• The Conference
  • Home
  • Programme
  • Venue & directions
  • Organizing Committee
  • Scientific Committee
  • Exhibitors & sponsors
  • Satellite events
  • Conference Party
• Past & future
  • Previous symposia
  • Finland 2014
  • Spain 2016
• About FU Berlin
  • University homepage
  • Humanities at FU

Programme: accepted abstracts

Search for abstracts --- authors title abstract

---

Abstract ID: 604

Part of Session 135: The sociolinguistics of football (Other abstracts in this session)

It’s a red card! And it’s the interpreter who is sent off

Authors: Gamal, Muhammad Yahya
Submitted by: Gamal, Muhammad Yahya (University of Canberra, Australia)

Although football is dubbed the international language of sport as it is practiced in virtually all cities in the world, the game is increasingly becoming ‘linguistic’ as teams, at the club and national levels turn their attention to foreign coaches and players. The word ‘foreign’ is now part and parcel of football and to make the foreign ‘element’ meaningful and relevant interpreters are being used.

The presence of interpreters for coaches and players has been a noticeable feature of football since FIFA introduced the colour cards in 1970. The cards, were introduced after the communication failure in sending a player off the field in 1966 World Cup. However, the sociolinguistic impact of interpreters on football has attracted little attention in the sport media, the game bodies and academia alike (Gamal: 2011).

Research in Egyptian football discourse show that the language of football has vast sociolinguistic impact on the masses (Dawood: 2005) and that the terminology of the foreign game has not only taken root but started to develop its own discourse (Gamal: 2008). Over the past decade or so, Egyptian football discourse, has been focused on the most famous foreign coach Egypt has known, Manuel Jose, a Portuguese who coaches Egypt’s top club Al Ahly. This was done through Jose’s interpreter Ahmad Abdou, till his demise! The interpreter’s saga with a top team deserves to be investigated.

Likewise, the saga of the Portuguese interpreter of Japan’s national team’s coach Zico deserves a closer attention as it explores the latitude sport interpreters should be given and can claim. In a context characterised by passion, emotion and motivation how ‘professional’ should the interpreter be and what is the yardstick for being professional. This could also raise the question of gender: could females do the job of a football interpreter?

Similarly, the Spanish interpreter of the Chinese national team has had his own fair share of the blame. Interpreters should be proficient in both languages and of course fluent in the terminology of the subject matter but should they also be native interpreters in order to understand the emotions of the players or simply focus on the message of the foreign Spanish coach!

The paper examines the role football interpreters play and the impact they have on the culture of football. While the examples are primarily taken from Egyptian, Japanese and Chinese contexts more examples from other contexts will be cited . The rationale being: football interpreters, though not team mates, they are certainly team players!

References:

Alabbassy, S. (2000) Al Riyada fi hayatina (Sport in our life). Ghareeb Publishing. Cairo

Dawood, M. (2005) Al lugha wa kurat al kadam: dirassah dalaliyah” (Language and football: a semiotic study). Ghareeb Publishing. Cairo.

Gamal, M. (2008) The Final Whistle: how football terminology took root in Arabic. In Lavric et al (eds.) The Linguistics of Football. Tubingen: Narr.

Frommer, H. (2005) The Sports junkies book of trivia, terms and lingo. Taylor Publishing.