LSHSS

Coach Talk: Linguistic Demands

Inherent in Youth Sports
Julie J. Masterson
Missouri State University, Springfield

Lisa K. Davies
Lee Summit School District, Kansas City, MO

Gerald L. Masterson
Missouri State University, Springfield

n her chapter entitled, BFrom lambie to lambaste:

The conceptualization, operationalization and use
of academic language in the assessment of ELL
[English language learners] students,[ Bailey (in press) describes
the challenging journey that individuals make as they move from
being able to repeat a caregivers term for a toy (lambie), to
retelling important parts of a story, to hypothesizing about the
physiological effects of smoking, to characterizing a verbal attack
during a debate as a lambaste. Certainly, the skills that one needs

ABSTRACT: Purpose: This investigation expands the notion of

academic language to extracurricular activities and provides
preliminary data regarding linguistic expectations that are placed
on students who are participating in youth sports.
Method: Five coaches of young girls basketball teams
(2 competitive; 3 recreational) were observed during practice
sessions divided into individual versus group and stationary
versus active contexts. Communication was characterized with
various measures of content, form, and use.
Results: Coaches rarely used pauses or communicative
repetitions. Recreational coaches utterances contained more
mazes than competitive coaches utterances. Utterances used
during stationary activities tended to be longer and contain more
than one verb compared to utterances used during active
activities; sentence fragments were more frequent during active
contexts. All coaches used jargon quite frequently.
Clinical Implications: The system reported here can be used to
document linguistic demands in other extracurricular activities,
such as music programs and scouting. Speech-language
pathologists might include clinical activities to help students deal
successfully with the linguistic requirements that are inherent
in sporting activities.

to be a proficient communicator change significantly throughout

the school years. In fact, the language that is used in the school
setting is sufficiently distinct as to be characterized as a specific
register, academic language (AL). There is a renewed interest
in the development of this register due in part to the high-stakes
testing associated with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
(NCLB) and the role that the students proficiency in AL will play
in his or her performance on such tests. Consequently, several
researchers are working to describe the characteristics of this
linguistic register and to determine the implications for childrens
academic success. In this study, we offer preliminary data to
expand the notion of AL to the realm of extracurricular activities,
specifically, youth sports. Although there are no federal and
state funds tied to successful participation in sports, for many
students, the stakes are indeed high in terms of social success and
physical well-being.

Academic Language (Teacher Talk)

Researchers have used a variety of perspectives to characterize
the language that teachers use when communicating with their
students. Bloom (Bloom & Krathwohl, 1956) is traditionally
credited with developing a hierarchy for classifying the degree of
abstraction that is involved in the questions that teachers typically
use in classrooms. Questions may range from the relatively simple
request for knowledge (i.e., retelling facts) to comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis, and, finally, evaluation, the most
abstract level, which requires the student to make judgments about
the value of information provided. Blooms taxonomy has been
used in teacher training programs to make teachers explicitly
aware of the requirements they place on students so that the
teachers can systematically manipulate them in an appropriate
manner. Similarly, the taxonomy has been taught to students to

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help them become explicitly aware of teacher expectations so that

they can prepare accordingly.
In a series of classic ethnographic studies, Mehan (1979) and
Cazden (2001) provide detailed descriptions of teacherstudent
interactions in nine classroom lessons that occurred in the early
1970s in San Diego, California. The primary pattern for analysis
was teacher initiation, student response, and teacher evaluation
or feedback (i.e., IRE/IRF). Cazden referred to these IRE/IRF
patterns as the unmarked, or default, options that are used in
traditional classroom lessons. For example, Mehan used this
model to provide a detailed descriptive analysis of Cazden
teaching a lesson on birthplaces. The teacher queried the students
about where each one was born, various students responded
individually, and then the teacher provided feedback. Mehan
discussed the exchanges in terms of both their grammatical
characteristics and function. Mehans descriptions placed IRE
sequences at various points within a broader instructional context,
which was divided into openings, instruction, and closings. Each
portion of the IRE also was subdivided for additional analyses
(e.g., initiations were categorized as having elicitation, informative, or directive functions). The overall goal of these detailed
analyses was to provide a description of teacher talk, and
practicing teachers were encouraged to record themselves to
analyze the features of their own communication and the demands
it placed on their students.
Recently, researchers at the Center for Research on Evaluation,
Standards, and Student Testing (CRESS) at the University of
California in Los Angeles have been working to identify and
describe the linguistic demands that English language learners
face in the classroom and in textbooks (Bailey & Butler, 2003).
Bailey and Butler noted that most current tests for English
proficiency focus on social, everyday language and do not assess
the formal, or academic, language that is required to be successful
in classrooms and on standardized content tests. Consequently, the
CRESS staff and other experts are piloting models that focus on
the language characteristics that are common across the major
academic domains in kindergarten through 12th grade, including
math, social studies, science, and language arts. The models
include descriptions of language at the lexical, syntactic, discourse,
and/or function levels. For example, Bailey, Butler, LaFramenta,
and Ong (2003) developed the Academic Language Exposure
Checklist (ALEC) to characterize the AL that is used in upper
elementary science classrooms. The ALEC describes language
primarily in terms of its content and function. The aim of the
large-scale CRESS project is to describe the linguistic expectations
that students face both in the classroom and on content tests in
order to optimally equip them to meet these expectations.
Most of the current research regarding AL focuses on
descriptions of what instructors are doing; however, there is some
information regarding the manner in which students respond to the
demands of AL. For example, Charity, Scarborough, and Griffin
(2004) proposed that children who typically use a dialect in
typical communication that is similar to AL (referred to as school
English by Charity et al.) will perform better in early reading
tasks. They studied children in kindergarten through second grade
who used African American English (AAE) to various degrees.
Familiarity with AL was based on the frequency of use of AAE
features during an imitation task of sentences typical of AL. They
found that the production of relatively fewer dialectal differences
was associated with better reading achievement.

