Seminar paper in English Stylistics

Coach Flowers I am a champion

1 Introduction My seminar paper which will be presented here deals with a speech which is probably not very well-known. It is the speech I am a champion! which was given by American football coach Flowers before a match of his football team. The goal of this seminar paper is the analysis of the speech which presents my knowledge from the Stylistics course seminar applied to this particular text. Depending on what will be analysed, this paper is divided into several parts.

2 Data and Method At first I was about to analyse a speech by some well-known person. My intention was to find a person who is widely known among people. Although I found many well-known people, I could not find great speech I would enjoy to analyse. Then I changed my criteria for choosing a speech. I decided to choose a speech by any speaker if his or her speech will be interesting. So I found a speech given by American football coach - coach Flowers. The speech I am a champion is probably not very well known but I find it very interesting and highly motivational. This speech was given by the coach before a match of his football team. I found out that he motivated his team to such an extent that they won the match and they literally crushed their opponents.

3 Analysis For this analysis I used the recorded speech which I found on the internet and the transcript of this speech which was used only as the source for citations. I used also secondary sources which are listed in the bibliography at the end of my seminar paper. In this analysis I will deal with seven different fields and these are: register, phonetics and graphology, morphology, syntax, lexis, discourse and paralanguage.

3.1 Register

There are three subcategories in the area of register: tenor, field and mode. This particular speech is available on the internet as video file which was recorded in team's changing room. From the analysed video it can be seen that mode is both spoken and written. In my seminar paper I used transcript of the speech only as the source of citations but I analysed the video file. Therefore the mode is spoken. The second subcategory of register is field. This speech can be considered a public speech. Although it was primarily given to the football team, there was also a camera through which the speech spread among many other people. Other subcategory of the register, the last one, is tenor. The tenor can be considered informal or neutral as the speaker uses neutral vocabulary, the vocabulary of everyday language. In the area of register there are also situational parameters of the speech to be analysed. The speech was given by coach Flowers to his football team. The place where it was given is team's changing room, time is unknown. The main purpose of the speech was motivation coach Flowers intended to motivate his team to play the best they can and to believe in themselves. I can say that he was successful as to the fact that his team won the game. The communicational channel of the speech is oral. The last thing to mention is participants. There are two participants coach Flowers and audience (the team). Coach Flowers is dominant speaker. He delivers his speech which is interrupted only by his repeated question which is always answered by the team. As to the distance between participants, coach Flowers stands among boys from his football team who sit and watch the coach. The age of participants is different; while the coach Flowers is maybe in his 30's, boys on the team are much younger, probably students.

3.2 Phonetics and Graphology

The length of the speech is a little over three minutes. During this speech the intonation varies. Intonation is rising from the beginning until the end. The beginning of the speech is presented in low voice and it rises until the end where coach Flowers is shouting. Also response of the team gradates and its words I am a champion are still louder. Pitch of the speaker is high what expresses speaker's involvement in the speech. Volume increases throughout the whole speech, from low to shouting at the end.

Pace also varies. As intonation and volume rises, so does the pace. The louder coach Flowers speaks, the faster is his pace of speaking. This leads into dramatization of the whole speech. Coach Flowers uses stress to highlight the most important words or even sentences. Flowers speaks fluently and in his speech there are not any hesitations. He uses pauses between statements to highlight important ideas and to provide thinking time. During pauses he usually looks at the notes. The speaker's voice is strong and his pronunciation is easy to understand. Speaker, the dominant one coach Flowers, is involved in what he is talking about. He uses imperative sentences and one repeated question to make his speech more interesting. During the whole speech there are not any overlaps of turns because the main speaker is coach Flowers and the team answers only when is asked to answer.

