Linguistic Construction Of Player’s Image

The present study probes into the linguistic construction of image in live Chinese snooker commentary(henceforth CSC). Snooker commentary, especially in Chinese, as a special sub-category of Sports Announcer Talk, has not been investigated from the perspective of discourse analysis yet.The researcher has collected and observed dozens of videos of snooker matches between a Chinese player and a foreign player from 2009 to 2014 commented by the same CCTV commentators. Among the major international events, two matches have been chosen and transcribed into 80, 000 Chinese characters, which makes it possible to carry out two comprehensive investigations in the present study.The first investigation centers on the distribution of speech acts between the Chinese player and the foreign player, intending to advance our understanding of the means the commentators usually adopt in building the player’s image. According to Austin’s and Searle’s definitions of speech act, eleven often-used speech acts have been identified and defined. They are: PRAIZING, CRITICIZING, HAILING,WAILING, QUESTIONING, TRUSTING, EXPECTING, PITYING, SURPRISING,MOCKING and EXCUSE-FINDING, which, from the technical perspective, have been further divided into three groups: Positive Markers, Negative Markers and Repairing Markers. Chi-square tests have been applied to each group and the results show that the difference is very significant when it concerns the distribution of Positive Markers between the Chinese player and the foreign player, which indicates more efforts have been devoted to building the Chinese player’s positive image and foreground his versatility in technique.The second investigation tries to discern the role of “small stories” throughout the match in building player’s images apart from lightening the tense atmosphere,with the focus primarily on the content analysis of appellations, lexical terms and tenses. The result shows that the linguistic construction of the Chinese player’simage is more diverse than that of the foreign player’s. When it comes to the outcome of the match, the commentator usually shows a strong inclination towards building the Chinese player as a promising winner overtly, while the foreign player as an ultimate loser covertly.From the above two investigations, two major findings can be concluded as follows:(a) the linguistic constructions of the Chinese player’s image is more diverse than that of the foreign player’s and the linguistic resources have been distributed more to the Chinese player in live Chinese snooker commentary;(b) by means of speech acts and small stories, the commentator has foregrounded the Chinese player’s “winner” image in contrast with the backgrounded foreign player’s“loser” image.