You’ll Never Walk without Metaphor: A Study on the Football Chants

Abstract

Team chants play out a significant role in such sports as football where an intense competition prevails. The lyrics of chants are of great importance for fans to be able to remember them and reflect the powerful emotions carried for their team. That’s why, the metaphors used in team chants are pivotal. Because metaphors help individuals surface their perceptions against phenomena. The purpose of this study is to determine the metaphors used in the chants of football teams. For this purpose, it was examined through content analysis 84 chants composed for 13 Super League Teams, which they were selected using criterion sampling, one of the techniques of purposive sampling.  The metaphors detected upon listening and reading the lyrics of chants one by one were entered to the SPSS 23 program, then frequency and percentage analyses were performed. Subsequently, the metaphors used in the chants of all teams were categorized by their common characteristics. In total, 526 metaphors were determined within the chants of all teams under consideration. Each metaphor was examined and added in the analyses. Through the analyses of all metaphors at hand, it is determined that the metaphors of “heart” and “love” excel over the others.  The most frequently used metaphors for all teams fall in six categories as “passion”, “power”, “nature”, “symbol”, “life”, and “fanatic”. It is seen that especially the metaphors in the passion category are used more frequently in chants. This way, the fans are able to convey their vigorous emotions for their team. In conclusion, it is assumed that the intensity of emotions in chants is supported by metaphors in order to leave a mark and stick in the mind in the most influential way.

Keywords

• Metaphor,football chants,content analysis

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