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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 922

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

Football Hate Speech

Authors: Dosev, Vladimir Todorov
Submitted by: Dosev, Vladimir Todorov (University of Economics - Varna, Bulgaria)

Football hate is related to other social factors such as class, regional identity, and historical background. This paper explores the hate speech used by football fans in the biggest Bulgarian cities. Football crowds at the stadiums are social groups having their own folklore, ritualized verbal practices, and specific lexical characteristics. The language behavior of the football crowds resembles in many ways of both Ancient armies and Dionysian processions (carnivals) in Ancient Greece. A significant part of the football chants are the insulting, obscene, ribald, and especially aggressive lexis. Bulgarian “Law on Protection of the Public Peace during Sports Events” (2004) tries to control the verbal behavior of the football spectators. This Law, however, has not functioned in the stadium so far and has not influenced significantly the language behavior of the crowds, consisting at times of tens of thousands of fans.

On the other hand, social changes in Bulgaria (1989 – 1990) caused a revolution in media language. In their aspiration for verbal attractiveness, some sport media have started to use invectives, aggressive lexis and phrases typical of the chants of the football crowds.

Research methods: I. Sociolinguistic analysis of the speech behaviour of the football crowds and the communication in football social groups. It includes internet pages, fans placards, and records of the speech of the football crowds at Bulgarian stadiums (made by the method “Hidden microphone”). II. Media discourse analysis. The language material from the media is especially from newspapers “24 часа” (“24 hours”), “7 дни спорт” (“7 days sport”), “Меридиан мач” (“Meridian mach”), “Топ спорт” (“Top sport”). The paper comments on the usage in media of hate speech typical of the football crowds.

References:

Dosev, Vladimir 2006. “Football lexis in the contemporary Bulgarian language”. Papers in Linguistics from the University of Manchester, ed. by Alan Scott 108-114. The University of Manchester: Department of Linguistics and English Language.

Gardiner, Simon. 1998. “The Law and Hate Speech: “Ooh Aah Cantona” and the Demonization  of “the Other”. Fanatics! Power, Identity and Fandom in Football, ed. by Adam Brown. 249-264.  London: Routledge.

Giulianotti, Richard. 1999. Football:  A sociology of the global game. Cambridge: Polity.

Lavric, Eva; Gerhard Pisek; Andrew Skinner; and Wolfgang Stadler (eds.). 2008. The linguistics of football. Tuebingen: Narr.