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Some researchers (e.g., Cazden, 2001; Chilcoat, 1987;

Garmston & Wellman, 1998; Gruenewald & Pollak, 1984) have
reported characteristics of optimal communication used by
teachers. Examples include a decreased speech rate via the use
of pauses; shorter, grammatically simple sentences; frequent
repetitions; fluency; and decreased ambiguity. When teachers use
optimal language, their rate is compatible with the attention and
comprehension-processing rate of the students in the specific
learning context. Students can easily become frustrated and unable
to handle input if the rate of speech is too fast. Information that
is new to the learner and/or highly abstract should be presented
at a slower rate than information that is familiar and concrete
(Chilcoat, 1987). According to Chilcoat, pausing periodically
allows students to process the input and attempt to make sense of
it, to reflect on what has just been said, to consider their own
replies to what they just heard, and to decide whether they have
questions or need an example. Many studies have shown that
when teachers pause for 3 to 4 s, instead of the usual 1 s, students
respond more, their average length of response is longer, and
there is an increased proportion of student-initiated questions
(Nunan, 1991).
Maintenance of fluency is another facilitative characteristic
of teacher talk. Optimal communication is characterized by
complete sentences rather than false starts, choppy and disjointed
sentences, and verbal fill-ins, which are often characterized as
mazes (Leadholm & Miller, 1994). Mazes allow less opportunity for student reflection, input, questions, and interactions
(Chilcoat, 1987).
Grammatically simple statements are helpful for comprehension (Gruenewald & Pollak, 1984). Often, students demonstrate
difficulty with comprehension of a task because the grammar
or clause structure in each utterance is too complex (Gruenewald
& Pollak, 1984).
Teachers use questions almost exclusively in carrying out their
objectives for educating children (Wallach & Miller, 1988).
Asking questions enables the teacher to control the quality and
direction of the discussion. Therefore, the teachers ability to ask
good questions can extend a students thinking and increase his or
her ability to solve the problem (Gruenewald & Pollak, 1984).
The use of genuine, or referential, questions for which the teacher
does not know the answer can be conducive to learning (Cullen,
1998; Thornsbury, 1996). Questioning can also be used to help
guide students through the necessary problem steps in deriving
a solution. Guiding questions can be used to help direct the
students focus on the pertinent elements in a problem or instructional task. Display questions, in which the teacher already
knows the answer but asks for the primary purpose, can also be
used in order to allow the students to display their understanding
or knowledge (Cullen, 1998; Thornsbury, 1996). According to
Thornsbury (p. 281), Bthere is plenty of evidence to suggest that
the vast majority of questions teachers ask are display questions,
whereas, in Freal life, of course, most questions are referential.[
If a teacher uses display questions excessively and exclusively,
the child may become cognitively overloaded and may not
participate in the discussion (Wallach & Miller, 1988).
Content feedback is another aspect of optimal teacher talk
(Cullen, 1998). When teachers use content feedback, they focus
on what the student said (i.e., the content) as opposed to how the
student said it (Cullen, 1998; Thornsbury, 1996). Such a focus

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allows for confirmation, clarification, or modification of the

students knowledge of an important instructional concept.
A final beneficial characteristic of teacher talk is the decreased
use of ambiguous terms and nonliteral language. The use of exact,
precise vocabulary, such as using nouns instead of pronouns,
reduces the chance of the child becoming confused and
consequently not comprehending the message (Chilcoat, 1987).
Although nonliteral language is first understood during the
preschool years, comprehension steadily improves throughout
childhood and adolescence and into adulthood (Nippold, 1998).

Participation in Youth Sports

The purpose of the current study was to pilot a classification
system and provide a preliminary description of the communication demands that are faced by students engaging in youth
sports. Sports and competition play an important role in the lives
of many young people in todays society. According to recent data
provided by the National Council of Youth Sports (NCYS, 2001),
approximately 38 million children between the ages of 8 and 18 in
the United States participate in youth sports in any given year.
These data do not specify the percentage of participants who have
been identified as having disabilities. However, data from Special
Olympics indicate that there are 1.2 million individuals with
disabilities who do participate in sports (Special Olympics, 2004).
The main reasons that young people participate in organized
sports are to have fun, learn skills, develop fitness, and spend time
with friends (Butcher, Linder, & Johns, 2002).
The NCYS data indicate that overall participation in youth
sports has increased during the past few years; however, some
students elect not to continue in a specific sporting activity.
Butcher, Linder, and Johns (2002) reported four main reasons for
discontinuing participation: (a) lack of enjoyment, (b) not enough
time for other (nonsports) activities, (c) too much pressure to
perform well, and (d) need for additional time in a different sport.
It seems reasonable to expect that a students inability to handle
the communication demands involved in practice and game
situations could play a significant role in any of the reasons for
choosing not to continue participation in sports. For example,
confusion regarding instructions for implementing a particular
play would likely decrease enjoyment and result in increased
pressure to perform.
Most of the literature on coaching methods focuses on
instruction, demonstration, and feedback (Martens, 1997). Hodges
and Franks (2002) cited the considerable empirical evidence that
supports the use of optimal feedback by both coaches and teachers.
However, they reported that there is little evidence to justify the
provision of prepractice instruction even though most educational
programs for coaches emphasize this technique. Hodges and
Franks suggest that optimal instruction is crucial, and the effectiveness of instruction will likely be directly correlated with the
quality of player performance. Much of the current coaching
literature (e.g., Martens, 1997) has limited information on specific
communication techniques for instruction that might be facilitative.
Suggestions related to communication tend to focus on the attitude of the coach and his or her relationship with the players as
opposed to the content and form of the language used. Coaches are
typically encouraged to use positive instructions (i.e., comments
regarding what the player does correctly) rather than negative
feedback (i.e., comments regarding what the player is doing wrong).

