An Analysis of Linguistic Resources for Sports Tourism Media Discourse: A Case Study of the Women’s World Cup Final in Sydney
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14198/raei.2024.41.11Keywords:
corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS), media communication, sports tourism, sportswomen promotional discourse, destination promotionAbstract
Sports have historically played a significant role in influencing travel, the twenty-first century witnessing a notable surge in sports tourism attributed largely to increasing globalisation and the pervasive influence of social media. International sports events hosted by countries and cities serve as potent platforms for tourist promotion, with meticulous attention to detail often reflected across various social media channels. Notably, recent editions of such events have seen women taking on crucial roles. This paper delves into the FIFA Women’s World Cup Final held in Sydney, Australia, in August 2023, analysing three distinct corpora to discern linguistic resources—the use of persuasion with personal pronouns and imperatives, among others—shaping tourism media discourse, specifically focusing on gender visibility and promotion of destination excellence. To conduct this research, we compiled a corpus of 11,549 words comprising webpages, online publications and tourism blogs, using AntConc software for the analysis. Our findings reveal that the media employ specific language choices to portray the event and its host city, projecting values such as teamwork and inclusion, often through community engagement. However, there exists an under-representation of coverage concerning sportswomen, with minimal linguistic patterns used to promote their visibility beyond the event’s title. Conversely, the host city receives extensive promotion. Consequently, this analysis serves as a pertinent case study contributing to the understanding of sports tourism media discourse representation.
References
Adamou, Evangelia. 2019. "Corpus Linguistics Methods." In Language Contact. An International Handbook. Corpus Linguistics Methods, edited by Jeroen Darquennes, Joseph C. Salmons and Wim Vandenbusshe, Vol. 45/1, 638-653. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110435351-052
Arlington Soccer. (n.d.). "Daily Blog: Arlington Soccer families attend Women's World Cup in Australia." Arlington Soccer. https://arlingtonsoccer.com/daily-blog-arlington-soccer-families-attend-women-s-world-cup-in-australia [Accessed online on September 3, 2023]
Baker, Paul and Tony McEnery. 2015. Corpora and Discourse Studies: Integrating Discourse and Corpora. Lancaster, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137431738
Baker, Paul. 2020. Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Bloomsbury.
Bazzanella, Filippo, Martin Schnitzer, Mike Peters and Bernhard Fabian Bichler. 2023. "The Role of Sports Events in Developing Tourism Destinations: A Systematized Review and Future Research Agenda." Journal of Sport & Tourism 27. 2: 77-109. https://doi.org/10.1080/14775085.2023.2186925
Bennett, Genna R. 2010. Using Corpora in the Language Learning Classroom: Corpus Linguistics for Teachers. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.371534
Berkeley, Geoff. 2023. "Sydney Harbour Bridge to host event marking FIFA Women's World Cup milestone.". Inside the games. The inside track on world sport. https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1137588/sydney-harbour-bridge-womens-world-cup [Accessed online on September 1, 2023]
Biber, Douglas and Randi Reppen. 2015. "Introduction." In The Cambridge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, edited by Douglas Biber and Randi Reppen, 1-8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139764377.001
Biber, Douglas. 1988. Variation across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621024
Blanco-Gómez, María-Luisa. 2023. "Country Slogans: Linguistic Elements to Persuade Potential Tourists." In Acciones y Realidades ante la Manipulación Social: Redes Sociales, Publicidad y Marketing, edited by Irene Baena Cuder, Dolores Rando Cueto and Sofía Otero Escudero, 281-300. Madrid: Dykinson.
Bowker, Lynne and Jennifer Pearson. 2002. Working with Specialised Language. A Practical Guide to Using Corpora. London: Routledge.
Bruce, Toni. 2013. "Reflections on Communication and Sport: On Women and Femininities." Communication & Sport 1: 125-137. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479512472883
Calvin. 2023. "Why Choose Marco Polo Sydney Hotel for Your FIFA World Cup Women's Stay." Marco Polo. https://marcopolosydney.com.au/why-choose-marco-polo-sydney-hotel-for-your-fifa-world-cup-womens-stay/ [Accessed online on August 28, 2023]
Dann, Graham M. S. 1996. The Language of Tourism: A Sociolinguistic Perspective. Wallingford: CAB International.
