FREE TUTORIAL FOR SPORTS COMMENTARY IN MALAWI

Media Commentary: Language and Tone Essentials, Part 1

The preacher-man wants to believe that mothers in Malawi, and all other women in the world; if they also celebrate it on the same day, had a wonderful Mothers’ Day on Thursday 15^th October 2015. This piece of epistle seems to contain very few announcements. Few issues had arisen from the previous discussion and the audience’ expectation on the mothers’ day vis-à-vis these sports writings. The most frightening part of the argument was the fact that the issues are marked against gender. Perhaps that is the reason the author sometimes thinks it would cover a sensible ground if mothers’ day changes to “Parents’ Day” in recognition of both mothers and fathers. Need for debate here! The audience must have gotten the point of the author. 

Attention! The author has an idea. He proposes a more somewhat balanced approach on this matter. He thinks that some gender parenting mists can be cleared if the name and activities on this day change face to incline towards both parents than mothers alone. Perhaps this would be a full recognition of contributions made by the both sexes. For a short while, let us look at this piece of thinking. From the biblical history, it was Eve who came from Adam through that first ever operation and the system thereafter got overturned: mothers started giving birth to fathers of the subsequent generations. And perhaps that was deliberately done to balance the equation on human production.

Of course it is a long debate with free opinions. But for now, my beloved mothers continue enjoying the annual day in style until further notice. My beloved fathers, too, you have every Friday as your special day although unrecognized by the calendar. Just enjoy your father’s day responsibly every week so long as you get a valid Visa from your homes!  

     

Ha-ha-ha the audience is seen quacking with fears of what the author is trying to insinuate considering reactivity of gender issues. Leave the author alone, already he is struggling to convince the audience that he has been incorporating the women in his various articles despite having written no direct dispatch about women recently.   

Just for seconds, the author wishes to congratulate Civo Service United for proceeding to the finals of the Standard Bank Malawi knockout trophy after beating Big Bullets 2-1 at the Kamuzu Stadium on mothers’ day 15^th October 2015. To the Bullets family, it is all sorry, sorry, and sorry but that is what happens in a game of football. Perhaps the fans could not understand how it has happened to their team which has gone several games unbeaten. 

Yeah, cup games are totally different from league games, anything is possible; even smaller teams can surprise the kings, remember Super Eagles from Mzuzu in Carlsberg cup previous editions? After all Civo is not all that smaller. Just open an account with standard bank maybe things can get better in the next season because it shows the peoples’ team has had a bad luck in this trophy historically than in the other cups.   

Perhaps the numerous injuries and in-house chaos that led to the boycotting of training following stadium-gate allegations cannot be entirely ruled out. Those people that believe in Juju may attribute the loss to a raven which was thrown into the terraces by a Bullets player having cat-walked at the turf for minutes. Maybe you may argue that the Bullets had thrown out their lucky of the day. Ha-ha-ha the author remembers how some international pundits superficially linked poor run of Mourinho at Chelsea with a medal he threw into the stands after a loss to Arsenal during Community Shied at Wembley stadium. 

Be Forward Wanderers are moving forward like the Standard Bank after beating Blue eagles on Saturday at the Civo stadium in Lilongwe. From the author, it is all bravo and good luck! Perhaps the Ralli Ruban boys can make a record to pocket two trophies in a season but also as a consolation to poor run in the TNM super league, having won the Carlsberg cup already. To the Blue Eagles, yeah, there is always life after Standard bank cup. The team can still do better in the super league with Shumakar Kuwali contesting the golden boot.   

              

Sports commentary in the media has origin way back to early nineteen hundreds when the press especially radio was invented. It picked momentum during the time various sporting activities more particularly football started to be more international than local. This time the countries had started having a national team to face each other in friendlies and competitions. Perhaps the media commentary was a more convenient way to give the latest update of events to the large citizens in their respective countries that could not attend the games owing to various reasons.  

An international sports commentator

Before the invention of the media, the commentary was done at the sports ground to the attendants of that particular game. Somebody from within the crowd could stand up to narrate events of the game to people that are already in attendance. Perhaps this kind of commentary was more entertainment than informative. And no doubt it was dramatized. This particular person could play around with language and creative communication codes just to give a life to the game. Maybe the commentator was helpful to spectator(s) that could not watch properly from their positions due to size of the crowd or other factors such as disability.

Today, this kind of commentary is still practiced in several areas, especially in the rural, for games that cannot make it to the national, regional or community media. Assisted by communication technologies such as Public Address (PA) system, this kind of commentary remains more of entertainment and theatrical. Mostly such commentators do not follow principles of the genre. They use a free style of language and voice projection among others. 

The focus of this article goes to the kind of sports commentary practiced in the Malawi media. To begin with, it is impossible almost in all countries of the world for all the people in that particular country to watch a match at the stadium at the same time. The biggest stadium in the world is the Rungnado stadium in North Korea which accommodates one hundred and fifty thousand spectators at once only out of millions people in that country. In Africa, the FNB in Johannesburg can allow in ninety four thousand and seven hundred thirty six people at a time.

Rungnado stadium: biggest in the world.

FNB stadium: biggest in Africa

As such media capitalized on such stadium’ capacity failure to ply their hot business by developing this genre to a commercial height. Now various media companies are making huge profits courtesy of advertising during sports commentary. The various advanced teams are also amassing huge profits from the media through broadcasting rights. In the end, the sports media commentary is becoming beneficial to the audience, the media and the teams.  

Perhaps, a somewhat departure of this media commentary from the onsite commentary, that has more features of entertainment, lies in the duty of the commentator to provide information professionally beside the entertainment aspect to the audience that is away from the stadium. The priority of this kind of commentary is purely information provision and then the entertainment. As such, all qualities associated with the task of providing information as journalists have to be considered.   

