Gap-fillers in Russian and English football commentaries

Thus, commentators' language personality is reflected in their speech personality in the commentary of a particular football match. Pankratova (2005, p. 182) identifies sports commentary as a verbal reflection of a sports event by commentator's language personality. Within this definition sportscaster's communicative behavior is characterized by cognitive and axiological, i.e. promoting particular values, competence; as much as by descriptivism and expression which are manifested in the mandatory evaluation and imagery of the discourse (ibid).

Sets of specific traits allow to distinguish the following types of commentators' speech personalities: commentator-reporter; commentator-analyst; commentator-expert; commentator-chatterbox; commentator-fan; ironic commentator and commentator-actor (Malysheva, 2017).

The first two types, commentator-reporter and commentator-analyst, fit the division of sportscasters described in the previous chapter, resembling the play-by-play announcer and color commentator respectively. Moving forward, while analyst's role is to impress the viewer with a thorough examination of particular game episodes, a commentator-expert demonstrates extensive knowledge on the topic and seeks to share it with the audience. That is why, the expert type is generally comprised by former athletes and sports journalists specializing on one particular sport. The distinguishing features of a commentator-chatterbox and commentator-fan involve distinct emotiveness and directness of expression. However, in the case of a chatterbox, such expressiveness is considered more of a personal innate trait whereas for a fan it is connected with a feeling of patriotism and a desire to support their favorite team. The speech of an ironic commentator may intersect with such genres as irony and sarcasm. The main communicative goal of such type is to draw the viewers' attention to the match using sarcastic evaluation of the events. Lastly, the commentator-actor type is represented by a bright personality, prone to express their attitude to the game in either a dramatically tragic or a dramatically comedic way (Malysheva, 2017).

It is worth noting that in a certain communicative context a commentator may combine several speech personalities. Covering, for instance, a game of their national team on federal channels, a commentator might express the qualities of both a commentator-reporter and a commentator-fan. And conversely, to commentate on the game for a knowledgeable audience, a sportscaster can demonstrate a mixture of reporting and analytical traits.

In fact, a sportscaster's speech personality directly predetermines the usage of certain types of gap-fillers. Analysts and experts, for example, tend to rely on their experience; reporters refer to the facts closely related to the moment in action; chatterboxes and fans frequently use quotations to make their speech more expressive.

Overall, TV football commentary constitutes a part of SAT, which, in its turn, represents a register of sports discourse. SAT is performed by sports commentators who decide upon the mode, i.e. either play-by-play or color commentary, and functions of reporting. In fact, the key factors that may affect this choice include commentators' personal qualities, or their language personality, and the phase of the game. Although football commentary is usually performed by a pair of sportscasters with a clear division of functions, both play-by-play and color commentators tend to incorporate gap-fillers in their talk. The empirical part of my study addresses gap-fillers within the commentaries of football games presented by Russian and English commentators.

Methods

The purpose of the present study is to identify specific features of gap-fillers in the context of Russian and English football commentaries and examine the ways of incorporating these elements into spontaneous flow of speech.

To this end, I analyze video-recorded commentaries of football matches and determine the most frequently encountered types of gap-fillers and their functions.

Since both linguistics and technology are constantly advancing, the material includes only games of the last decade in order to avoid invalid results. I have chosen four matches that are quite distinct from each other in terms of their characteristics: they belong to different tournaments, they have different intensity, the resultative episodes are distributed differently between the first and the second halves and so on. The commentaries of these matches also differ substantially: they are either dialogical or monologic, they are performed by commentators of different language personalities etc.

More specifically, the list includes the following matches: Denmark vs. France (World Cup 2018); Barcelona vs. Paris Saint Germain (Champions League, 2017), Brazil vs. Argentina (Superclásico, 2019) and Arsenal vs. Newcastle (Premier League, 2020).

On obtaining the data, I perform both formal and functional discourse analysis to specify how gap-fillers are embedded into the commentary. This helps me to examine both the cohesion of the final text and its communicative integrity.

The analysis is conducted in the context of Russian and English football commentaries in order to reveal stylistic or pragmatic differences of using gap-fillers in the outlined sportscasting traditions. I focus on such parameters as the phase of the game, the type of a commentator and their communicative goal, the frequency and the length of gap-fillers.

This study relies on both qualitative and quantitative methods of data analysis. Since the research addresses the language which occurred in reality, i.e. real commentaries of football games, I utilize descriptive and data sampling methods to classify gap-fillers according to their nature and functions. The same techniques are applied to analyze the commentators' language personalities along with their influence on the choice of gap-fillers.

