published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Title: ”It’s about mental factors” – Examining how a “winner’s mentality” is portrayed in Swedish sports mediaThis essay aims to explore what the Swedish sports media means when it discusses the term of a “winner’s mentality”, through a discourse analysis. More specifically this essay studies how the language in nine different sports papers in Sweden construes the meaning of the word by combining it with different signs and through the use of metaphors, a commonly used linguistic trick in Sportugese. The articles selected for analysis were all published in a one month span between the 8th of December 2016 and the 8th of January 2017. This particular period of time was selected because it included the 2017 World Juniors in ice hockey, a tournament in which the Swedes have placed fourth three years in a row, and which sparked a debate in the Swedish sports press about the team’s “winner’s mentality”.The study found five major themes within the sports journalistic discourse. A major aspect was focusing on the athlete´s psychology, their self-confidence and their will to win. This closely resembles the discourse in popular psychology, more specifically self-help texts where the readers are encouraged to change through active will. Another major theme was that of a winning record. According to the sports press, if an athlete or a team wins more often than not than that proves they possess a “winner’s mentality” and helps them win in the future as well. The essay also found differences in “winner´s mentality” based on a cultural aspect. Swede’s ability to win was downplayed while Americans were praised for their unusually strong mental abilities. This is also found in Swedish self-help texts and might indicate a much larger discourse in national identity at work. The two last themes identified were the importance of experience, and also that a “winner´s mentality” could be affected by a large amount of external factors.Overall the study found that the discourse was in disagreement within itself. A “winner´s mentality” could mean plenty of different things, and in some cases actively opposes itself. Another finding was that the sports press rarely reflects on the meaning of the term and instead mostly uses it as a rhetoric weapon or to make a point across. This raises the question whether or not the term has an actual use within sports terminology and debate if it can be interpreted in many different ways.

This essay researches metaphors and metonymy in motorsports language, mainly investigating strategies for translating the structural metaphors RACING is WAR and RACE POSITIONS are RESOURCES and analyzing the results through both a quantitative and qualitative approach. The material for the research was selected parts of former Formula 1 driver Mark Webber’s autobiography, Aussie Grit: My Formula One Journey (2016). For the translation, dictionaries and parallel texts were utilized, and several works on translation theory, such as Ingo (2007), Newmark (1988), and Lakoff & Johnson (2003) were consulted for both the translation and the following analysis. Research into similar metaphors in other sports (such as Shields & Bredemeier (2013) and Bergh & Ohlander (2012)) was analyzed for background on the phenomenon of structural metaphors in sports. The results show that metonyms are prevalent in motorsports language, and structural metaphors are also well established in both the SL and TL. Regarding metonyms, the parallel texts show that proper noun metonyms can be transferred directly. Most metonyms in the ST are of the PLACE for EVENT category (for example names of racetracks/countries used to reference whole races, and the podium being used to reference placing top three or winning). The metaphor structures are also found in the TL, meaning the intended images can largely be maintained without changing the author’s established structure of the source text. Most metaphors and metonyms can thus be translated literally, or with TL equivalents. Where expansions are necessary, the translator can safely fall back on the structures present in motorsports language to ensure a text a reader with previous knowledge of such language will understand.

El objetivo de la investigación es comprender cómo los canales deportivos televisados se están reinventando en la transmisión de la información para su público objetivo y nuevos televidentes.  La televisión tiene un papel importante en el periodismo deportivo ya que influyen en la programación de los eventos deportivos más importantes del mundo. De la revisión de literatura, el deporte está relacionado al entretenimiento y la televisión ya no tienen el monopolio audiovisual. Las consecuencias de la falta de innovación en los medios de comunicación tienen de antecedente a la prensa (diarios), que no se adaptó el ingreso de las plataformas digitales. El diseño no probabilístico - por conveniencia y la técnica de estudio será cualitativa, se iniciará con la observación por televisión de los programas deportivos y sus redes sociales. Se recogerá documentos audiovisuales de programas deportivos pasados. La población de estudio son los periodistas de los programas deportivos en televisión. / The objective of the research is to understand how televised sports channels are reinventing themselves in transmitting information to their target audience and new viewers. Television has an important role in sports journalism as they influence the programming of the most important sporting events in the world. From the source review, sport is related to entertainment and television no longer has an audiovisual monopoly. The consequences of the lack of innovation in the media have a precedent to the press, (newspapers) that the entry of digital platforms was not adapted. The non-probabilistic design - for convenience and the study technique will be qualitative, it will start with television observation of sports programs and their social networks. Audiovisual documents from past sports programs will be collected. The study population is the journalists of sports television programs. / Trabajo de investigación

Der Sport ist das dominierende Phänomen der heutigen Freizeitkultur und ein wachsender Wirtschaftszweig. Ob in den Medien, beim Handel mit Sportwaren oder beim Sport selbst: Wo über Sport gesprochen wird, treffen verschiedene Sprachen aufeinander. Um Sprachbarrieren zu überwinden, sind Dolmetscher oft unverzichtbar. Das Fachgebiet Sport bringt dabei Besonderheiten mit sich, z. B. die große Rolle des Fernsehens sowie eine eigene, vielschichtige Sprache, in der Jargon nicht selten mit Fachlexik kombiniert wird. War die Sportsprache bereits Gegenstand vieler Publikationen, befasst sich diese Arbeit mit den kaum erforschten Dolmetschtätigkeiten im Sport. Im Theorieteil werden u. a. der Bedarf an Dolmetschleistungen dargelegt und die Sportsprache aus Dolmetschersicht analysiert. Grundlage des Praxisteils ist eine Umfrage unter 51 Sport-Dolmetschern, die zu sprachlichen Herausforderungen ebenso befragt wurden wie zu den häufigsten Dolmetschsituationen oder den Verdienstmöglichkeiten.

Der Sport ist das dominierende Phänomen der heutigen Freizeitkultur und ein wachsender Wirtschaftszweig. Ob in den Medien, beim Handel mit Sportwaren oder beim Sport selbst: Wo über Sport gesprochen wird, treffen verschiedene Sprachen aufeinander. Um Sprachbarrieren zu überwinden, sind Dolmetscher oft unverzichtbar. Das Fachgebiet Sport bringt dabei Besonderheiten mit sich, z. B. die große Rolle des Fernsehens sowie eine eigene, vielschichtige Sprache, in der Jargon nicht selten mit Fachlexik kombiniert wird. War die Sportsprache bereits Gegenstand vieler Publikationen, befasst sich diese Arbeit mit den kaum erforschten Dolmetschtätigkeiten im Sport. Im Theorieteil werden u. a. der Bedarf an Dolmetschleistungen dargelegt und die Sportsprache aus Dolmetschersicht analysiert. Grundlage des Praxisteils ist eine Umfrage unter 51 Sport-Dolmetschern, die zu sprachlichen Herausforderungen ebenso befragt wurden wie zu den häufigsten Dolmetschsituationen oder den Verdienstmöglichkeiten.