106). The same as with the concept of attacking, the emphasis is on positive achievement. Although the elements of belligerents (72 tokens) and weapons (7 tokens) are not so developed as the other, still their existence contributes to the conflict metaphor scenario. Last but not least the element of exerting force, aggression, threat

58

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

(123 tokens) was distinguished as separate because it stands out as containing diction of aggressive character.

It has to be admitted that most of the analysed conflict metaphors are far from novel. They tend to be highly conventionalized and they are naturally comprehended as basketball terminology without realizing that there is close correlation between basketball and war. However, we cannot downplay their influence on our subconscious mind. Our mind is easily affected when we hear novel metaphors as they are salient in a particular context as well as when we are poured with huge numbers of conventional metaphorical expressions of the same conceptual metaphor. Following Aristotelian classical rhetoric, we can maintain that the usage of conflict metaphor in basketball discourse establishes commonly shared values or ethos when all spectators become as a group freely sharing the same interests, goals and values, or in other words, they become unified by the same purpose – to support a team. Moreover, extremely frequent use of the conflict meta-phor is aimed at arousing the spectators’ emotions, or pathos according to Aristotle. The commentator’s function is to affect the spectators and make them a part of the basketball game. Thus, while watching a game spectators become not physically but emotionally involved in the game and the overwhelming feeling of winning or losing together with the team seems to boost and keep up morale among the spectators.

However, the conflict metaphor is not the only one characteristic of basketball discourse. The importance of other metaphors such as journey, money transaction, balance, entertainment/performance, cognitive abilities, illness, natural phenomenon and mechanism should not be underestimated and further research is necessary to carry out in order to have a complete view of how the game of basketball is conceptualized metaphorically.

References

Aristotle, (2000). The Poetics of Aristotle. Translated by S. H. Butcher. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University.

Bommert, S. (2011). England Look Dead and Buried. Usage of Conceptual Metaphor in Live Football Commentary. GRIN Verlag.

Burnes, S. (2011). Metaphors in Press Reports of Elections: Obama Walked on Water but Musharraf was Beaten by a Knockout. Journal of Pragmatics (43), 2160–2175.

Charteris-Black, J. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Chudinov – Чудинов, А. П. (2003). Россия в метафорическом зеркале: когнитивное исследование политической метафоры (1991 – 2000). Екатеринбург.

Cudd, A. E. (2007). Sporting Metaphors: Competition and the Ethos of Capitalism. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 34, 52–67.

59

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Dauncey, H. Hare, G., (2000). World Cup France ’98. Metaphors Meanings and Values. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 35/3, 331–347.

De Landtsheer, C. (2009). Collecting Political Meaning from the Count of Metaphor. In A. Musolff and J. Zinken (eds.), Metaphor and Discourse, 97–115. Palgrave Macmillan.

Fiddick, T. (1989). Beyond the Domino Theory: The Vietnam War and Metaphors of Sports. Journal of American Culture, 79–87.

Howe, N. (1988). Metaphor in Contemporary American Political Discourse. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, vol. 3(2), 87–104.

Jansen, S. C. Sabo, D. (1994). The Sport/War Metaphor: Hegemonic Masculinity, the Persian Gulf War, and the New World Order. Sociology of Sport Journal, 11(1).

McCallum, J. 2001. Fighting Words. It’s Time to Re-examine Some Bellicose Sports Metaphors. Sports Illustrated, vol. 95(13).

Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, (2010). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ortony, A. (1993). Metaphor, Language and Thought. In A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought

1–16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Orwell, G., (1945). The Sporting Spirit. Tribune. Price, J. L., (1991). The Final Four as Final Judgement: The Cultural Significance of the NCAA

Basketball Championship. Journal of Popular Culture, 24(4) 49–58.Rodriguez, X. D., Arroyo-Santos, A. (2011). The Function of Scientific Metaphor: An Example

of the Creative Power of Metaphors in Biological Theories. In S. Castro, A. Marcos (eds.) The Paths of Creation: Creativity in Science and Art. 81–96.

Ruiz, M. C., Hanin, Y. L. (2004). Metaphoric Description and Individualized Emotion Profiling in Performance States in Top Karate Athletes. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 16, 258–273.