Devine, McGovern, and Herman (1998) discussed the inclusion of children with disabilities in youth sports. Although most of
the suggested accommodations focus on the physical and equipment needs of the potential participants, Devine et al. did indicate
that players with disabilities may have trouble understanding a
sequence of coaching tips, abiding by the rules of play, and
appreciating the need for instructional prompting. There is little,
if any, specific information regarding the manner in which a
coach, or leader, might adjust his or her linguistic input to
communicate optimally with players with special needs.
In summary, there is a current emphasis on obtaining adequate
descriptions of AL in order to document the linguistic expectations that are placed on students in the classroom. The present
study was designed to broaden the notion of AL to the realm of
extracurricular activities. A descriptive system was developed to
characterize the language used by competitive and recreational
basketball coaches of young elementary players. The system is
similar to the ALEC used by Bailey et al. (2003) in that practices
were first divided into various groupings and activities, and
then the coachs communication was described according to the
function and content of instructions. Measures of verbal fluency
and syntactic complexity also were taken.

METHOD
Participants
Five youth basketball coaches of girls between the ages of 9
and 14 (Grades 48) served as participants for this study. Two of
the coaches were coaches of competitive teams. Competitive
teams referred to teams that played games and/or practiced more
than once a week at least 9 months out of the year. Three of
the coaches were coaches of recreational teams. Teams were
considered recreational if they played games and practiced once
a week for a period of 6 to 12 weeks during a given year. Questionnaires were used to obtain information about each coachs
experience with coaching and his own participation in sports
as a player. All of the coaches were male and ranged in age
from 31 to 43 years of age. Each coach was the parent of two
elementary-age children, with the exception of Coach 4, who had
three. Coach 1 (competitive) had been serving as a volunteer
coach for 25 years and had participated in sports during elementary and high school. Coach 2 (competitive) had coached for
4 years and had played sports throughout elementary and
high school and was a collegiate athlete. Coaches 3, 4, and 5
(recreational) had served as volunteer coaches for 8, 8, and 5
years, respectively, and all participated in sports during elementary and high school.

Data Collection
Potential participants were identified by communicating with
local youth sports organizations. In order to control for the
Hawthorne effect (i.e., that the coaches would act atypically
because they knew their communication was being analyzed),
each coach was given only a broad explanation of the study
(i.e., a study on coaches interactions with their players). At the
beginning of each data collection session, the young athletes were

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told that the observer was studying the way in which basketball
practices were conducted with young athletes and they were
requested to perform as they typically did during practice. Each
coach was observed by the second author during two 45-min
practice sessions, with the exception of Coach 5, who was seen
only once. All samples were obtained in a gymnasium during
practice sessions with the entire team.
The ALEC (Bailey et al., 2003) classifies main activities into
various subtypes (e.g., group instruction, individual problem
solving) and groupings of interlocutors (whole class, small groups,
individuals) that are typical of classroom settings. Similarly, we
segmented each 45-min session into four speaking contexts that
are characteristic of basketball practices. Group stationary
referred to contexts in which the coach was speaking to at least
two athletes who were nonactive. Individual stationary referred to
conditions in which the coach was speaking to only one athlete
who was nonactive. Group active referred to contexts in which the
coach was speaking to at least two athletes who were active and
moving. Individual active referred to conditions in which the
coach was speaking to only one athlete who was active. Each
context was reviewed by the investigators in order to select a
5-min segment in which the coach was (a) talking about issues
related to basketball and (b) speaking rather than silent for most of
the segment. The four 5-min segments yielded a total of 20 min of
data from each session to analyze. Data from the two practice
sessions were collapsed, resulting in 40-min samples for Coaches
1 through 4. Because Coach 5 was seen only once, his sample
consisted of 20 min of communication. These samples were
analyzed for the speech-language features described below.
A Sony camcorder, series LXI, and a Panasonic microcassette
recorder (Model RN-404) were used to record video and audio
samples of communication during the practice sessions. Each
coach wore an Optimus omnidirectional tie clip lapel microphone
on his collar. The video camera was carried by the investigator,
who remained within approximately 30 feet of the coach at all
times.

Speech and Language Measures

All samples were orthographically transcribed by the second
author. Continuous utterances were divided into communication
units (C-units), which consisted of each independent clause and
its modifiers (Loban, 1976). This broad definition of countable
utterances was extended to include structurally incomplete
elliptical sentences (e.g., like that, good, quick), which are
common in oral language. All utterances produced in the chosen
5-min segments were included in the analyses.
Measures of form. Pause usage within a sentence was
analyzed. The use of pauses by teachers is considered facilitative
(Chilcoat, 1987; Nunan, 1991). In the present study, we noted
all pauses that were Q1 s long. A minimum length of 1 s to identify
pauses has been used in the literature regarding both normal
hesitation phenomena (e.g., Goldman-Eisler, 1968; Masterson &
Kamhi, 1991) and stuttering behavior (e.g., Fowler & Ingham,
1986). These pauses were totaled for each context and the overall
frequency was documented. Frequency was divided by the number of utterances in each context to yield a ratio of pauses to
utterances within each context.
Cazden (2001) reported that teacher talk is characterized by the
use of communicative repetitions, or phrases repeated in order to

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emphasize or reiterate a key word or phrase. Communicative

repetitions were tallied in the present study. For example, one
coach repeated a portion of an instruction for emphasis (BKeep
your dribble low. Keep it low.[) The number of communicative
repetitions in each context was divided by the total number of
utterances in that context to yield a ratio.
Use of mazes was measured in the present study. Chilcoat
(1987) indicated that optimal communication is fluent as opposed
to containing mazes. Filled pauses (e.g., um, er), nonmeaningful
and noncommunicative repetitions (e.g., You (you) spread out),
and revisions, which include both false starts and reformulations
(e.g., [Were not] Were going to give you an inbounds play), were
counted as mazes (Leadholm & Miller, 1994). Maze usage was
calculated by counting the number of utterances that contain
mazes and dividing that total by the number of total utterances for
each context.
Gruenewald and Pollak (1984) indicated that comprehension
was influenced by syntactic complexity. In the current study,
a four-level scale was used to characterize sentence complexity.
The first level was fragment, which referred to an utterance that
did not include both a noun and a verb. Elliptical utterances
were classified as fragments. For example, Coach 1 said, BLittle
ahead of her, Susie[ during one of the practice drills. The
second level was simple, which included a subject and a verb.
Commands with the understood subject (e.g., Go over there) were
classified as simple sentences. An example of a simple utterance
was Coach 1s statement, BPut the ball on the floor, Susie.[
The third level was compound, which referred to sentences that
contained either compound phrases or clauses. For example,
Coach 1 said, BTake one more dribble in and get your lay-up.[
The fourth level was embedded, which referred to sentences
containing embedded infinitive verbs, noun-modifying clauses,
and adverbial clauses. An example of an embedded utterance used
by Coach 1 was, BNow if thats too much weight to lift, set
them down and do them without the weights.[ A percentage for
each type for each coach in each context and overall was determined. Syntactic complexity was also characterized by the mean
length of utterance (MLU) for each context. Calculation of
MLU was done by determining the number of morphemes in each
context and dividing the sum by the number of utterances in
that context.
Measures of content. The use of nonliteral language (i.e.,
jargon, idioms, irony, and ambiguous language) was measured.
Jargon refers to terms that are familiar to a specific profession or
social group. For this study, any term that was related specifically
to basketball was considered jargon. Idioms refer to accepted
phrases that have a meaning that is different from the literal.
The use of irony refers to when a speaker says the opposite of
what he or she believes (Wallach & Butler, 1994). Ambiguous
language refers to language in which the referent is unclear due to
the use of words or phrases that communicate vague objects,
things, or groups (Chilcoat, 1987). For this study, any pronoun
that was used with a referent that was not in the same sentence
or in the previous sentences was considered ambiguous. Utterances containing each type of nonliteral language were added up
for each context and then divided by the total number of utterances in that context. This yielded a percentage of utterances
containing each type of nonliteral language in each context for
each coach.

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Because most of the literature on coaching techniques includes

an emphasis on the use of positive feedback, the number of
positive and negative statements used by each coach was documented. Each utterance produced by the coaches was rated as
either positive or negative in nature. For example, BShoot the ball[
was positive, and BDont shoot the ball[ was negative. The
addition of a negative word made an utterance semantically
negative. The percentage of utterances that were classified as
positive or negative for each coach in each context was calculated.
Measure of function. The ALEC (Bailey et al., 2003) lists
six functions that characterize oral classroom instruction. These
include explanation, description, comparison, clarification, direction, and verbal response. In the current study, 13 communicative
functions that were characteristic of coaching were identified. The
first communicative function was instructing, which referred to
utterances that were providing instruction about a skill or drill.
Organizing referred to utterances that organized the athletes into a
drill or a specific location. Confirming understanding referred to
utterances that confirmed that the athletes understood what was
just said or demonstrated. Praising characterized utterances that
gave praise and positive reinforcement. Getting attention was
assigned to utterances that were attempts to regain the athletes
attention. Requesting action referred to utterances that requested
the athlete or athletes to change what they were doing and do
something else. Requesting information characterized utterances
that asked the athletes a question that required a response.
Criticizing was assigned to utterances that criticized an athlete or
her performance and had a negative connotation. Encouraging
referred to utterances that encouraged the athlete to do something
but were not necessarily positive reinforcement. Responding was
used to designate utterances that responded to a question or
statement of an athlete. Showing gratitude characterized utterances that demonstrated appreciation to the athlete. Informing was
assigned to utterances that informed or told, but not instructed,
what the athlete just did or did not do. Finally, defining referred to
utterances that were used to define a term. Example utterances
of each type of communicative function are located in Table 1.
Table 1. Example utterances representing each communicative
function.

Communicative function
Instructing
Organizing (a drill)
Confirming understanding
Praising
Getting attention
Requesting action
Requesting information
Criticizing
Encouraging
Responding
Showing gratitude
Informing
Defining

Example utterances
BOkay, really concentrate on keeping the
ball out on the fingertips.[
BSusie, would you go in that line down
there and balance it out.[
BOkay?[
BNice job![
BSusie![
BGo back to the free throw line.[
BWhat should you have done on that?[
BBody slamming em isnt going to work.[
BYoure alright![
BYes, youre right.[
BThank you![
BThe defenders right in front of you.[
BThat means if youve got the ball here
and everybodys running this way,
thats the backside over there.[

Each utterance was assigned a code for communicative function.

The total number of utterances for each function was tallied
and then divided to provide a percentage for each type in each
context.

Reliability
Each utterance was transcribed and initially coded by the
second author. Interjudge reliability was determined by comparing
the investigators codes and those of a second rater. A student in
the final year of her undergraduate program in communication
sciences and disorders served as the second rater for pauses,
communicative repetitions, communicative function, grammatical
structure, and nonliteral language, and a graduate student in
communication sciences and disorders served as the second rater
for length, verb usage, words, seconds, mazes, and positiveness.
The entire sample from Coach 1 was used for training. Classification of each utterance into the various categories for content,
form, and function was discussed by the primary and secondary
raters until 100% agreement was established. For Coaches 2, 3,
4, and 5, interjudge reliability was determined by having the
second coder independently rate 20% of each coachs sample.
For the continuous measures (i.e., length of utterance, verbs
per utterance, words, and pause durations in seconds), a pointby-point analysis was used. If the two coders agreed, that quantity
of measurement was considered as points of agreement. If the
codes did not match, the quantity of agreement and quantity of
disagreement were noted. For example, if the primary investigator
coded an utterance as having three morphemes and the secondary
coder coded it as having four morphemes, the points of agreement were 3 and the points of disagreement were 1. Points of
agreement were totaled for each language sample and divided by
the total points of agreement plus the total points of disagreement.
This yielded a percentage of agreement for each measure.
For nominal measures (i.e., pauses, communicative repetitions,
mazes, communicative function, grammatical structure, nonliteral language, and positiveness), percentage of agreement was
determined. By comparing the results of the measurements for
each utterance between the two investigators, each utterance was
considered an agreement or disagreement. Total number of agreements was summed for each measure and then divided by the total
number of utterances. This yielded a percentage of agreement.
Interjudge reliability for Coaches 2, 3, 4, and 5 is shown in
Table 2. Percentages ranged from 81% to 100%. Agreement
appeared to be relatively higher for the more objective measurements (e.g., utterance length) and relatively lower for the more
subjective measurements (e.g., communicative function).

RESULTS
The method for data collection used in this investigation
yielded a total of 4,158 utterances to analyze. Total utterances
collected across the two sessions for Coaches 1 through 4 ranged
from 705 to 1020, and the single session used for Coach 5 resulted
in 653 utterances (see Table 3). All of the coaches spoke relatively
more during group activities than individual ones, and 3 of the
5 coaches spoke more during active contexts than stationary
activities (see Table 4). Percentages and means were calculated

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Table 2. Interjudge reliability percentages for samples from

Coaches 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Coach 2
Utterance length
Verb usage
Words
Pause duration in seconds
Number of pauses
Communicative repetitions
Mazes
Communicative function
Grammatical structure
Nonliteral language
Positiveness

98
92
99
100
97
98
100
83
86
81
99

Coach 3

Coach 4

100
91
99
100
98
100
100
81
84
84
100

99
90
99
100
99
99
99
80
82
96
97

Table 4. Percentage of total utterances produced in each

speaking context.

Coach 5
100
89
100
100
100
97
100
83
87
89
98

Measures of Form
Measures of form included percentage of utterances with
pauses, communicative repetitions, mazes, and MLU. These
measures are illustrated in Table 5. Form also was analyzed by
assigning each utterance to a category for syntactic complexity;
these results are shown in Table 6.
Pauses. Pause usage was somewhat comparable across
coaches. None of the coaches used pauses lasting 3 s or longer in
any of the contexts. Utterances with 1-s pauses were slightly more
prevalent for Coach 1 than the others, and Coach 4 did not use
pauses during any of his utterances. Pauses tended to occur most
often during the stationary activities and least often during the
active contexts. There appears to be no difference between competitive coaches and recreational coaches in pause usage. Onesecond pause usage among all coaches is illustrated in Table 5.
Communicative repetitions. Total use of communicative
repetitions ranged from 3% to12% for all coaches. All coaches
Table 3. Number of utterances analyzed for each coach in
each context.

Active

Group

Individual

Group

Individual

Total

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

246
197

187
168

420
429

167
75

1,020
869

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

221
242
129

250
261
148

50
299
315

184
109
61

705
911
653

Total

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Total

Group

Individual

Total

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

24
23

18
19

42
42

41
49

16
9

58
58

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

31
27
20

35
29
23

67
55
42

7
33
48

26
12
9

33
45
58

used communicative repetitions more during the active contexts

than the stationary contexts, and there do not appear to be any
differences between competitive and recreational coaches use of
repetition. Coach 5 had the highest occurrence of communicative
repetitions (20%), and these occurred during the group active
context. Use of communicative repetitions is shown in Table 5.
Mazes. Utterances produced by the competitive coaches
tended to contain fewer mazes (range = 0%7%) than those
produced by the recreational coaches (range = 1%23%). For all
coaches, mazes tended to occur more during stationary activities,
and this difference appears to be stronger in the recreational
coaches. Maze usage for all coaches across all contexts is
illustrated in Table 5.
MLU. Total MLU was moderately variable across all coaches
and within coach type, ranging from 3.98 to 6.54. Each coachs
MLU was longer in the stationary contexts than in the active
contexts. There appears to be no differences between competitive
and recreational coaches. MLU for all coaches is located in Table 5.
Sentence types. As shown in Table 6, compound and
embedded sentences were rarely used during the active portions
of the practice sessions. Although simple sentences were most
prevalent for all coaches, the distribution of sentence types for all
of the coaches except Coach 2 was relatively equal during
stationary activities. The recreational coaches tended to replace
their use of multiverb utterances that characterized the stationary
activities with single-verb utterances during the active contexts.
On the other hand, the competitive coaches tended to use
relatively more fragments along with simple sentences during
the active contexts.

