Sport and language in Germany STUDIES IN PHYSICAL CULTURE AND TOURISM Vol. 16, No. 1, 2009 JÜRGEN BUSCHMANN, MATHIAS BELLINGHAUSEN Deutsche Sporthochschule, Olympischen Studien Zentrum, Köln, Germany SPORT AND LANGUAGE IN GERMANY Key words: German sport language, sport reporting, anglicisms, language of football, language change. ABSTRACT The article discusses the language of sport in Germany from a structural and cultural perspective. The most productive field of language change is the language of football – Germany’s sport number one. The authors present different mechanisms of change of sport language: borrowings (mainly anglicisms and hispanisms), derivation, translation as well as various tendencies in present-day sport reporting. Sport understood as a means of communication is becoming more and more important in Germany as an integrating component of a heterogeneous society. In Germany sport is a genuine sub-area of written by the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, social structure and a fixed part of human life and who at the beginning of the 19th century – long culture. For this reason, German sport journalists, before Germany’s formation as a unified state – authors, philosophers, cultural scientists, language identified numerous German dialects and collected aesthetes, linguists as well as literary and social common terms in a dictionary and a grammar book critics are opening their eyes more and more to the (started in 1838 and finished in 1960). Yet, even mental images and discourses originating in sport. today, the German language features numerous “As a fast-moving means of communication, sport regional dialects, the use of which is also shaped by language is an ideal field in which to observe socio-economic or educational influences, making language change, as well as the forming of it a subject of linguistic and sociological research. metaphors, new words and neologisms” [2]. It is While expressions and terms from older not easy to obtain a differentiated overview of sports have been well integrated in popular sports language as a object of interest of language language use, e.g. “to take a hard line with researchers or sports scientists, however. Rather, someone” or “to put the cart before the horse” taken sport is still the subject of sociological studies (of from equestrian sports with their military roots, fan cultures, for example) in the context of socio- modern sports terms usually originate from cultural or general social aspects. More compre- English-speaking countries or from internationally hensive, on the other hand, are studies of the binding sports regulations [2]. The diffusion of influence of neologisms – in particular anglicisms words and sayings in everyday use outside sport or hispanisms – in the German (sports) language, usually goes hand in hand with the popularity of the and those focusing on comparisons of different particular sport involved. When considering the sports languages in the world. variety of sports in Germany, a linguistic “insider- In Germany, the study of different dialects outsider” situation can be quickly observed in the can be traced back to the German Dictionary use of specialist terms from sports that are not very Correspondence should be addressed to: Deutsche Sporthochschule, Olympischen Studien Zentrum, Carl-Diem- Weg 6; D 50933 Köln, Germany; tel: +49-0-221-4982-6280; e-mail: [email protected] 69 Jürgen Buschmann, Mathias Bellinghausen popular, e.g. fencing or figure skating techniques. descriptions of tactical behaviour such as kick and Even if they do briefly capture the general public rush, power play or fore-checking. In the case of imagination during the Olympic Games, which some Germanised (football) terms, their etymolo- alongside the Football World Cup and European gical origin has been obliterated completely. The Championships receive most coverage in the German word Kantersieg, for example, is used for German media, they return to their specialist niche a clear, easily achieved final result in a team sport. for another four years as soon as the event is over. There are very few people who know that this word The problems related to Germanization of specialist comes from the English word canter (light gallop, terminology or sometimes also slang sport-related as a short form of Canterbury gallop). terms from other languages was clearly demon- The football anglicisms are, however, usually strated by a discussion about basketball. When well understood outside the world of football as German TV sports channels Premiere and DSF – well. Thus in 2006, for example, when the football German Sports TV broadcast NBA matches, Ger- World Cup was held in Germany, no less than three man commentator Frank Buschmann – a recognised football-related terms were included in the Word of expert on both basketball and the NBA – translated the Year2 list published by the Gesellschaft für common American terms literally. Yet, the use of deutsche Sprache (The German Language Society) the term brick to describe a miss, or the expression in Wiesbaden. The Word of the Year