As for discourse analysis, it traditionally implies a detailed study of small amounts of text such as articles or conversations. These texts are usually transcribed, which makes them “frozen in time, freed from extraneous detail, and expressed in categories of interest to the researcher”, as notes Jane Edwards (2001), an inquisitive researcher of the issue.

She also points out that there are basically three categories of discourse encoding: transcription, coding and mark-up. The first type - transcription - involves recording of a spoken matter in a written medium in a specified and systematically arranged manner. Coding serves to split the transcribed information into categories on the basis of some distinctive traits, for example, pragmatic or grammatical characteristics. Lastly, mark-up is aimed to detect formal, or format-relevant, features rather than contånt. This kind of encoding is frequently used for further automatic data processing (Edwards, 2001).

According to the tasks set, my research primarily focuses on the first two types of transcribing data, yet not excluding the third one to simplify the tabulation and systematization processes.

Regarding the percentage of gap-fillers in game coverage, statistical methods are applied, correlation analysis in particular. To estimate the percentage of prepared elements, I time them and then correlate the result with the time of the halves in isolation as well as with the total playing time including the introductory section. This approach helps me to establish the relation between the specific features of game coverage and the usage of gap-fillers.

Analysis of gap-fillers in the commentary of football matches

Within the framework of this research, the analysis of football commentary has the following structure:

1. General description of the game and its qualities. This point involves such data as the name of the tournament, the venue, the number of spectators, intensity, results etc. Besides, since the names of the coaches and players will be present in the examples of gap-fillers, it seems necessary to list the teams so as not to create any confusions.

2. Analysis of commentators' language personalities, which is conducted according to Malysheva's classification (2017). More specifically, I try to identify the type of each commentator supporting my point with arguments from the commentaries.

3. Classification of gap-fillers and their functions within the commentary of a particular match. This subsection includes the table where certain types of gap-fillers are illustrated and evaluated in quantitative terms. The `biographies of players' section, for instance, unites such facts as personal statistics, injuries, national teams or football clubs, players' origin etc. under a common name for clarity's sake. The rest of the types involve: biographies of coaches, notes on other representatives of the football sphere, references to previous and future games, quotations, weather description, expectations within the tournament, notes on game rules and other. The number of gap-fillers of a particular type help me to determine the most frequently encountered ones. In addition, the functions of gap-fillers are identified within the table and are described in more detail after it along with the game phases in which gap-fillers are used.

4. Analysis of the ways to combine gap-fillers with spontaneous discourse. This stage of analysis serves to outline the methods of inserting gap-fillers into sports commentary: to understand what information commentators consider as relevant in each particular case and how they manage to maintain coherence and cohesion of the commentary.

5. Research on the amount of time utilized for inserting gap-fillers. This point displays the approximate ratio of gap-fillers to the rest of the commentary in percentage terms. The calculation was conducted for the first and the second halves of the game separately as well as in terms of the total amount of time including the introductory section. Despite not being a constituent of the main body of the commentary, introduction displays such unique types of gap-fillers as data about the teams' national anthems or flags. Furthermore, I try to figure out how game qualities or specific features of sportscasting may predetermine such distribution.

1. Analysis of the match between Denmark and France, World Cup 2018

1.1 General description of the game

The game took place in Moscow, at Luzhniki Stadium. The match between Denmark and France was a part of the group stage of the World Cup tournament hosted by Russia in 2018. The event was held on the third matchday, on June 26, 2018.

The French team consisted of: Mandanda, Kimpembe, Varane, Griezmann, Lemar, Giroud, Dembélé, Kanté, N'Zonzi, Sidibé, Hernández; and substitutes: Mbappé, Fekir, Mendy. Coach: Didier Deschamps. The Danish team was comprised by: Schmeichel, Kjær, Christensen, Delaney, Eriksen, Braithwaite, Jørgensen, Dalsgaard, Stryger, Cornelius, Sisto; and substitutes: Dolberg, Fischer, Lerager. Coach: Åge Fridtjof Hareide.

The game turned out to be far from spectacular and ended in a 0:0 draw. France's victory was the most likely match outcome as the team headed the group table. Nevertheless, as it turned out, at that point it was of primary importance for both teams to keep their positions in the table, which may explain the overall calm course of the game, a small number of tense or dangerous episodes. The lack of material for play-by-play or color commentaries led to the abundance of gap-fillers which commentators used to fill in the pauses. Besides, the performance was not appreciated by the spectators either, they simply booed lazily moving athletes.

