METAPHORICAL CONCEPTUALISATIONS IN TENNIS: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE 2022 AUSTRALIAN OPEN[1]
1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia, Romania
Abstract
This article investigates the metaphorical conceptualisations of tennis, as conveyed by athletes and journalists during the 2022 Australian Open. As a major international sporting event, the Australian Open offers a comprehensive perspective on tennis, given the participation of both male and female athletes and the involvement of prestigious sports commentators. To analyse the conceptualisations of tennis, this study examines a corpus of nine articles, approximately 7,000 words in total, published in the online editions of The Guardian and The Telegraph in January 2022. The paper is divided into two sections: the first presents a review of relevant literature, methodology, and prior research on conceptual metaphors, while the second investigates the metaphors used by athletes and journalists to depict tennis. The study applies the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) and the framework-slot method to identify metaphorically used words in the corpus. The primary objective is to determine the frequency and nature of metaphorical expressions in the context of tennis and to explore how the genre of the discourse—athletes' vs. journalists' perspectives—shapes these metaphors. The analysis reveals four dominant conceptualisations of tennis: Tennis is War, Tennis is Finance, Tennis is Spectacle, and Tennis is Literature, with the latter being notably attributed to a female journalist who frames tennis not merely as a competitive sport but as an emotional and poetic experience.
Keywords: Conceptual Metaphor Theory; Tennis conceptualisations; Pragglejaz MIP, Sports journalism; Gender representation
References
Caballero, R. (2012). The role of metaphor in tennis reports and forums. Text & Talk: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies, 32(6), 703-726. doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2012-0033
Charteris-Black, J. (2004). Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis. Palgrave-Macmillan.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., Espenson, J., & Schwartz, A. (1991). Master metaphor list (Technical report). Cognitive Linguistics Group, University of California, Berkeley.
Nacey, S., Dorst, A. G., Krennmayr, T., & Reijnierse, W. G. (Eds.). (2019). Metaphor identification in multiple languages: MIPVU around the world. John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Popescu, T. (2016). Conceptualisation of COMPANIES in English and Romanian business journalese. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 9(1), 89–110. doi: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2016.9.1.7
Popescu, T. (2017a). Metaphorical conceptualisations of ECONOMY in Romanian and British business press. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 10(2), 93–110. doi: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2017.10.2.8
Popescu, T. (2017b). Metaphorical conceptualisations of MONEY in Romanian and British business press. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 10(1), 153–174. doi: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2017.10.1.10
Popescu, T. (2021). Conceptualisations of WORK in Romanian, French, Russian and English Proverbs. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 14(2), 107-126. doi: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2021.14.2.6
Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926480709336752
Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2012). A method for linguistic metaphor identification: From MIP to MIPVU. In Converging evidence in language and communication research (pp. 65–84). John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/clu.8.05ste
Vorobei, O., Akimova, A., & Akimova, A. (2021). Metaphorical conceptualization of WAR in Chinese sports discourse. Psycholinguistics, 29(2), 25-45. doi: https://doi.org/10.31470/2309-1797-2021-29-2-25-45
Corpus
Amako, U. (2022, January 25). Ashleigh Barty keeps Australian Open dreams alive after cruising to victory over Jessica Pegula. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/01/25/ashleigh-barty-vsjessica-pegula-live-score-australian-open-2022/
Briggs, S. (2022, January 30). Even for Rafael Nadal, this was mission impossible – Australian Open win was a miracle in Melbourne. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/01/30/even-rafael-nadal-mission-impossible-australian-open-win-miracle
Briggs, S. (2022, February 1). Women's grand slam finals must be changed to five sets - no more excuses. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/02/01/no-excuses-womens-grand-slam-finals-must-best-of-five-sets
Brown, O. (2022, January 30). Rafael Nadal's triumph is astounding but Novak Djokovic's absence casts an inescapable shadow. The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tennis/2022/01/30/rafael-nadals-australian-open-triumph-astounding-novak-djokovics/
Carayol, T. (2022, January 30). Rafael Nadal hails greatest comeback to win ‘unexpected’ 21st grand slam title. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/30/rafael-nadal-hails-greatest-comeback-to-win-unexpected-21st-grand-slam-title
Kemp, E. (2022, January 29). Kyrgios and Kokkinakis secure doubles title to cap remarkable Australian Open campaign. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/29/kyrgios-and-kokkinakis-secure-doubles-title-to-end-remarkable-australian-open-journey
Kemp, E. (2022, January 22). Sabalenka too good for Vondrousova but Inglis run ended by Kanepi. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/22/sabalenka-too-good-for-vondrousova-but-inglis-run-ended-by-kanepi-australian-open-tennis
Kemp, E. (2022, January 24). Cornet outlasts Halep in Australia heat to reach first grand slam quarter-final. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/24/cornet-outlasts-halep-in-australia-open-heat-to-reach-first-grand-slam-quarter-final-tennis
Kemp, E. (2022, January 28). Ash Barty determined not to let the weight of history drag her down. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2022/jan/28/ash-barty-weight-of-history-australian-open-final-danielle-collins
How to cite this article: Leaha, E. A. (2023). Metaphorical conceptualisations in tennis: A discourse analysis of the 2022 Australian Open. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education - JoLIE, 16(1), 95–108. https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2023.16.1.6
For details on subscription, go to: http://jolie.uab.ro/index.php?pagina=-&id=19&l=en
[1] This paper was developed as part of the MA course Metaphorology in Contemporary Media, taught by Professor Teodora Popescu during the 2021–2022 academic year at 1 Decembrie 1918 University of Alba Iulia, Romania.