Measures of Content

Note. The amount of time analyzed for each context was held constant.
Ten-minute samples from each context were analyzed for Coaches 1
through 4; five-minute samples from each context were analyzed
for Coach 5.

44

Active

Individual

Note. The amount of time analyzed for each context was held constant.
Ten-minute samples from each context were analyzed for Coaches 1
through 4; five-minute samples from each context were analyzed
for Coach 5.

for each variable of interest in each context across all coaches.

Additionally, comparisons were made between the competitive
youth coaches and the recreational youth coaches.

Stationary

Stationary
Group

Measures of content included the percentage of utterances

containing jargon or ambiguous terms and the percentage of
utterances that were semantically positive or negative. These
measures are illustrated in Table 7.
Nonliteral language. Original categories of nonliteral
language included jargon, ambiguous terms/phrases, idioms, and
sarcasm. Data analysis revealed little to no use of idioms and
sarcasm by the coaches; the percentage of utterances containing

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Table 5. Coaches use of pauses, communicative repetitions, mazes, and mean length of utterance (MLU).

Stationary
Group
% Utterances containing 1-s pauses

% Utterances containing communicative repetitions

% Utterances containing mazes

Mean length of utterance

Individual

Active
Group

Individual

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

6
3

2
1

0
0

0
2

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

4
0
3

1
0
2

0
0
0

1
0
0

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

1
3

2
4

8
6

9
8

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

8
1
5

6
1
3

14
7
20

13
6
12

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

6
3

6
7

1
1

3
0

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

23
7
5

23
8
4

4
1
2

11
4
2

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

8.66
5.05

7.71
5.06

3.23
2.79

5.00
4.27

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

7.84
6.72
6.19

7.34
6.86
5.99

2.70
3.62
2.75

4.92
4.55
3.88

Table 6. Percentage of total utterances classified as each sentence type.

Stationary

Active

Group

Individual

Group

Individual

27
42
16
15

19
54
17
10

37
56
4
2

32
51
12
6

Fragment
Simple
Compound
Embedded

37
47
9
6

25
59
6
11

46
49
1
4

14
81
4
2

Recreational
Coach 3 Fragment
Simple
Compound
Embedded

28
37
15
21

28
38
15
19

28
70
2
0

28
57
9
8

Competitive
Coach 1 Fragment
Simple
Compound
Embedded
Coach 2

Coach 4

Fragment
Simple
Compound
Embedded

32
40
9
19

25
47
12
15

35
57
3
5

22
72
4
3

Coach 5

Fragment
Simple
Compound
Embedded

36
39
13
13

25
49
13
13

31
66
1
2

28
67
5
0

these forms ranged from 0% to 2%. Consequently, these

categories were not used in comparative analyses. The majority of
the utterances produced by all coaches contained either jargon,
ambiguous terms, or both. However, there appeared to be a
difference between competitive and recreational coaches on the
use of jargon and ambiguous terms. As seen in Table 7, the
utterances of competitive coaches contained more jargon than the
utterances of recreational coaches. The range of jargon use by
competitive coaches was 60% to 95% of their utterances, whereas
recreational coaches ranged from 21% to 73%. On the other hand,
recreational coaches used more ambiguous terms than did competitive coaches. As seen in Table 7, the range of utterances
containing ambiguous information for recreational coaches was
39% to 84%; in competitive coaches, the range was 11% to 49%.
Positiveness. The use of semantically positive utterances was
similar across all coaches in all contexts. All coaches used a
majority (range = 86%98%) of semantically positive utterances.
Fewer utterances (range = 3%18%) were semantically negative.
These data indicate that the coaches focused on talking about what
their players should do as opposed to what they should not do.

Measures of Use
Original categories for communicative function are shown in
Table 1; however, due to limited occurrence of some of the

Masterson et al.: Coach Talk

45

Table 7. Coaches use of jargon, ambiguous utterances, and semantically positive and negative utterances.

Stationary

% Utterances containing jargon

% Utterances containing ambiguous information

% Semantically positive utterances

% Semantically negative utterances

specific functions, categories were collapsed into more general

areas. Instructing, informing, organizing, and defining were
grouped into informing. Confirming understanding, getting
attention, requesting information, and requesting action were
combined into requesting. Praising, encouraging, and showing
gratitude were grouped into rewarding. Responding and criticizing
were left as individual categories.
As seen in Table 8, both the competitive and recreational
coaches used most of their utterances to provide information to
their players, and none of them criticized the players very often.
There were some context differences, however. Coaches tended to
make relatively more requests during the stationary contexts and
offer more rewards during the active contexts. Responses were
rarely used by any of the coaches.

DISCUSSION
The present study was designed to extend the current efforts to
describe AL to one type of extracurricular activity and provide
preliminary data regarding the communicative demands that
are placed on children who participate in youth sports. This
information should be valuable for clinicians in both planning
intervention for their clients who participate in youth sports and
providing consultation for adults who serve as volunteer coaches.