1.2 Commentators' language personalities

The game was covered by Mark Pougatch and Lee Dixon as a pundit on ITV channel. ITV and BBC had been selected as the main broadcasters of the World Cup 2018 in the United Kingdom (BBC and ITV had won rights to 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup finals, 2014). The commentators' roles are defined quite clearly: Mark Pougatch, the leading play-by-play announcer, is assisted by Lee Dixon, who analyzes doubtful moments.

Mark Pougatch may be identified as a commentator-reporter because he conducts all the play-by-play part: “Kimpembe to Dembélé…finally, he returns the possession!” Nonetheless, not only does the sportscaster report on the players' actions, but he also includes references to past matches and sportsmen's biographical data in his talk: “…nothing more but knocking them out from the World Cup at the group stage in 2002…” or “Hernández has been vertically challenged throughout this tournament so far…” That is why he may also be referred to as a commentator-expert, who shares his wide knowledge on the topic with the audience.

As for Lee Dixon, he rather belongs to the commentator-analyst category. In fact, he joins the first commentator mostly for the action-replay phase and analyzes the episode being repeated. For example, he commentates on the corner kick: “Look, there is no free header in this episode…things went down far too easily for Denmark…” or “It's the point where Giroud mishits it…”

1.3 Analysis of gap-fillers and their functions within the commentary

The gap-fillers used by Mark Pougatch and Lee Dixon are classified according to their types and functions in Table1.

Table 1. Classification of gap-fillers

According to the table, the commentators are more inclined to choose the following types: the biographies of the players and those of the coaches, references to the teams' previous games and to the game between Peru and Australia. In fact, the choice of the first three types is generally conditioned by the image on the screen as they are utilized by the sportscaster-reporter during the active phase. These gap-fillers perform above all informative function as they add details to Pougatch's report. Lee Dixon also refers to personal facts and the teams' previous games but in a lesser quantity and for another purpose: to analyze the coaches' strategy for the game and explain the athletes' actions to the audience. The last type, references to the match between Australia and Peru, is aimed to fill in the long periods of silence in the passive phase and is applied mostly by the analyst to explain how the outcome between the teams may affect the future games within the World Cup.

By and large, most of the fillers, numerous yet short in nature, are introduced by Mark Pougatch between play-by-play stretches and as complementary elements to Lee Dixon's pundit commentary in the after-report section. Yet, in a number of instances, the announcer tends to switch from a filler to live report without even finishing the utterance as the events on the field demanded immediate reaction.

1.4 Analysis of the ways to combine gap-fillers with spontaneous discourse

In this section I analyze how the commentators incorporated gap-fillers according to such discourse parameters as coherence and cohesion. In terms of coherence, two main concepts can be singled out: implicature and relevance.

Implicature in this commentary can be illustrated by the following commentator's statement: “We've got latest score from the other match in this group; and it's good news for Denmark because Peru is taking the win against Australia…” Indeed, by saying that the commentator implies that if Peru wins the match, Denmark will definitely get its spot in the playoff. Nevertheless, the commentator does not express that explicitly, he relies on the audience's knowledge about the scheme of the tournament. Implicature may also be observed in the sequence of sentences: “France is the leader of this group. However, no one knows what will be happening in Croatia group later this evening…The winners of this group should at least avoid them.” Actually, Mark Pougatch means that Croatia is likely to head the group and to become a fierce competitor. The viewers, enthralled with the World Cup, are highly likely to decode his message correctly without any explicit explanation.

Analyzing further the coherence of this commentary, the gap-fillers are assigned relevance on all the three levels distinguished by Van Dijk (1974). To begin with, the gap-fillers are utilized in the `comment' position, for instance: “Now the ball is in the possession by Hernández who has been vertically challenged throughout this tournament so far.” The gap-filler, expressed by the subordinate clause, provides additional information about the player, thus, performing the comment function. Secondly, gap-fillers are present in the sequences of sentences, for example, “And Cornelius is leaving the field, and Dolberg substitutes the player of his team. He moves from the wings to the center. Another interesting character from Ajax. He's got 20 years of age…” In this case, the commentator mentions Kasper Dolberg in each sentence though referring to him differently: “Dolberg”, “character”, “he”. This indicates the importance of the referent for the whole sequence of sentences. Last but not least, the relevance of gap-fillers can be conditioned by the general topic of discourse as in the example: “By the way, Denmark's position and last two games have been heavily influenced by two penalties: one missed by Peru, one scored by Australia but debatable…” The thing is that the above-mentioned gap-filler is not linked neither to the close-up image nor to the team in possession - the game just slows down a little and Mark Pougatch uses the pause to share general information on the topic.