Segrave, J. O. (2000). The Sports Metaphor in American Cultural Discourse. Culture, Sport, Society, vol. 3(1), 48–60.

Semino, E., (2008). Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Shields, D., Bredemeier, B. (2011). Contest, Competition and Metaphor. Journal of the Philosophy

of Sport, 38, 27–38.Simó, J. (2009). Chess Metaphors in American English and Hungarian. Metaphor and Symbol,

24, 42–59.Steen, G., Dorst, A., Herrmann, B., Kaal, A., Krennmayr, T., Pasma, T. (2010). A Method for

Linguistic Metaphor Identification. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Thalhammer, E. (2010). Metaphor in Football – England vs. Germany. 8th International Conference

on Researching and Applying Metaphor. VU University of Amsterdam. Available at: http://www.anglistik.uni-muenchen.de/personen/wiss_ma/thalhammer/thalhammer_publ/raam8_thalhammer.pdf

Vierkant, S. (2008). Metaphor in German Live Radio Football. Available at http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~gcla08/upload/abstr63.pdf.Wall, A. (2009). Myth, Metaphor and Science. Chester: Chester Academic Press.

http://www.anglistik.uni-muenchen.de/personen/wiss_ma/thalhammer/thalhammer_publ/raam8_thalhammer.pdfhttp://www.anglistik.uni-muenchen.de/personen/wiss_ma/thalhammer/thalhammer_publ/raam8_thalhammer.pdfhttp://www.anglistik.uni-muenchen.de/personen/wiss_ma/thalhammer/thalhammer_publ/raam8_thalhammer.pdfhttp://www.uni-leipzig.de/~gcla08/upload/abstr63.pdf

60

ISSN 1392–8600E-ISSN 1822–7805


Svetimosios kalbos

Wörsching, M. (1999). Metaphors of Hegemonic Masculinity – An Analysis of Sport and Advertising in the German Newsmagazine Der Spiegel. Journal of European Area Studies, vol. 7(2), 177–195.

KONFLIKTO metaforų analizė tiesioginėse krepšinio rungtynių komentaruose taikant tekstynų metodąJurga Cibulskienė

Lietuvos edukologijos universitetas, Filologijos fakultetas, Anglų kalbos didaktikos katedraStudentų g. 39, 08106 Vilnius, [email protected]

Santrauka

Pastaraisiais metais vis daugiau metaforos tyrimų tampa taikomaisiais, t.y. susiję su realaus gyvenimo sritimis. Politinio, ekonominio, sveikatos, švietimo, meno diskursų metaforos yra plačiai analizuojamos kognityvistų. Šis tyrimas tęsia metaforos studijas realiame diskurse ir analizuoja metaforą sporto diskurse, tiksliau tariant, Europos krepšinio čempionato tiesioginių transliacijų komentaruose. Buvo sudarytas 46 559 žodžių tekstynas ir metaforiniai pasakymai buvo analizuojami pasitelkus programinę AntConc įrangą. Tyrimas rodo, kad krepšinio diskur-se vyrauja konceptualioji konflikto metafora. Pastebėta, kad nustatyti metaforiniai pasakymai paklūsta tam tikram scenarijui: kova, puolimas, gynyba, pergalė/pralaimėjimas, kariaujantys žmonės, ginklai, jėgos panaudojimas, agresija, grėsmė. Nors dauguma metaforinių pasakymų yra konvencionalūs ir suprantami kaip krepšinio terminai, matoma aiški krepšinio ir karo terminų koreliacija, kuri veikia žiūrovų pasąmonę. Itin dažnas konflikto metaforos vartojimas yra susijęs su bandymu paveikti žiūrovų emocijas, arba pagal Aristotelį pathos. Vartodamas šią metaforą, komentatorius siekia sudominti žiūrovus ir įtraukti juos į žaidimą.

Esminiai žodžiai: krepšinio diskursas, konflikto metafora, metaforiniai pasakymai, metaforinis scenarijus, konfliktiškumas.

Pateikta / Submitted 2014 09 06Priimta / Accepted 2014 10 10

the conflictual nature of metaphors in live basketball ......the vietnam war or to describe...

Documents