ATTRIBUTES OF A WINNER IN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE SPORTS DISCOURSE

Abstract

In the paper the authors focus on linguistic means used by athletes, commentators and journalists during press-conferences, interviews and announcements of sports events in the field of contact sports. The analysis of the statements allow revealing the key features of a winner’s image that are considered as necessary “components” for the success of athletes and their victories. The aim of the study is to identify the attributive features and qualities of the “winner” in English-language sports discourse. The authors apply the methods of semantic, context, descriptive and stylistic analyses. The analysis of linguistic means and contents of the statements helps determine the following attributes of “winner”: confidence in victory, past achievements and statuses, physical superiority, etc. Subjects of sports discourse used such linguistic means as repetition, parallelism, hyperbolization, metaphor, epithet and comparison.