Regarding cohesion of this commentary, in most cases it is achieved by exophora: gap-fillers are linked to the object being displayed by camera. For instance, when the camera shows Åge Fridtjof Hareide in close-up, Mark Pougatch says: “Denmark's coach - Hareide. He has admitted that his team is little fortunate to attack in the narrative of the two games…” The commentary on the score in the group table can serve as another example: “France has 7 points, Denmark - 5 points. Then goes Peru with 3 points and Australia with only 1 point.” At this moment, the screen displays the group table.

The cohesion is also performed by lexical repetition or anadiplosis as in the following sentences: “From Lemar to Dembélé…Dembélé started the first game against Australia and was substituted in twenty minutes to go well for the second game…” What is more, commentators of this match also use substitution: “Now the ball is in Griezmann's possession - he got to be a flying star two years ago and brought quite spot into life in this tournament, French number 7.” Here Mark Pougatch uses a personal pronoun “he” (which may also be considered as anaphora) and a word combination “French number 7” to refer to Antoine Griezmann, though naming him in a different way. The commentator as well use another type of referencing - cataphora: “…he has played a part in both games, Olivie Giroud…” The necessity to repeat the full name of the referent on this occasion can be explained by the difference between the audial image created by commentator and the visual coverage that has already shifted its focus towards another player.

1.5 Timing of gap-fillers

The graph (chart 1) demonstrates that the distribution of gap-fillers and other parts of the commentary differs only marginally between the halves of the game and its total timing.

Basically, the percentage of gap-fillers fluctuates around 10 per cent. The fact that the total percentage of fillers exceeds the percentage of them in the parts is explained by a considerable amount of prepared data incorporated in the introductory section: it comprised almost 12 per cent of the total number of gap-fillers.

Chart 1. Timing of gap-fillers (Denmark vs. France, 2018)

In addition to the visual data I would like to note that most part of gap-fillers were concentrated at the beginning of the first half, when the teams were just gathering speed; and at the end of the second half, when the game calmed down to the extreme and the outcome became glaringly obvious.

2. Analysis of the match between Barcelona and Paris Saint Germain, Champions League 2017

2.1 General description of the game

The game took place at the Camp Nou stadium and was part of the Champions League first knockout round. The match was held on March 8, 2017.

The Barcelona team consisted of: Ter Stegen, Mascherano, Piqué, Umtiti, Busquets, Rafinha, Rakitic, Iniesta, Neymar, Messi, Suárez; and substitutes: Turan, Roberto and Gomes. Coach: Luis Enrique. Paris Saint Germain included the following footballers: Trapp, Meunier, Marquinhos, Silva, Kurzawa, Moura, Verratti, Rabiot, Matuidi, Draxler, Cavani; and substitutes: Krychowiak, Di María and Aurier. Coach: Unai Emery.

This game has become legendary because Barcelona managed to score more than Paris Saint Germain for the home and away games in aggregate. As it can be seen from the lineups, both teams were comprised by the world-famous athletes. The pace of the game was quite fast since Barcelona needed to reverse the deficit of the previous game which ended with the score of 0:4. Nevertheless, there did occur a number of pauses between the tense episodes. At first, the positive outcome for PSG seemed quite obvious for commentators but at the end they changed their point as did the whole world. The above-mentioned factors resulted in a considerable number of gap-fillers, particularly regarding footballers' careers and the first leg between the teams.

2.2 Analysis of commentators' language personalities

The game has been covered by Ian Darke and Steve McManaman. By and large, the commentators' roles are separated quite clearly: Ian Darke performs most part of the play-by-play commentary whereas Steve McManaman is responsible for the analysis of doubtful episodes.

Concerning Ian Darke's language personality, he represents the commentator-reporter type: “And Luis Suárez hits his early vital goal!” Besides, the commentator also demonstrates expert knowledge of the subject: “Kavani's trying to make progress again, wonderful season for him: 37 goals in 36 matches.”

Moving on to Steve McManaman, as a former footballer, he takes a critical look on particular episodes and analyzes them, particularly during the action-replay phase: “It's the yellow card for Matuidi because he caught Umtiti's jersey…”

2.3 Analysis of gap-fillers and their functions within the commentary

The classification of gap-fillers used in the commentary by Ian Darke and Steve McManaman is presented in Table 2.

