Comparison of
Football Commentaries in World Cup Finals since USA 1994
For my English A2 coursework, my investigation is based on
past World Cup Finals from the final between Brazil and Italy in 1994 to the
most recent World Cup final in South Africa 2010 between Spain and Holland and
how to commentaries have changed at each World Cup. BBC have had each World Cup
final therefore have an archive of these, I will use the 15th to the
20th minute of each game and transcribe this.
My Methodology:
Due to my previous investigation being about football
commentaries on SkySports and how it has changed over the past twenty years.
World Cup finals, data was re to collect. All of the five finals are accessible
on the internet, mainly YouTube, therefore there are no issues of
confidentiality and ethicality as it is already published material for anyone
to use at their will. I collected the first ten minutes of each and transcribed
them; this eliminates any issue to do with comparability as it is the same
variables being used. Another comparison is that all are in English commentary,
which is the main part of the investigation as if they weren’t speaking English
I could not carry out my investigation. Another comparison is that the final
happens every four years, a problem with this though is that in the space of
these four years, many things can happen like the commentator may not work for them anymore or even if they
still work for them, it could be different commentators for the final.
What makes my investigation reliable is that they are all
World Cup Finals therefore all of them are very big occasions and have a very
strong atmosphere. A second thing that makes my investigation reliable is that
all the data has been collected from YouTube and all are coverage from the BBC
therefore makes it also comparable as well as reliable. A final reason why my investigation
is reliable is that it is more than one World Cup final therefore patterns can
be seen over time. In my investigation
there is no ethical issues as the data is already published, therefore no
consent is needed.
Data Analysis
1. My data
is a representative sample of my investigation as I have collected transcripts from five consecutive World Cup finals, all in English commentary, over the stretch of 16 years.
I have selected the period of time to transcribe from the 15th to the 20th minute of the final.
2. It offers enough data to analyse my hypothesis and to write 1500 words as i am analysing each final using transcription.
3. I can quantify each time that a world event has come in to the content of discussion between the commentator and the co-commentator.
