Characteristics of Coach Talk
Date of Graduation
Spring 2001
Degree
Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders
Department
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Committee Chair
Julie Masterson
Abstract
The purposes of this study was to develop a methodology for describing the speech and language characteristics of youth girls' basketball coaches and provide some preliminary data regarding these characteristics. Subjects included five area youth basketball coaches who coach girls between the ages of 9 and 11. All coaches were videotaped and audiotaped during two practice sessions. Speech and language characteristics of the coaches were analyzed. Specifically, utterance length, speech rate, pause usage, communicative repetitions, mazes, grammatical structures, non-literal language, verb usage, and communicative functions were assessed. Findings of the study indicated that youth basketball coaches generally use facilitative language. However, non-facilitative language use was present. This included extensive use of jargon and ambiguous terms, decreased use of praise/encouragement utterances, and few defining utterance. It was determined that the method utilized for analyzing coach talk was sufficient.
Subject Categories
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Copyright
© Lisa Davies
Recommended Citation
Davies, Lisa, "Characteristics of Coach Talk" (2001). MSU Graduate Theses. 2410.
https://bearworks.missouristate.edu/theses/2410
Dissertation/Thesis