Abstract:
Taita native speakers are now exposed to televised football commentaries particularly of the English premier league which are done in English language. These matches have been made accessible by the digital satellite television channels. However, the researcher has had considerable speculation on whether the Taita natives fully appreciate the style of the commentaries because they, owing to their socio-cultural and second language English context, may lack the requisite background related to the socio-cultural contexts in which the commentaries have be conceptualised. The researcher recognised that the commentaries like other varieties of English language have particular stylistic features. The first objective of this research was thus to investigate how Taita native speakers receive the English premier league televised football commentaries. The second was to identify and undertake a linguistic description as well as stylistic analysis of the features. In the first phase data was collected through a structured interview administered on thirty premier league enthusiasts who follow the matches on live television broadcasts. The second data involved transcriptions of commentaries recorded from two live matches. Crystal & Davy’s (1969) model was used to linguistically describe and stylistically analyse the features in the commentaries. Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) Relevance theory was used to investigate how the commentaries are perceived by Kenyan viewers. In the third phase, samples of the stylistically significant features were administered on thirty respondents to investigate how they perceive and understand them. The findings are that, indeed, televised football commentaries of the English premier league pose a challenge to Taita native speakers due to its style and context of televised football.