Table 2. Classification of gap-fillers

As it can be observed from the table, Ian Darke and Steve McManaman fill in the pauses for the most part with facts from footballers' biographies and with references to the previous match. The quantitative dominance of these types of gap-fillers is preconditioned by the very nature of the match: the commentators use them to explain that the possible outcome, combined with the result of the previous game, is of paramount importance for both teams. The majority of gap-fillers are introduced during the active phase by the commentator-reporter Ian Darke, who connects them to the actions of a particular player displayed on the screen. Additionally, since the event takes place within Champions League, the play-by-play commentator is obliged to inform the audience about the upcoming games of the tournament, announcing the data from all the pop-up boxes which appear on the screen.

However, not only do gap-fillers make the sportscaster's talk more informative but they also serve to display his wide knowledge on the subject and entertain the viewers. Indeed, Ian Darke's expert personality is expressed in supporting McManaman's pundit commentary with data about the fans or quotations during the passive phase of the game. Besides, although present in the passive phase, Steve McManaman mostly appears in the action-replay and addresses the episode from the analytical point of view, in most cases contrasting it with the previous game.

2.4 Analysis of the ways to combine gap-fillers with spontaneous discourse

In this section I conduct the analysis of the coherence and cohesion of the commentary. As far as coherence is concerned, I focus on implicature and relevance of gap-fillers. Implicature can be illustrated by Ian Darke's statement: “A goal from PSG would lead to Barcelona having to score 6 times.” Indeed, to understand the utterance correctly the viewers must be aware of the rules for goals aggregation, namely, the dependence of the score on the type of the game: home or away. The following sentence contains implicature as well: “Barcelona can't afford to compensate; the damage was too extensive in France 3 weeks ago.” The underlying meaning remains the same; the only difference is that the latter utterance was produced after Suárez's first goal.

In terms of relevance, gap-fillers are present on the level of a sentence, the level of a sequence of sentences and the level of discourse. On the first level, the commentator uses gap-fillers at the end of a sentence to introduce new data: “This is Unai Emery, for whom 3 Europa Leagues are a good start!” The second level represents a sequence of sentences united by a particular topic, the starting lineups as in the following example: “Mascherano. Rakitic plays here after two goals in two games. Messi, scoring every game. An interesting switch for Barcelona, they haven't got an effective right back since this August.” Indeed, the gap-filler combined with commentators' personal evaluation is related to topic of the previous sentences. The global relevance can be exemplified with the sentence: “It's the Holy Grail for Paris Saint Germain to win this competition, they were not able to qualify in the last 4 consecutive seasons.” Speaking about this case, the sportscaster's words are not linked to neither previous commentary nor to the image.

Regarding the syntactic unity of the commentary, the most common cohesive devices include: exophora, conjunctions, lexical repetition, substitution and cataphora. Carefully following the progress of the game, the commentators are tempted to link the fillers to the image on the screen: “Look at this! What a start for the team which was a victim recently in a game against PSG!”

Moving on to the next cohesive technique, the commentator use the conjunction `but' to contrast live information with the data in the gap-filler: “Unsuccessful corner kick by Mascherano. But Mascherano tries hard as he hasn't scored yet for Barcelona.” Lexical repetition also allows to connect PP with the gap-filler by placing stress on the common object: “From here is Messi - trying to threat his way through. Messi - with 6 goals in 4 matches since the first leg.”

Substitution helps the commentator to avoid unnecessary repetition when referring to the same player: “Iniesta is in the possession. The captain, one of Barcelona's best-known names.” Lastly, cataphora in this commentary accompanies the visual cohesion, i.e. the connection between the gap-filler and the image: “He scored to Atlético Madrid that night, Rafinha.” Ian Darke linked the gap-filler to the close-up image of Rafinha, at that moment returning the ball into the game. sport announcer commentary

2.5 Timing of gap-fillers

The chart (chart 2) shows that the percentage of gap-fillers in the first half exceeds that in second half.

Chart 2. Timing of gap-fillers (Barcelona vs. PSG, 2017)

Such result was conditioned by the number of successful standard kicks, goal passes and other resultative episodes: indeed, five out of seven goals were scored in the second half. Furthermore, although a considerable number of gap-fillers were introduced during this coverage, they rather resembled brief remarks, in contrast to long versatile fillers used, for example, in the commentary by Stognienko and Galo Fernández, which is described in the following section.

