Hostname: page-component-669899f699-2mbcq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-29T04:15:24.116Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Children's competence in the specialized register of sportscasting*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Susan M. Hoyle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study reports on four school-age boys' use of the specialized register of sportscasting as performed both spontaneously and when elicited by the researcher, and compares the boys' production of formal register-marking features to adult usage. Like the commentary of professional sportscasters, the boys' commentating is characterized by heavy use of simple-present action verbs, use of constructions lacking elements that are ordinarily grammatically required (the subject pronoun he, an auxiliary verb, or a main verb), and (in the elicited version) frequent occurrence of passives. The boys invest the most ‘ungram-matical’ utterance types (those lacking finite verbs) with a function that is not clearly present in adult sportscasting discourse, that of pointing forward in the discourse.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1991 , pp. 435 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Thanks go to Deborah Tannen, Peter Lowenberg, and especially Deborah Schiffrin for encouragement and many comments on the dissertation from which this paper in part derives.

References

REFERENCES

Andersen, E. S. (1984). The acquisition of sociolinguistic knowledge: some evidence from children's verbal role-play. Western Journal of Speech Communication 48, 125–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andersen, E. S. (1986). The acquisition of register variation by Anglo-American children. In Schieffelin, B. B. & Ochs, E. (eds), Language socialization across cultures. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Cook-Gumperz, J. (1986). Keeping it together: text and context in children's language socialization. In Tannen, D. & Alatis, J. E. (eds), Languages and linguistics: the interdependence of theory, data, and application (Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1985). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Crytal, D. (1980). Neglected grammatical factors in conversational English. In Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. (eds), Studies in English linguistics for Randolph Quirk. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. & Davy, D. (1969). Investigating English style. Bioomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, S. (1977). Wait for me, roller skate! In Ervin-Tripp, S. & Mitchell-Kernan, C. (eds), Child discourse. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1975). Towards a characterization of English foreigner talk. Anthropological Linguistics 17, 1–14.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1982). Simplified registers and linguistic theory. In Obler, L. & Menn, L. (eds), Exceptional language and linguistics. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1983). Sports announcer talk: syntactic aspects of register variation. Language in Society 12, 153–72.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. (1985). Editor's introduction. Discourse Processes 8, 391–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garvey, C. (1975). Requests and responses in children's speech. Journal of Child Language 2, 41–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Green, G. (1982). Colloquial and literary uses of inversions. In Tannen, D. (ed.), Spoken and written language: exploring orality and literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Horgan, D. (1978). The development of the full passive. Journal of Child Language 5, 65–80.Google Scholar
Hoyle, S. M. (1988). Boys' sportscasting talk: a study of children's language use. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Hoyle, S. M. (1989). Forms and footings in boys' sportscasting. Text 9, 153–73.Google Scholar
Janda, R. D. (1985). Note-taking English as a simplified register. Discourse Processes 8, 437–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirsh, B. (1983). The use of directives as indication of status among preschool children. In Fine, J. & Freedle, R. O. (eds), Developmental issues in discourse. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Leech, G. (1971). Meaning and the English verb. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Mitchell-Kernan, C. & Kernan, K. (1977). Pragmatics of directive choice among children. In Ervin-Tripp, S. & Mitchell-Kernan, C. (eds), Child discourse. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, F. R. (1974). The English verb. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Paul, R. (1985). The emergence of pragmatic comprehension: a study of children's understanding of sentence structure cues to given/new information. Journal of Child Language 12, 161–79.Google Scholar
Perera, K. (1984). Children's writing and reading: analysing classroom language. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sachs, J. & Devin, J. (1976). Young children's use of age-appropriate speech styles in social interaction and role-playing. Journal of Child Language 3, 81–98.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. & Gelman, R. (1973). The development of communication skills: modifications in the speech of young children as a function of the listener. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 38, Serial No. 152.Google Scholar
Straumann, H. (1935). Newspaper headlines: a study in linguistic method. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Weber, E. G. (1982). Going, going, gone: verb forms in baseball sportscasting. Unpublished M. A. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar