LFU:online

Ability to incorporate academic literature on linguistics and sports critically; competence to analyze texts and utterances according to the methods of different linguistic disciplines; ability to write a term paper that meets academic standards

Sports serves many different functions for individuals and groups: It is a leisure activity, improves health, makes for good entertainment, is an important commercial sector, but some consider it also an attitude and a purpose in life. No matter if sports for the masses, competitive sports or spectator sports - language and communication is an important factor in dealing and mediating knowledge, attitudes and feelings regarding sports.

In this seminar, we look into the relationship between language and sports. Guided by the course instructor, the students develop their own research questions, search for linguistic material and find ways of answering their questions. They present their preliminary results and knowledge concerning their projects. The main focus is to delve into linguistic approaches in an independent manner.

Some possible topics:

• Linguistic coding of bodily movements in different text types, conversations, domains and varieties: grammatical and cognitive aspects (synchronic and diachonic)
• Linguistic actions in sports (e.g. instructions)
• Concepts of space and body, linguistic reference
• Multimodality in sports communication (language - image - gestures)
• Technical language, terminology, sociolects etc. in the context of different sports
• Discourses on sports (synchronic and diachronic)
• Sports in mass media
• Language practices in sport therapy, sport in school, sport for leisure, ...

Presentations, discussions, exercises

Presentation, term paper, short written examination

• Born, Joachim; Gloning, Thomas (Hg.) (2015): Sport, Sprache, Kommunikation, Medien. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven. Gießen: Gießener Elektronische Bibliothek (Linguistische Untersuchungen 8).
• Burkhardt, Armin; Schlobinski, Peter (Hg.) (2009): Flickflack, Foul und Tsukahara. Der Sport und seine Sprache. Mannheim [u.a.]: Dudenverlag (Thema Deutsch 10).

BA German (old curriculum): compulsory modules 2, 10, 11 und 12.

BA German (new curriculum): compulsory modules 2, 6.

Teacher training programme German: First part of studies in "German Linguistics".