ABSTRACT
Research combining an interest in linguistic practices, social identities and sports has a relatively short history. Sports has certainly been treated as a significant part of human social life by sociologists such as Bourdieu (1978) and Elias and Dunning (1986), and within the sociology of sports, in particular since the 1990’ies, social identities have received increasing attention (MacClancy 1996; Maguire 1999; Harris and parker 2009). The role language plays in sports-related identity processes, however, has been less of a concern until more recently (e.g. Lavric et al. 2008; Fuller 2006; Halone and Meân 2010; Ringbom 2012).
Drawing on existing research from sociological and anthropological studies of sports as well as recent sociolinguistics, this chapter discusses the ways in which language relates to sports and social identities and how contemporary interests in globalization and super-diversity makes the combination of the three a fruitful research cocktail. The main occupation with language in studies of sports and identities has been as discourses and rhetoric surrounding sports (e.g. Fuller 2006) or as registers related to specific sports activities and associated with particular socio-cultural capital (e.g. Lavric et al. 2008; Schneider 2014). In tune with the aim of capturing contemporary social and linguistic diversity and mobility, sociolinguistic research has also turned to sports as a significant site for studying linguistic hybridity and multilingualism (e.g. Ringbom 2012; Kytölä 2014). Finally, a central theme of the research on sports and socio-cultural diversity, has been sports as a means of managing differences (Dagkas and Armour 2012; Segaert et al. 2012; Agergaard and Bonde 2013). The chapter concludes with a discussion of new debates and challenges within such research by including insights from a multilevel linguistic and ethnographic case study of an urban martial arts community emphasizing language as situated, social practice (Madsen 2015).
