How Language Shapes Relationships in Professional Sports Teams

While the topic of relationships in professional sports teams is gaining greater attention from researchers and practitioners, the role that coach and athlete language plays in shaping these relationships remains largely unexplored. This book addresses this gap by examining how every day, authentic language patterns used by coaches, captains and players shape relationships in a professional New Zealand rugby team. More specifically, through a discourse analysis of taken-for-granted ritual language practices in training sessions, team meetings and match-day interactions, the chapters of this book illustrate how coaches, captains and players shape particular interpersonal dynamics of power and solidarity between themselves in and through language and, in the process, reflect and reconstruct shared and underlying ideologies about how relationships of power and solidarity work in their team. Offering an evidence-based discussion of the silent and pervasive ideologies that underpin how relationships work in professional sports teams, this book extends research on this important topic by providing largely missing illustrations of consequential interpersonal dynamics that actively shape professional relationships in sports teams. Written in an approachable style, this book offers linguists, social scientists and sports practitioners a frame of reference for greater understanding of how language directly shapes relationships of power and solidarity.

Kieran File is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, UK, where he teaches professional communication, qualitative research methodology and sociolinguistics. His research explores a range of issues related to language use in professional and competitive sport. Kieran also applies his research to help professional athletes develop better awareness and strategies for effective communication in professional sport.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
1. How Do Relationships Work in Professional Sports Teams? Investigating the Performance of Relationships through a Linguistic Lens
2. Introducing our Toolkit: Discourse Analytical Tools for Locating Relational Dynamics in Social Interaction
3. How Do Coaches Exercise Control over Players? Constructing Asymmetrical Power Relations through Language
4. Exercising Power through Questioning: How Coaches Use their Questions
5. How Does Power-Sharing Work? The Interactional Distribution of Power between Coach and Captain
6. Power Dynamics amongst Players: Establishing Flatter Social Structures in On-Field Problem Solving Talk
7. Bonding before Battle: How the Captain Fosters Togetherness and Belonging in Pre-Match Team-Talk Rituals
8. Maintaining Professional Distance in Interaction: The Nature of Solidarity between Coaches and Players
9. Criticism and Solidarity between Coach and Players: Variation in Critical Feedback Practices
10. Widening the Linguistic Lens: Identifying Cultural Belief Systems Underlying How Relationships Work in Professional Sports Teams
Appendix 1: Technical Rugby Terms Explained
Appendix 2: Contextual Information about Individuals in the Team
References
Index