was Fanmeile it’s like money in the bank to describe a perfect (fan mile). The other two in the top ten were shot, provoked a discussion about the way Ameri- Klinsmänner (to describe the World Cup team can sports are reported on. The German viewers coached then by Jürgen Klinsmann) and schwarz- were not able to understand the meaning of these rot-geil (describing the outstanding and newly- expressions, though the discussion was hardly identifying euphoria in Germany triggered by the noted outside the world of basketball fans. World Cup, and the colours of the German flag – German reporting on even more modern schwarz, rot, gold, i.e. black, red, gold – coined by sports such as American football, or less popular the Bild newspaper). With the term FC Deuts- “classic” sports features the ongoing explanation of chland 06 and the wordplay Herakles referring to rules and tactics as well as specialist vocabulary in German coach of Greece’s national team Otto the commentary (for example, equestrian expert Rehhagel, football terms were also included in the Carsten Sostmeier’s reporting from the Olympic 2004 and 2005 lists, respectively. The only sporting Games involving explanation of the finest term to make the list in 2007 was Dopingbeichte distinctions in jumping techniques or horse (doping confession), which is mainly related to anatomy). Quite often parallels are drawn to some cycling rather than football. In the opposite vote for more popular sports in order to help viewers the “Unword of the Year”, there has never been understand better reporting on some less known a single term from the world of sport. sport.1 The influence of cultural characteristics of The situation is different with terms and individual countries is also reflected more in neologisms related to football – Germany’s sport football than in other sports. The Brazilians are number one. Terms such as keeper, coach, kick, attested a creative, highly developed and attractive penalty or referee are used quite naturally in playing technique, so that changing a name in a football context, although German has its own Germany by adding the ending -inho or -aldo names for these. The same is true for the English (analogous with the Brazilian names Ronaldinho and Ronaldo) is understood immediately. After 1 Miroslav Klose had scored two goals for SV The German channel ARD introduces its explanation of Werder Bremen against Arminia Bielefeld, Franz the game of “hockey” as follows: “Hockey is quite similar to the much more popular game of football. As in football, a hockey team is made up of eleven 2 Words and expressions which have had a special players, but penalties are taken from seven metres influence on public debate over the past year, stand for away rather than eleven, and the ‘most popular’ important subjects or appear characteristic for other football rule, the ‘offside rule’, was abolished for reasons are chosen (‘verbal guiding fossils’ of a year). hockey after the Olympics in 1996 in Atlanta [….]”, This is not a matter of word frequency. The selection http://peking.ard.de/peking2008/sportarten/hockey/reg does not reflect any kind of evaluation or recommen- eln/index.html. Access on 2 September 2008. dation. www.gfds.de, accessed on September 1, 2008. 70 Sport and language in Germany Beckenbauer called him Klosinho – without any German Tanks Have Not Got Rusty” (Dong-A Ilbo, further explanation being necessary. The rival South Korea)3. Hertha BSC Berlin has given its official mascot the German reporting has been always name “Hertinho”. The term laola, sometimes with a characterised by striving towards objectivity and suffix as in Laola-Welle (laola wave) is also used in (self-) critical analysis. Whereas Spanish or South- German [1], for example, DSF has given the name American TV commentators cry a long drawn-out “Laola” to its TV programme featuring Goooaaal!!! that lasts as long as they have breath in international football reports. their lungs, more emotionality in German reporting The most extensive comparative analysis of is a phenomenon that goes hand in hand with the sports reporting in the French and German language increase in private TV channels. This can still be of the football World Cup in France in 1998 was seen best through a kind of dismay. Since linguistic carried out by Müller [6], who studied 1,500 press attempts at an explanation assume that there are no articles and around 30 hours of TV coverage concrete systematic means of language such as concerning the cultural perception of each other by grammatical structures, wording rules or morp- the German and the French. He observed that hemes that can be used to clearly communicate alongside the diametrical opposition between specific emotions, Fisher [3] establishes that refusal and fascination, there were also coherent “emotions can be stated as semantic descriptive and stable generalizing statements and images of parameters on the basis of certain indicators on how the Germans and the French saw each other, as a lexical, morpho-syntactic and stylistic level” well as discussions related to regional studies.