Destination NSW. 2023. "Sydney in style: Five-day itinerary taking in the best of the city's food, drink and entertainment." Sydney.com. https://www.sydney.com/articles/5-day-itinerary-to-see-sydney-in-style [Accessed online on August 28, 2023]
Fang, Shujie, Yaoqi Li, Chun Zhang and Lulu Ye. 2023. "Speech vs. Writing: The Influences of WOM Communication on Tourism Experience Storytellers." Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54: 521-530. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2023.02.015
FIFA. 2023. "Sydney Harbour Bridge to transform into the ultimate festival of football." FIFA. https://www.fifa.com/fifaplus/en/articles/sydney-harbour-bridge-to-transform-into-the-ultimate-festival-of-football-australia-and-new-zealand-2023 [Accessed online on September 1, 2023]
Fourie, Johan and María Santana-Gallego. 2022. "Mega-Sport Events and Inbound Tourism: New Data, Methods and Evidence." Tourism Management Perspectives 43: 101002. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2022.101002
Gillings, Matthew and Gerlinde Mautner. 2023. "Concordancing for CADS: Practical Challenges and Theoretical Implications." International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 29. https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.21168.gil
Gillings, Matthew, Gerlinde Mautner and Paul Baker. 2023. Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009168144
Gómez-Ortiz, María-José, Elena Domínguez-Romero and Jelena Bobkina. 2023. "Instagram as a Learning Tool to Improve Technical Vocabulary for Sports Science Students." Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education 32: 100416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2022.100416
Hambrick, Marion E. 2017. "Sport Communication Research: A Social Network Analysis." Sport Management Review 20.2: 170-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2016.08.002
Horn, Jonathan. 2024. "Cathy Freeman's 2000 Gold was a Landmark in every Measure of Australia's History." The Guardian, January 18, 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2024/jan/19/cathy-freemans-2000-gold-was-a-landmark-in-every-measure-of-australias-history [Accessed online on February 22, 2024]
Horne, John. 2017. "Sports, Mega-Events, Media and Symbolic Contestation. " In Sport, Media and Mega-Events, edited by Lawrence A. Wenner and Andrew C. Billings, 19-32. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315680521-2
Jaworska, Sylvia. 2016a. "A Comparative Corpus-Assisted Discourse Study of the Representations of Hosts in Promotional Tourism Discourse. " Corpora 11.1: 83-111. https://doi.org/10.3366/cor.2016.0086
Jaworska, Sylvia. 2016b. "Using a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) Approach to Investigate Constructions of Identities in Media Reporting Surrounding Mega Sport Events: The Case of the London Olympics 2012." In Critical Events Studies: Approaches to Research. Leisure Studies in a Global Era, edited by Ian R. and Louis Platt, 149-174. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52386-0_8
Jiang, Yangyang, Cenhua Lyu, Wangjie Chen and Jun Wen. 2023. "Following Mega Sports Events on Social Media Impacts Gen Z Travelers' Sports Tourism Intentions: The Case of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games." Tourism Recreation Research: 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2023.2274155
Kiráľová, Alžbeta and Antonín Pavlíčeka. 2015. "Development of Social Media Strategies in Tourism Destination." Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 175: 358-366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.1211
Kumar, Praveen S. 2014. "Role of Media in the Promotion of Tourism Industry in India." Global Review of Research in Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure Management (GRRTHLM): An Online International Research Journal 1.3: 187-192.
