Football is not solely maintaining the frontline in the sports world, but bringing uncountable followers to the sport industry on a daily basis. Low number of these football lovers prefer to visit stadiums to watch these football matches, while some would rather opt for either watching the broadcast audibly or visually. Meanwhile, the most important segment for many football lovers is the verbal commentaries carried out by the commentator. The speaking skills portrayed by the commentator while reporting the football moves and events attract linguists to explore the commentator’s mode of switching figures of speech in the football commentaries. As such, the current study attempts to analyze the switch and usage of figures of speech during football commentaries. The study delves into the kinds of figures of speech used in describing football moves and activities. To gather the necessary and accurate information, observation, questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were adopted. The outcome of the study underscores that sport-commentary is basically and naturally a journalistic role to explain, criticize, analyze and describe sport events to those absent and physically present at the sport-field. The study emphasizes the importance of ensuring that English grammatical rules are adhered to while reporting sport activities. It concludes that talent, actions, tone of voice, language proficiency and quality journalism training guarantee the commentator’s acceptance in the eyes of football lovers.
Al-Shamsan, I. (2015). The relationship of Arabic to the humanities and applied sciences. Retrieved date: 04 30, 2024, at 14:1 min, from http://algazirah.com/2015/20150829/cu23.html.
Ayoub, T., Zakaria, M. and Hosni, S. (2022). Characteristics of sports media in Arab television channels - a survey study of the opinions of Guelma University students about sports commentary on football matches. Master's thesis Supervised by: Abdelaziz Bouft, University of May 8, 1945, Guelma - Algeria, 2021- 2022.
Al Owais, A. R. (1998). Sports Media (Issue 01, Volume 1/15). Cairo, Egypt: Al-Kitab Publishing Center.
Al-Zaalouk, A. (2017). The language of sports commentary on football matches. College of Arts and Media Magazine (05).
Chovanec, J. (2016). “The battle fever’s on: Phrasal routines and multilingual play in sports commentary. Le corps et la langue du footballeur: match interdisciplinaire. Actes des journées d’études d’Innsbruck.?
Desmarais, F., & Bruce, T. (2009). The power of the local in sports broadcasting: A cross- cultural analysis of rugby commentary. International Journal of Sport Communication, 2(2), 129-145.
Farouk, W. (2019). Sports commentary...talent versus outlook. Retrieved date 04/03/2024, at 09:18 from http://www.eletihad.ae/article/58965/2019/.
Gerhard, H., & Zubayr, C. (2014). The Football World Cup 2014 on TV. In Data for the reception and evaluation (pp. 447–455). Media Perspektiven, 9.
Hamila, H. A. (2022). Match commentators...this is how they created the most beautiful stories and the worst memories with their voices. Retrieved date 04 22, 2024, at 13:14 minutes from https://www.independentarabia.com/node/400466.
Khalaf, N. (2022). Sports commentary...culture and politics on football fields. Retrieved date 04 22, 2024, at the time: 1011 minutes from http://www.alaraby.co.uk/culture/. -
Khaddour, A. (1994). Sports Media (Edition D.). Damascus, Syria: Media Library.
LiveProduction. (2016). How UEFA is preparing for the EURO 2016 football championship. Football production summit 2016.
Mahmoud, D. (2022). “This is not football, this is music”...the history of sports commentary in football matches. Retrieved date 04/03/2024, at 10:48 from http://gate.ahram.org.eg/News/3875381.aspx 16-
Mukhtar, S. (1998). Football is the Game of Millions (ed. 02). Beirut, Lebanon: Knowledge Library.
Mansouri. (N.d.). The importance of sports in the lives of young people Retrieved date: April 4, 2024 at midnight from sur http://nathre.com
Moise, M. (2015). Practicing sports and its impact on the linguistic dimension as a component of Algerian cultural identity - a comparative study between practitioners of traditional games and practitioners of modern sports - football. Ma’arif Magazine, Volume 10, Issue No. 19.
Scotto, S. C. (2022). A Pragmatics-First Approach to Faces. Topoi, 41(4), 641-657.
Titelman, G. (2000). America's Most Popular Proverbs and Sayings. New York: Random House.
Yuni. (2024). The role of languages in cultural heritage. Retrieved date 01 April 2024, at 11:49 from http://etranslationservices.com/ar/languages/the-roleof-languages-in-cultural-heritage.
Alqudah, M. M., & Hassan, I. (2025). A Pragmatic Analysis of Figures of Speech in English Top Matches Football Commentary. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 15(4), 185–191.
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode