Sports metaphors help politicians appeal to everyday people.

By: Hannah Hawkins & Taylor Salazar
Course: Language & Politics (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Adam Hodges
LURA 2020

  There are millions of people in the world that do not follow politics. However, with the use of sports metaphors, it becomes easier to comprehend the topics and issues being discussed in politics. For those people, connecting something that is less understood -- politics -- with something that is more understood -- sports -- makes the ideas easier to grasp.

   Following Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Santa Ana (1999) explains that “a metaphor is a conceptual mapping from one semantic source domain to a different semantic target domain. The source domains are often those things humans can easily think about and the parts of our physical world which are handy and familiar. The target domains are most frequently conceptual ones, hidden from our senses or otherwise unknown to us” (p. 194). Thus, conceptually mapping sports into the realm of politics creates powerful metaphors that allow for the comprehension of complex political topics in terms of more familiar sports topics.

 Expressing ideas in terms of sports is so routine in the highest levels of government that even those who do not follow sports are familiar with the language of sports. Drawing from the domain of sports is a very powerful strategy that politicians use, as sports of any kind are largely followed around the world. This allows a politician to appeal to the general public in an attempt to make them seem like the everyday average person. This ultimately can help politicians and political parties gain a greater follower and voter base. They are not only appealing to the people who understand politics but also the people who understand sports and how they work. In our research, developed for Prof. Hodges course Language & Politics, we pulled from presidential speeches and news articles to analyze the metaphors and their functions from the sports president himself: Barack Obama.

   Take, for example, this quote from NPR's “Morning Edition” interview between Barack Obama and Steve Inskeep:

"Or, if you want to stick to baseball, that a lot of what you want to do is to advance the ball on human rights, advance the ball on national security, advance the ball on energy independence, to put the ball in play," he said (Inskeep, 2014).

When Obama speaks about national security, human rights, and energy independence, he uses baseball (and football) as a metaphor. Since the target domain is the domain we try to understand through the use of the source domain, then we can say the target domain is the politics surrounding foreign affairs and international relations while the source domain is the sport of baseball (and football).

   President Obama frequently used sports metaphors to explain the foreign policy and international relations going on at the time. Even at the end of his Presidency, he “handed off” the presidency to (then) recently Elected President Trump through the use of track and field terms to create one last metaphor:

“I have said before, I think of this job as being a relay runner—you take the baton, you run your best race, and hopefully, by the time you hand it off you’re a little further ahead, you’ve made a little progress.  And I can say that we’ve done that, and I want to make sure that handoff is well-executed, because ultimately we’re all on the same team.” (Roberts, 2016)

Obama utilizes the track terms (“relay runner,” “baton,” “race,” and “handoff”) to refer to different aspects of the presidency and the new presidency that had just begun in 2016. It is implied that the “relay runner” is Obama himself, though the term also serves to include past “relay runners” (that is, past presidents).The “baton,” or the presidency, is then handed off, as is implied through the function of a track relay race, to a new “relay runner” (president) which was Trump at that time. This use of track terms adds positivity to the outlook of all future presidencies and the realm of politics; it helps the audience to understand that the citizens of the nation have the power in unity to continue to improve and make progress, as one does in a race, towards a better society and a better nation.

    While former President Obama was known to use the most sports metaphors throughout our nation’s history of 45 presidents, plenty more have also used sports metaphors in the political realm. There was George W. Bush before Obama who, though not as diverse in his use of terms from different sports, often used baseball metaphors when speaking about Supreme Court judges as “baseball umpires” who call the “pitches”. Before him was Reagan, who was described by Matt Latimer, former speechwriter for President Bush, as a “sports announcer” (Curtis, 2015), and before Reagan there was Nixon and Roosevelt and so forth. It is also to be noted that it is not just U.S. presidents who often use sports metaphors in reference to political topics, but politicians from other countries such as Canada, who often use Hockey terms, and even Australian politicians, who use boxing terms. 

It seems that the use of sports terms in politics has occurred since the start of popular sports such as baseball, football, basketball, track, boxing, hockey, etc., and will continue to be used by politicians. Not only do metaphors help the general public understand politics but they attribute a quality of patriotism and unity among the citizens of their nation. Sports metaphors give people the sense of being part of a team of players within the political realm; a sense of agency in their political system, possibly as the coaches of the “National team”; and a positive image of the political system as a game they can easily grasp and control.

Opening photo credit: http://theathletewithinyou.com/sports-metaphors-language-of-business/