3.3 Morphology

From the point of view of morphology there are verbs, nouns, phrases and tenses to be analysed. Verbs can be analysed from two points of view. According to the verb form they can they can be divided into finite: That is the answer that comes with that question or And when I get there I will arrive violently and non-finite: More honored to take you onto the field of battle or That's right and I need you to remember that all throughout this game. According to the type of the verb we can divide verbs into intensive or copulative verbs: I am a champion! which consist of verb to be; transitive verbs: And no one will tell me who and what I am and can be which require object and intransitive: And I will not have to worry about him being kind which do not require object. Noun phrases may be pre-modified: my own praises, next week or post-modified: man on the moon. Pre-modifiers are usually adjectives (new), post-modifiers are represented for example by prepositional phrase (on the moon). The majority of nouns are simple nouns without modification: gentlemen, comrades etc. As to the tenses used in speech there were present simple, future tense and present perfect. Present perfect was used just few times: It has moved continents and countries, and put man on the moon or I have trained my mind and my body will follow. The speech consists of several segments. It starts with six statements in present simple, then it is followed by twenty three statements in future tense and one statement in present perfect and these are 3

interrupted by several times repeated Who am I? I am a champion! in present simple. Then there is another part of ten present simple statements and nine future tense statements. The last part of speech is based on eight times repeated Who am I? I am a champion! which is present simple again. After counting all these tenses it can be said that more than half of the speech is in future tense through which coach Flowers represents his desire to win and motivates his team to believe it can become true.

3.4 Syntax

From the syntactical point of view the speech consists mostly of compound sentences which are usually longer. Compound sentences connect several ideas together so they force us to pay attention to think about what is being said. The speech contains simple sentences: Today gentlemen I am honored to coach you which consist of a subject and one verb and compound sentences: That is the answer that comes with that question which consist of two independent clauses. Main clause and subordinate clause are connected either by subordinator: I will believe what other have doubted or by coordinator: I have trained my mind and my body will follow. There is also complex sentence: I will rip the heart from my enemy and leave it bleeding on the ground because he cannot stop me in which independent clause is joined by one or more dependent clauses. The speech contains imperative sentences which express strong emotions and promises: Never will I let them fall! Never will I let them down! Coach Flowers also used gradation which made the sentence long, yet still easy to understand: I will gladly go out into the field of battle and I will move, groove, and do everything that I can do and I will reach my field of battle by any means at my disposal. There can be found also multiple subject: My heart and my mind will carry my body when my limbs are too weak and multiple object: I will always endeavour the prestige, honor, and respect of my team. Coach Flowers uses mostly statements, there is just one question: Who am I? which is repeated several times throughout the speech. This question is every time answered by the same sentence: I am a champion!

3.5 Lexis

Vocabulary used in this speech is neutral. Speaker's audience is the football team group of young men so he does not use any special vocabulary to make his speech easy to understand. Flowers uses repetition which repeats the most important statement in the whole speech: Who am I? I am a champion! Repetition of this question and repeated answer motivates team to believe they can win and they will not be defeated. The whole speech does not contain contracted forms except for one exception: That's right and I need you to remember that all throughout this game. Other forms are not contracted as can be seen in: I am, I will, I do not, I will not etc. There are also words of foreign origin, called also loan words and these are words of French origin: comrade, conquer, prestige etc. The speech contains also one idiom: Comrades that have been with me through thick and thin. American English can be seen only in the transcript, e.g. honor.

3.6 Discourse As mentioned in register (3.1) there are two participants coach Flowers and football team. Coach Flowers is dominant speaker. The whole speech is based on his talking to the team not with the team. The only time he talks with the team is when he asks: Who am I? and the team answers I am a champion! and then he speaks to the team again while they listen to him. This means there are no overlapping or latching turns, no interruptions; it can be considered a cooperative participation. Because of the team's answers it can be considered as turn-taking which is based on question answer adjacency pairs as to the fact that coach asks a question and the team answers. Besides these team's answers, the team (audience) is in the role of hearer for most of the time. As to the opening and closing, there are no greetings present, but coach Flowers specifies for whom his speech is intended: Today gentlemen I am honored to coach you. The topic of the speech is clear; coach Flowers uses similar ideas and statements to motivate his team and to support them before their match; topic shifts are not present.

