Register of Cricket Commentary: Variation Across Spoken and Written Sportscasting

Atique-ur-Rehman Abbasi; Nouman Hamid; Hamid Khan

doi:10.62019/1dkzr360

Authors

Atique-ur-Rehman Abbasi Department of English, The University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Muzaffarabad 13100 Pakistan.
Nouman Hamid Department of English, The University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Muzaffarabad 13100 Pakistan.
Hamid Khan Department of English, The University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Muzaffarabad 13100 Pakistan.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62019/1dkzr360

Keywords:

Register, sportscasting, cricket, online written commentary, television commentary, play-by-play commentary, color commentary.

Abstract

This corpus-based comparative study explores two modes of cricket commentary, that is, television commentary (SAT) and online written commentary (OWC), from the register perspective. The data collected from the ICC Twenty-20 World Cup, June 2009: Final Match, Inning 1 is analyzed in the light of Biber and Conrad (2009) framework. The results substantiate that, in comparison to OWC, the situation of SAT occasions more versatile and diverse functions thus compelling for more resourceful and frequent linguistic features. Although the relatively formulaic nature of OWC substantially limits the variety and productivity of linguistic features owing to more impelling situations, it strives to replicate SAT, which places it intermediate between the play-by-play and color versions of sportscasting. A lesser known and less-noticed (in register studies) register has been placed on record, which is envisaged as a healthy contribution to the studies on register variation.

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