Sports Idioms and Their Interpretation in Different Dimensions

Abstract

The present paper aims at elucidating the ethnocultural relevance of sports terms and expressions which tend to penetrate into everyday English speech as well as political discourse. Obvious is the fact that the character and essence of cross-cultural interrelations depends, to a great extent on the participants’ ability to understand each other in order to reach an agreement. It is also well known that mutual understanding is in most cases defined by the ethnic culture of each side and the psychology of the ethnic group. Members of common culture not only share the same information but also the methods of coding, storing and retrieving the information. Rituals, traditions, customs are very closely connected with language and form part and parcel of the linguacultural “realia”. In the present article sports terms and expressions are viewed as realia and social behaviour patterns as each nation has its unique way of understanding and perceiving a game in its own way, thus attaching some symbolic significance to it understandable within the scope of the linguocultural traditions of the country it has originated in.
Our observations show that the wide use of sports terms and expressions in non-sporting situations, particularly in political discourse and everyday speech is to a certain extent conditioned by their sociocultural origin and the new connotational meanings acquired in the course of the language development.