3.7 Paralanguage

As it can be seen in Jacobson's model, there are six communicative functions of language and these are: referential, expressive, metalingual, conative, poetic and phatic.

In this particular speech three of these functions can be seen, which are: referential that conveys information about the speaker; conative function which is represented by speaker trying to persuade the team about their chances to win and their strength; expressive, also called emotive function shows emotions and feeling of the coach Flowers and the team which are still more visible as the speech comes to an end. As to the paralanguage, we distinguish acoustic and non-acoustic features. Acoustic features include intonation, pitch, voice and tempo. Intonation is rising from the beginning until the end, pitch is high which shows speaker's involvement. Voice of the coach Flowers is strong and understandable and tempo becomes faster as the speech progresses to the end. Non-acoustic features include postures, gestures and eye contact. As to the posture of participants, the coach Flowers is standing in front of team, while boys from the team sit. At the end when they repeat Who am I? I am a champion! several times they all stand up around their coach. Coach Flowers uses several different gestures to support his speech and these are: pointing with his finger to his chest when talking about future and almost all the I will sentences; then it is beating his chest with his fist where purpose is the same as pointing to the chest, it is just a variation of this gesture. Another gesture used is pointing with his finger to the ground with words such as now and today; the last one gesture that caught my attention is putting his hands in the air when he and his team repeat the same question and answer at the end of the speech before they run out to the field.

4 Conclusion This seminar paper is a general analysis of the speech. There are also other possibilities how this speech could be analysed, maybe analysis which deals with more details. This seminar paper is an outline of my theoretical knowledge from English Stylistics course presented at the concrete chosen speech.

Bibliography:

Primary sources:

Coach Flowers' speech, retrieved December 21, from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX39J_YyKbs

Secondary sources: Ferenk, M. A Survey of English Stylistics. Kominarecov, E. The Essentials of Speech Communication, Preov, 2010 tekauer, P. Rudiments of English Linguistics, SLOVACONTACT, 2000

Attachments:

1. Coach Flowers' speech I am a champion! transcript 2. Coach Flowers' speech I am a champion! video file link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX39J_YyKbs

Transcript

Coach Flowers
I am a champion! delivered in the football team's changing room

Flowers: Today gentlemen I am honored to coach you. More honored to take you onto the field of battle. There is another honor to be bestowed upon you. That is the answer that comes with that question. Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: That's right and I need you to remember that all throughout this game. I will conquer what has not been conquered. Defeat will not be in my creed. I will believe what others have doubted. I will always endeavour the prestige, honor, and respect of my team. I have trained my mind and my body will follow. Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: I will acknowledge the fact that my opponents do not expect me to win but I will never surrender. Weakness will not be in my heart. I will look to my comrades, to those who have brought me into this world and those who trained me and I will draw strength from them. Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: I will gladly go out into the field of battle and I will move, groove, and do everything that I can do and I will reach my field of battle by any means at my disposal. And when I get there I will arrive violently. I will rip the heart from my enemy and leave it bleeding on the ground, because he cannot stop me. Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: To my side I have comrades; comrades that have been with me through thick and thin; through sacrifice, through blood, through sweat, through tears. Never will I let them fall! Never will I let them down! And I will never leave an enemy behind, because our opponent does not know my heart. 8

Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: No one will deny me! No one will defy me! And no one will tell me who and what I am and can be. Belief will change my world. It has moved continents and countries, and put man on the moon. And it will carry me through this battle. Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Defeat, retreat, those are not in my words. I do not understand those definitions. I do not understand when things go wrong. I do not understand mistakes. But I do understand this. I understand victory and I understand never surrendering. No matter how bad things go. My heart and my mind will carry my body when my limbs are too weak. Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Today will be that day. Not tomorrow, not next week, but right now, right here, in your house and in your home. Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: History will remember me. And I will not have to worry about him being kind. I will define myself. I will write my own praises. And no one will tell me what I can and cannot be. I will never go home, not without giving everything I have got. Coz who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Who am I? Team: I am a champion! Flowers: Who am I? Team: I am a champion! 9

Flowers: Who am I? Team: I am a champion!

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