3. Analysis of the match between Brazil and Argentina, Superclásico 2019

3.1 General description of the game

The match was held at the King Saud University Stadium in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This friendly match within the Superclásico tournament took place on November 15, 2019.

The team of Brazil included the following players: Becker, Danilo, Silva, Casemiro, Sandro, Arthur, Jesus, Paquetá, Militão, Willian, Firmino; and substitutes: Wesley, Fabinho, Coutinho, Rodrygo, Lodi and Richarlison. Coach: Adenor Leonardo Bacchi, better known as Tite. The Argentina team consisted of: Foyth, Tagliafico, Paredes, Pezzella, Messi, Ocampos, De Paul, Otamendi, Lo Celso, Martínez, Andrada; and substitutes: Acuña, Alario, Domínguez, Rodríguez and González. Coach: Lionel Scaloni.

Although intended as a friendly match, the duel between Brazil and Argentina was full of tense moments: unscored penalties, dangerous corner kicks, players' fights. It ended in 0:1, with a goal scored by Messi. Nevertheless, the commentators used even slight pauses to entertain the viewers with extra information about the players' careers, the games of other tournaments and so on.

3.2 Analysis of commentators' language personalities

Vladimir Stognienko and Galo Fernández have covered the match between Brazil and Argentina on Okko Sport. As Stognienko notifies in the introductory part, the structure of this commentary is different from the usual one: the commentators work in the `question-and-answer' format. Since Galo is from Argentina, one of the competing teams, it is Stognienko who asks questions - and Galo who answers them.

Considering the language personalities of these sportscasters, Vladimir Stognienko represents the mixed type: on the one hand, he is responsible for the entire play-by-play part; but on the other, he analyzes certain episodes and accompanies the analysis with his personal expert evaluation. The commentator-reporter personality of Stognienko can be illustrated with the following examples: “Smotri, Leo Messi tol'ko chto podbezhal i udaril Sil'vu po noge…” (Look, Leo Messi has just run up and hit Silva in the leg…) or “…i eshchyo odin neveroyatnyj sejv sovershaet Alisson Becker!” (…and another astonishing save is performed by Alisson Becker!). In contrast, the commentator-analyst type is revealed in the sentences like: “My vidim kak Messi nachinaet sryvat' ataku, uzhe tol'ko za eto mozhno i zheltyyu dat' ili hotya by za sovokupnost' drugih narushenij…” (We can see how Messi begins to interrupt the attack, only for this the referee can give him a yellow card or at least for a set of other episodes…).

Unlike Stognienko, Galo exemplifies the commentator-expert type. Indeed, he has been originally invited to share insights from the domain of South American football, to talk about its history and internal organization. He mentions, for example, that there have never been any truly friendly matches between Brazil and Argentina. He also answers Stognienko's question about the coincidence of the matchdays of different competitions: “Da, v Argentine kluby obyazany otsylat' igrokov v sbornuyu na oficial'nye turniry…” (Yes, in Argentina the clubs are obliged to send players to the national team for official tournaments…)

Still, although Stognienko performs most of the commentary, Galo also does participate in the part of live report so as not to miss any significant moments overlooked by his partner: “Okampos vstupayet, Lo Sel'so otkryt.” (Ocampos has pushed in, Lo Celso is wide.). This overlap of functions confirms that the division of SAT into play-by-play and color commentary is not thoroughly followed by Russian sportscasters as opposed to their English counterparts.

3.3 Analysis of gap-fillers and their functions within the commentary

Table 3 displays the classification of gap-fillers used in the Stognienko and Fernández's commentary.

Table 3. Classification of gap-fillers

The table demonstrates that the sportscasters refer mostly to the players' personal data and the previous games of the teams. A significant number of gap-fillers are presented in the “question-and-answer” form, within which the commentators manage to combine several types of fillers at once. For example, when discussing Ocampos' career the sportscasters both use facts from his biography and quote his former coach: “Pochemu vy hotite Okamposa v sostave? - My hotim, chtoby u nego vsyo poluchilos', potomu chto on tyazhelo nachinal:v molodyozhke ego postavili napadayushchim, potom polyzashchitnym, otec ego byl nedovolen… A trener Okamposa skazal: “Otec tvoj stroitel'? Pust' doma stroit! A kak agent on uzhasen…” (Why do you want Ocampos in the line-up? - We want Ocampos to succeed because he had a difficult start: in the youth team they made him a forward, then a half-back, his father was dissatisfied with it... And Ocampos's coach said: “If your father is a builder, then let him build; as an agent he's terrible…).