46

LANGUAGE, SPEECH,

AND

HEARING SERVICES

IN

SCHOOLS

Active

Group

Individual

Group

Individual

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

79
95

74
90

69
87

80
60

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

66
53
64

44
58
50

21
73
66

50
70
60

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

45
11

49
25

47
19

44
46

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

60
59
40

64
64
68

84
39
42

52
41
72

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

90
97

93
87

97
97

95
92

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

82
88
90

86
84
95

98
91
95

89
93
95

Competitive
Coach 1
Coach 2

10
3

7
13

3
3

5
8

Recreational
Coach 3
Coach 4
Coach 5

18
12
10

14
16
5

2
9
5

11
7
5

The following paragraphs highlight the descriptive findings and

associated clinical implications, evaluate the descriptive method
used in the present study, and offer suggestions for additional
research regarding the language demands inherent in extracurricular activities.
Utterances used during stationary activities tended to be longer
and contain more than one verb. Further, with the exception of
Coach 2, the distribution of sentence types was fairly balanced
during the stationary activities. During the active portions of
practice, the recreational coaches tended to replace their use of
multiverb utterances with simple, complete sentences. On the
other hand, Coach 1 tended to use relatively more fragments along
with simple sentences during both active contexts, and Coach 2
used relatively more fragments during the group active context.
The reason for the difference in relative use of fragments between
the coaches is unclear. One possibility is that the competitive
coaches experience gave them insight into which key terms were
most important and required the greatest emphasis during active
periods of practice.
Pauses lasting at least 3 s are considered facilitative for
communication in the classroom (Chilcoat, 1987). No coaches in
any practice context ever used a pause lasting that long, so we
focused on the use of shorter (1 s) pauses, which were also
used minimally. The majority of the 1-s pauses occurred in the
stationary contexts. This seems logical because the athletes are

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Table 8. Percentage of total utterances used for each communicative function.

Stationary

Active

Group

Individual

Group

Individual

Informing
Responding
Requesting
Rewarding
Criticizing

73
1
25
1
0

60
2
38
2
0

62
0
9
27
0

69
1
13
16
1

Informing
Responding
Requesting
Rewarding
Criticizing

53
2
43
2
0

53
1
37
4
5

48
0
12
40
1

73
0
8
19
0

Informing
Responding
Requesting
Rewarding
Criticizing

59
5
30
1
3

56
3
35
2
4

70
0
14
14
2

66
1
15
16
2

Coach 4

Informing
Responding
Requesting
Rewarding
Criticizing

61
4
34
3
0

55
2
36
3
5

69
1
18
11
0

71
1
14
13
2

Coach 5

Informing
Responding
Requesting
Rewarding
Criticizing

50
4
43
2
0

62
0
30
7
1

70
0
13
16
1

62
0
8
30
0

Competitive
Coach 1

Coach 2

Recreational
Coach 3

able to attend solely to the coach, and the use of a pause gives the
children time to digest the input and make sense out of it. Pause
use during the active portions of a session may not be feasible.
The players are in motion and the situation is constantly changing,
so pausing may result in an opportune teaching moment being
lost. Another possible interpretation of the data regarding pauses
is that they were artifacts of the types of sentences that were used
in each context. Because the utterances were shorter and less
complex during the active segments, there would have been fewer
opportunities for pauses to occur. The relationship between pauses
and sentence types should be considered in future studies.
The use of communicative repetitions has been shown to be
facilitative for comprehension of instructions (Cazden, 2001).
All coaches used more communicative repetitions in the active
contexts as opposed to the stationary contexts. This is somewhat
puzzling because active contexts should not necessarily require
more repetitions than stationary activities. Perhaps the repetitions were more in reaction to a perceived need for additional
instruction by the coach based on player performance during drills
as opposed to a general repetition for communicative emphasis.
With the exception of Coach 3 during stationary contexts, the
coaches utterances contained less than 10% mazes, which is
consistent with expected levels (Leadholm & Miller, 1994) and
conducive for comprehension (Chilcoat, 1987). However, utterances that were produced by the competitive coaches tended to
contain fewer mazes (range = 0%7%) than those produced by the
recreational coaches (range = 1%23%). This is a fairly striking

difference and is likely due to the competitive coaches having

more experience and being more comfortable when giving
instructions, feedback, and so forth to young players. This is
consistent with the classic findings of Goldman-Eisler (1968)
that hesitation phenomena (i.e., mazes) increase as formulation
demands increase in adult speakers. The notion that the recreational coaches were less proficient in providing information is
further supported by the relatively higher occurrence of ambiguous information in the language of recreational coaches (range =
12%29%) compared to competitive coaches (range = 4%24%).
It is likely that familiarity and experience also influence the
use of jargon. All of the coaches used jargon (range = 17%42%)
during all contexts; however, the competitive coaches used it more
often than did the recreational coaches. This was likely due to
an assumed familiarity with the terms by the competitive players,
who had more experience and had played more games. However,
the degree to which this assumption was warranted remains
unclear. It would be interesting indeed to determine comprehension of instructions such as, Bkeep your head up while dribbling,[
Bblock out on the rebound,[ Bstay in the paint on defense, but get
out wide on offense,[ and so forth regardless of player experience.
Future studies should include measures of player response and
performance to determine the effects of jargon.
Both the competitive and recreational coaches used most of
their utterances to provide information to their players, and none
of them criticized the players very often. This is consistent with
the findings regarding semantically positive and semantically