Marine-Roig, Estella. 2015. "Identity and Authenticity in Destination Image Construction." Anatolia: An International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Research 26.4: 574-587. https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2015.1040814
Markula, Pirkko, Toni Bruce and Jorid Hovden. 2010. "Key Themes in the Research on Media Coverage of Women's Sport." In Sportswomen at the Olympics: A Global Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage, edited by Toni Bruce, Jorid Hovden and Pirkko Markula, 1-18. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789460911071_002
Massonos, Constantinos. 2022. "Gender Equality and Inequality: Team Sports and Individual Sports." March 2022. Money Smart Athlete. https://moneysmartathlete.com/women-athletes/gender-equality-and-inequality-team-sports-and-individual-sports/ [Accessed online on January 28, 2024]
Mautner, Gerlinde. 2022. "What Can a Corpus tell us about Discourse? " In The Routledge Handbooks of Corpus Linguistics, edited by Anne O'Keefe and Michael J. McCarthy, 2nd ed., 250-262. Oxford: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367076399-18
Partington, Alan, Alison Duguid and Charlotte Taylor. 2013. Patterns and Meanings in Discourse: Theory and Practice in Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS), Vol. 55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.55
Pérez-Paredes, Pascual. 2021. Corpus Linguistics for Education. A Guide for Research. London and New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429243615
Perić, Marko, Vanja Vitezić and Jelena Đurkin Badurina. 2019. "Business Models for Active Outdoor Sport Event Tourism Experiences." Tourism Management Perspectives 32: 100561. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2019.100561
Roadtrips. (n.d.). "2023 Women's Worlds of Soccer Hotels". Roadtrips. The Ultimate in Sports Travel. https://www.roadtrips.com/soccer-packages/2023-womens-world-cup/hotels/ [Accessed online on August 28, 2023]
Scelles, Nicolas and Gertrud Pfister. 2021. "Policy and Politics of Women's Sport and Women in Sport." International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 13.2: 201-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2021.1936881
Scott, Katherine. 2023. "Tens of thousands to fly in for World Cup despite high airfares." The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/travel-news/tens-of-thousands-to-fly-in-for-world-cup-despite-high-airfares-20230711-p5dnbj.html [Accessed online on September 1, 2023]
Sherry, Emma, Angela Osborne and Matthew Nicholson. 2016. "Images of Sports Women: A Review." Sex Roles 74: 299-309. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0493-x
Smith, Lauren Reichart. 2011. "The Less you Say: An Initial Study of Gender Coverage in Sports on Twitter." In Sports Media: Transformation, Integration, Consumption, edited by Andrew C. Billings, 146-161. New York and London: Routledge.
Sobal, Jeffery and Michelle Milgrim. 2019. "Gendertyping Sports: Social Representations of Masculine, Feminine, and neither-Gendered Sports among US University Students." Journal of Gender Studies 28.1: 29-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2017.1386094
Statista. 2023. "Women's Sport Participation in the UK: Statistics & Facts." Statista. https://www.statista.com/topics/6128/women-s-sports-participation-in-the-uk/#topicOverview [Accessed online on January 20, 2024]
Stevenson, Deborah. 2002. "Women, Sport and Globalization. Competing Discourses of Sexuality and Nation." Journal of Sport & Social Issues 26.2: 209-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723502262006
Stjepić, Ana-Marija, Damjan Pintar and Tamara Ćurlin. 2022. "Sports Tourism Products: Social Media Perspective." International Journal of E-Services and Mobile Applications (IJESMA) 14.1: 1-21. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJESMA.296578
The Telegraph. 2023. "Cathy Freeman stopped the nation at the Sydney Games in 2000 - now we can do the same with the FIFA World Cup." The Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/womens-sport/world-cup-australia-city-guides/sydney/ [Accessed online on September 1, 2023]
Tjoe, Kevin. 2023. "5 ways tour and activity operators can make the most of the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup." Rezdy. https://rezdy.com/blog/ways-to-make-the-most-of-the-fifa-womens-world-cup/ [Accessed online on September 3, 2023]
Torrens University Australia. (n.d.). "How the FIFA Women's World Cup helped hospitality demand soar in Australia." Torrens University Australia. https://www.torrens.edu.au/blog/how-the-fifa-women-world-cup-helped-hospitality-demand-soar-in-australia [Accessed online on September 3, 2023]
United Nations World Tourism Organization. n.d. "Sports Tourism." https://www.unwto.org/sport-tourism [Accessed online on January 28, 2024]
Wandereater. (n.d.). "4 hotels to visit while watching the FIFA women's world cup." WANDEREATER. https://wandereater.com/4-hotels-to-visit-while-watching-the-fifa-womens-world-cup/ [Accessed online on September 1, 2023]
Wenner, Laurence A. 2021. "Media, Sports, and Society." Communication Studies Faculty Works 12. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789903607.00015
Wensing, Emma H. and Toni Bruce. 2003. "Bending the Rules: Media Representations of Gender during an International Sporting Event." International Review for the Sociology of Sport 38.4: 387-396. https://doi.org/10.1177/1012690203384001
Downloads
Statistics
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 María Luisa Blanco-Gómez, María-José Gómez-Ortiz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