Indeed, such manner of introducing gap-fillers is quite lengthy, and therefore, serves to fill in the long pauses which emerge during the passive or the action-replay phase. Besides, another distinctive feature of this coverage is the absence of color commentary in the after-report phase. Instead, the commentators entertain the viewers during the replay with references to general football context, which allows Galo to share his in-depth knowledge on the topic and fully unlock his potential as an expert.

Nevertheless, Stognienko also adds brief analytical remarks or announces information from the pop-up boxes to complete the short pauses between the stretches of live report.

3.4 Analysis of the ways to combine gap-fillers with spontaneous discourse

In this section I concentrate on the coherence and cohesion of Stognienko and Galo's commentary of the match.

As far as implicature is analyzed in this commentary, some of the gap-fillers used by Stognienko or Galo totally rely on the viewers' knowledge on the topic. For example, while reporting on Argentina's lineup, Galo mentions: “Po opytu proshlogo Chempionata Mira v Rossii, I ne dumayu, chto oni zahotyat snova pomenyat' trenera.” (Based on the experience of the previous World Cup in Russia, I don't think that they would want to change their coach again.). Taking into account that the commentator does not elaborate on the topic any further, the audience must know what underlies his message. In fact, Galo means that having changed the coach right before the tournament in 2018, the Argentine team only made things more complicated for themselves and did not cope with the tension. A statement by Stognienko can also be taken as the example of implicature: “Budet interesno posmotret' kak brazil'cy budut igrat' novye 4-4-2 Tite bez Nejmara” (It will be interesting to watch how the Brazilians will play new Tite's 4-4-2 without Neymar.). In this case, to interpret the commentator's message correctly, the audience must be aware of the schemes used in football, they must know what Tite's previous scheme was and how Neymar might affect the new one.

The relevance of gap-fillers is also displayed on the three levels. The first one, the level of a sentence, can be illustrated by such sentences as: “Menya bespokoit to, kak Foit igral v shtrafnoj, govoryat, eto ne sovsem ego poziciya” (I'm worried about the way Foyth has played in the penalty area, they say he is not quite suitable for this position…) or “Itak, Paketa pokidaet pole, ego zamenyaet Koutin'o, bolee opytnyj futbolist, hotya tozhe eshchyo molodoj” (So, Paquetá leaves the field, replaced by Coutinho, a more experienced yet still young player.). On this level, the gap-fillers are placed at the end of the sentence to introduce new information about the players.

Besides, the commentary contains an example of relevance on the level of a sequence of sentences that stands out among the rest. As the game slows down at some moment, the commentators start to discuss Argentina's youth teams in different time periods. A little later Galo says: “Chto kasaetsya smeny pokolenij, ya slyshal, chto Gashardo otkazyvaetsya stat' trenerom sbornoj, poka v nej igraet Messi. A on ne mozhet sejchas izbavit'sya ot Messi.” (As for the change of generations, I've heard that Gallardo won't take up the coaching position as long as Messi plays in the national team. And he cannot get rid of Messi right now.). Stognienko adds: “Galo govoril o Marselo Gal'yardo, ego familia proiznositsya kak Gashardo v Argentine, ya dumayu, vse eto znayut.” (Galo was referring to Marcelo Gallardo, whose surname is pronounced as Ga[sh]ardo in Argentina, I believe everyone knows that.). Indeed, Galo links his utterances to the previous discussion (“chto kasaetsya smeny pokolenij”) whereas Stognienko, for his part, refers to Galo's comments (“Galo govoril o Marselo Gal'yardo”). This example demonstrates how significant relevance is for maintaining the integrity of discourse.

Finally, relevance of the global level is the most frequently encountered type within this commentary. This is partly due to the “question-and-answer” structure of this coverage which commentators stick to in order to fill in the longest pauses. Actually, they have time to discuss other championships, national youth teams and olympic teams, players' income in Argentina and so on. For instance, the following dialogue occurs while quite an obvious episode is being repeated on the screen: “Ya ne mogu ne zadat' etot vopros, Galo: vy planiruete provodit' Kopa Amerika v etom godu?” (I can't help but ask this question, Galo: is Copa America also planned for this year?) - “Znaesh, v Yuzhnoj Amerike sovsem narushili vse cikly, i v rezultate Kopa Amerika provoditsya uzhe pochti kazhdyj god: on byl v 2019, teper' budet i v 2020.” (You know, all the tournament cycles have been disrupted in South America; and as a result, Copa America is held almost every year now: it took place in 2019 and is scheduled for 2020 as well.)