Masterson et al.: Coach Talk

47

negative utterances. These data indicate that the coaches spent

most of their practices telling the players what to do rather than
telling them what not to do or criticizing them when they did
something wrong. This likely had a positive effect on those
children with limited exposure to and experiences with basketball (Chilcoat, 1987). There were some context differences in
communicative function in that coaches tended to make more
requests during stationary contexts and provide more rewards
during active contexts. Perhaps this is related to the specific use
of requests for confirmation, which occurred far more often in
stationary contexts and rarely in active ones. It makes sense that
coaches would be taking the time to ask for confirmations during
stationary teaching times and not active drills. On the other hand,
the relatively higher use of rewards during the active contexts
indicates that coaches, as expected, tend to reward athletic
performance rather than verbal indications of understanding or
compliance. The fact that responses were rarely used by any of the
coaches in any context also is interesting. Perhaps the players
did not ask questions or request information, even when they
needed to do so. Future studies that focus on player performance
and understanding may shed light on this issue.
Clinicians might consider the findings from the current study
when planning their goals and therapeutic activities for their
clients who participate in youth sports. According to the current
Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology (American
Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2001), the Boverall
objective of speech-language pathology services is to optimize
individuals ability to communicateIin natural environments and
thus improve their quality of life. This objective is best achieved
through the provision of integrated services in meaningful life
contexts[ (pp. I26). Certainly, practice sessions and games are
meaningful life contexts for students who participate in sports. For
example, we found that all of the coaches tended to use some
basketball jargon during their sessions. Clinicians could gather a
list of such terms and use them when they are targeting nonliteral
language in their treatment sessions.
The communication variables measured in the current study
seemed to capture the essence of the complexity of coach talk.
It might be beneficial to include descriptions of prosody in future
research. According to Owens (2001), children tend to listen
better when a pleasant tone is used. However, the complexity and
high levels of noise and activity that characterize sports practices
likely require high intensity and perhaps even harsh tones by
coaches. As with the variables measured in this study, documentation of the intonational characteristics of coach talk would be
helpful. Collection of sufficient data would require adequate audio
recording, with careful positioning of the microphone and wireless equipment that would minimally interfere with the coachs
typical activities and style.
Two 45-min practice sessions per coach were recorded, with the
exception of Coach 5, for whom only one 45-min practice session
was observed. Data transcription and analysis were time intensive.
It took roughly 5 hr to transcribe one coach over two practices and
then an additional 5 hr to analyze the data for each coach. It appeared that all of the coaches were consistent with all measures
during each context. There did not appear to be important differences in data obtained during the two practices; that is, coaches
seemed to be consistent across practices. The data from Coach 5,
based on only one practice, were similar to those from the other
coaches, which were collected during two practices. Therefore, it is

48

LANGUAGE, SPEECH,

AND

HEARING SERVICES

IN

SCHOOLS

likely that 20 min collected from a single practice session would

be sufficient for data collection and analysis in future studies.
Further specification of the type and complexity of ambiguous
terms and jargon also would be beneficial. Instead of simply
indicating whether an utterance contained ambiguous and/or
jargon terms, it may be helpful to assign complexity levels to
each type of ambiguity and jargon. Jargon terms might be
categorized according to their frequency of use by typical coaches.
For example, we found that a term such as Bblock out[ (for
rebounds) was used more often than a term such as Bin the paint[
(to refer to the area within the shooting lane). As for ambiguity,
complexity might be based on the degree of separation a pronoun used and its noun referent.
The current study focused solely on the communication
patterns of the adults and did not include any measures for the
effects of these patterns on the players. Although it is reasonable
to assume that characteristics that are facilitative in the classroom
would be facilitative in general, actual response data will need to
be collected in order to be sure. Measures of player response could
include items such as successful compliance with instructions, as
well as player reaction to session and retention in the sport. Giving
questionnaires to the young athletes about various basketball
concepts and jargon could provide information about beginning
levels of familiarity with key concepts. Documentation of player
response to specific coaching instructions characterized by the
measures employed in the current investigation is needed.
Although we do not have specific data regarding the effects
that the coaches communication patterns had on the athletes
understanding and performance, there are some general principles
from the literature on teacher talk that clinicians might consider
when collaborating with their colleagues who are coaches or
providing consultation to volunteer coaches. For example, we
found that when our participants were in stationary contexts, the
use of multiverb utterances increased and the use of communicative repetitions decreased. Further, none of the coaches used
pauses greater than 3 s in any of the contexts. Consequently,
coaches might be encouraged to pay particular attention to the use
of optimal communication strategies during stationary contexts.
That is, they should focus on the use of simple, straightforward
directions that occur within simple sentence structures or compound utterances and use communicative repetitions in order to
highlight the most pertinent instructions. Further, they might be
encouraged to parse their instructions with pauses in order to
allow children time to process the information.
Finally, the current method could be employed to study the
language used by adults who lead children in other sports, such as
gymnastics, dance, or tae kwon do, as well as other recreational
activities, such as scouting and music. Such activities certainly
represent meaningful contexts to children and youth, and efforts
by speech-language pathologists to learn more about the demands
of each context may lead to the development of strategies to
help students both with and without disabilities participate
successfully.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This manuscript is based on a thesis that was conducted by the second
author under the direction of the first and third authors. Partial funding was

Vol. 37

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January 2006

provided by The Graduate College, Southwest Missouri State University.

We thank Dr. Chuck Williams for his input regarding the study, Lindsey
Wallace for reliability scoring, and the coaches and players who allowed
their practices to be observed. A portion of the data provided in this paper
was presented as part of a student poster session at the 2001 convention of
the Missouri Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

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Leadholm, B. J., & Miller, J. F. (1994). Language sample analysis:
The Wisconsin guide. Madison: Wisconsin Department of Public
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Received February 17, 2004

Revision received September 29, 2004
Accepted January 6, 2005
DOI: 10.1044/0161-1461(2006/005)
Contact author: Julie J. Masterson, Department of Communication
Sciences and Disorders, Missouri State University, 901 South National
Avenue, Springfield, MO 65897. E-mail: JulieMasterson@MissouriState.edu

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