The Language of Fandom

Professor Venkata S. Govindarajan studies how language reflects the ups and downs of professional sports fandom.

If you’re a fan of sports, you’ve almost certainly engaged in passionate discussions and debates with your favorite team’s fellow supporters during a game. Whether it’s the thrill of beating Cortland, or—if you’re a Bills fan—the agony of losing to the Kansas City Chiefs again, being a fan means riding the roller coaster of emotions that comes with following a team.

And, if you’re a digital native, there’s a strong chance this discourse takes place at the message boards and comment threads that populate the Internet.

An assistant professor of computer science at Ithaca College, Venkata S. Govindarajan describes himself as a “computational linguist at heart.” (Broadly, a computational linguist is someone who blends linguistics and computer science to understand human language.) Govindarajan’s research examines how we talk about in-groups (groups you consider yourself a part of) and out-groups (ones you don’t).

“In language, people us phrases like ‘us’ and ‘we’ when making themselves part of the in-group and ‘they’ and ‘them’ when making themselves part of the out-group,” he explains. “Usually, it’s done to reinforce good qualities about an in-group and vice versa.”

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ITHACAA / IC News / Patrick Bohn