Cohesion is represented by a range of devices in this sportscast. The most obvious one is exophora, like in the following fragment: “Paketa vsyo-taki v etom startovom sostave, hotya govorili, chto Koutin'o tozhe mozhet zdes' poyavit'sya.” (Paquetá is actually in this starting line-up although they said that Coutinho could also appear here.). In this case, the reporter refers to the scheme of players, displayed on the screen. Additionally, the commentators use conjunctions: “Villian vladeet myachom. Hotya emu uzhe bol'she 30, on ochen' moshchno probivaetsya vpered.” (Willian is in the possession. Despite being over 30, he jerks forwards with considerable power.). The conjunction `hotya' is used here to connect the player's movements on the field, which is a part of PP, to his age - a gap-filler itself.

The syntactic integrity of the text is also achieved by lexical repetition as in the following example: “Eto Tite, glavnyj trener Brazilii, chelovek chrezvychaino uvazhaemyj v Yuzhnoj Amerike.” (This is Tite, Brazil's main coach, a highly respected figure in South America. - “Da, ty znaesh, i v Rossii, i v Argentine chelovek, horosho pokazavshyj sebya na Kopa Libertadores schitaetsya uvazhaemym.” (Yes, you know, both in Argentina and in Russia a person who performs well as a coach at the Copa Libertadores is considered a respected figure.). By repeating the word `uvazhaemyj' the commentators unite their statements under a common topic and emphasize Tite's position in the football sphere.

Another device is substitution: “Nomer 11 horosho igral togda, nemnogo uravnyal igru; hotya sejchas on medlenno peredvigayetsa po polyu.” (Number 11 played well back then, he evened things up a bit; although he's now moving slowly on the field.). By substituting the player's name with his jersey number, the commentator refers to Ocampos, who is being displayed on the screen. Lastly, among the most often used cohesive techniques I can also name ellipsis: “V tom chempionate d final vyshli Braziliya i Argentina. Kstati, vy, naverno, znaete, chto Ajrton, spartakovec, igraet za Braziliyu, a takzhe Ponse - no za Argentinu.” (In that Cup, Brazil and Argentina reached the final. By the way, you may know that Ayrton, Spartak footballer, plays for Brazil, and also Ponce - but for Argentina.). In this instance Stognienko omits the phrase `igraet' at the end of the sentence to avoid repetition but above all because of the time limit. Indeed, a commentator never knows when he will have to shift from gap-fillers to the play-by-play report.

3.5 Timing of gap-fillers

The bar chart (chart 3) exhibits the proportion of gap-fillers which constitute more than 20 per cent in each case.

Chart 3. Timing of gap-fillers (Brazil vs. Argentina, 2019)

More than that, this commentary displays a higher percentage of gap-fillers in comparison with other analyzed matches. I believe that such a figure is conditioned by the structure of this coverage: indeed, the “question-and-answer” parts took longer than other gap-fillers.

In addition, the decline in the number of gap-fillers used in the second part can be explained by the more rapid pace of the game as Argentina tried to secure the outcome of the first half and score more points. It is worth noting, though, that the fillers have decreased not in quantity but in size because the silent stretches between important episodes became shorter.

4. Analysis of the match between Arsenal and Newcastle, Premier League 2020

4.1 General description of the game

The match between Arsenal and Newcastle was part of English Premier League qualifying round, matchweek 26. It took place at the Emirates Stadium in London on February 16, 2020.

The Arsenal line-up was the following: Leno, Bellerín, Mustafi, Luiz, Saka, Ceballos, Xhaka, Pépé, Özil, Aubameyang, Nketiah; and substitutes: Lacazette, Torreira and Willock. Coach: Mikel Arteta. Newcastle team was comprised by: Dubravka, Lascelles, Clark, Fernández, Rose, Lazaro, Bentaleb, Longstaff, Saint-Maximin, Almirón, Joelinton; and substitutes: Schär, Ritchie and Hayden. Coach: Stephen Bruce.

The game was especially important for the team of Arsenal who needed to recover from the previous losses and restore their position in the tournament table. Therefore, after the first half ended in a tie, they started to attack their rivals at breakneck speed, yet allowing the commentator to take a break between tense episodes and use gap-fillers to entertain the audience.

4.2 Analysis of commentators' language personalities