How Language Shapes Relationships in Professional Sports Teams: Power and Solidarity Dynamics in a New Zealand Rugby Team

This book explores the role of coach and athlete language in shaping relationships in a professional New Zealand rugby team. It examines how language patterns used by coaches, captains, and players shape power and solidarity dynamics, providing an evidence-based discussion of the ideologies that underpin these relationships. Written in an approachable style, it offers insights for linguists, social scientists, and sports practitioners.

Format: Hardback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 03 November 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

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.

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.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350044241