   

Yes, not every other person in the media, even those that love sports much, can make a good sports commentator. Point black! Not all talking on the Microphone from the stadium cabins is commentary. It is this discovery that has prompted a quick remedial analysis of this genre. The fact that the commentary takes the route of info-entertainment and that it needs some sort of creativity, art and aesthetics should not attract overdose. After all in most cases over-creativity creates chaos. 

In Malawi, like elsewhere, it is obvious that tuning on several radio stations during, almost every, weekend and some midweek days, especially in the afternoon, there is somebody shouting on the waves about a certain sport at least. Surprisingly, here in Malawi in most of those different radio stations the shouting sounds alike. It has to be well put here that not all of these commentaries are bad and not all of them are up to the standard. Quote the author correct, nobody is being judged here but the genre itself is under the microscope for now. Praise this forum because it tries everything possible to provide alternatives to every problem discovered.

Sports commentary and more especially the football, has gone through revolutionary stages. It is just some few months ago that a well-known international media, the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC had a recap of some of its previous football commentary programmes. Ideally, the program targeted its various commentators since the station started broadcasting sports from the stadiums. 

What was more apparent in the review is the difference in taste between the old BBC commentaries against the current programmes. Perhaps some of the situational factors such as level of technology could not be ruled out entirely in the old times. That aside, the focal point was the content. 

Perhaps the congregation needs to be informed that in the 1950s BBC had a commentator who could laugh for minutes while the play was still underway. By the time he stops laughing, a goal had been scored or something had happened on the pitch, then he broke into another minutes of laughing for that incident too. And obviously, the audience had missed the details of the events. No wonder some people in the audience could be bored and of course others could break into laughter like him. In the end, to some extent his manners created disturbances and chaos to some people that wanted to follow events as they unfolded at the stadium. Gladly, this author wants to believe no Malawian commentator does the same.

In one of the previous articles the author had referred to the audience a piece of radio commentary in which he called a spectacular kind of its nature.

  ‘This is Mohamed he has beaten Mponda, trouble! But Sanudi punches it away, trouble! But it is kicked away. Three minutes and thirty seconds to go unofficially before the end of the game.  Hassan has taken a throw, he kicks a long ball inside Malawi’s half … but offside has been ruled against one of them.   Two minutes and fifty five seconds to go. It’s still nil nil. The boys have done a very good job. Some critics said we could not beat or even draw with Egypt but here we are. The ball has come to Chi-u-k-e-p-o-o-o-o-o (screaming…) it’s a g-o-a-l l l l l l Malawi one Egypt nil!’    (Extract: 14^th June 2008, commentary by Steve Liwewe Banda, MBC Radio 2) 

Ha-ha-ha the author can hear murmuring and silent gossiping from the audience that Steve Liwewe Banda is being favoured. But perhaps the most important thing is to give more attention to the piece of the commentary and not the name of the commentator. Let us all take a look at the language, put a voice and tone to the words and imagine how they sound, include the mood, analyze everything in this commentary piece then move the motion if he is really favoured than what he deserved. The point is Steve Liwewe is just among the few best commentators in Malawi you cannot complain much when it comes to giving nothing but the latest and clear details as they unfold at the stadium.  

Several years ago, more than ten, this author was in his village. Let alone, on that particular weekend there was a decisive super league match between the then Bata bullets, now Big Bullets, against the Mighty Wanderers currently Be Forward Wanderers. The audience should be informed that having a radio set in this village was not all that easy. And most of the times when people wanted to listen to a programme such as ‘Kapalepale’, ‘Pabwalo’, ‘Nkhani za Mmaboma’, ‘Mauthenga achisoni’, ‘Pamajiga, Zimachitika’, and football games the people had to benefit from the neighbours. 

So on this particular day there was a young man passing by while listening to his radio. The background of this person was that he had dropped out of school when he was in Standard three, a class according to the rural primary school status could not articulate English. But this time around his facial expression, mood, tone and body language explained that he was enjoying an English programme which he was listening to on the radio. Yes, it was a football commentary.

An uncle asked him, ‘what programme are you listening on the radio? The young man answered; ambwiye mpira (it is football uncle). The uncle asked the second question, ‘which teams are playing?’ The young man replied; Malawi ndi Bata ambwiye (It is Malawi against Bata Bullets). 

Don’t doubt people went into laughter, as you have done, wondering how the Malawi National Football Team could play Bata Bullets in a league match ha-ha-ha. Perhaps the person did not know the Mighty Wanderers or indeed he did not understand the English language thoroughly from the commentator. Perhaps the commentator at one point had mentioned the National team on comparing maybe with the Wanderers kind of play, performance or something else possibly during his commentary comments.  

                 

Despite the goof on the club name, the audience can be surprised, that this young man was following every piece of events as they unfolded using tone of the commentator and nobody understood how that was possible. Yes, sometimes in the commentary box Steve could engage a Chichewa commentator but the English version did not disturb this young man from following the game. He clearly demonstrated understanding of what transpired in the game. The young man could know the ball was in the enemy’ territory, or a goal is about to be scored. He could tell you somebody has wasted an opportunity and so forth. 

Concord to this testimony of the uneducated young man, just recently at the 2015 COSAFA tournament in South Africa, this commentator made another astonishing piece that proved how somebody who does not understand the language can still follow the proceedings. At one point, his tone could be heard to be so gloomy, somber and melancholy indicating the Malawi National Football team was about to swim dirty waters should it be careless. Yes, it was penalty kicks time. Unsurprisingly, he was heard mentioning the name of God at one point. Ha-ha-ha probably Steve is also a believer or an elder at a religious institution.

 ‘Now it’s Malawi to take its penalty. The player steps in. yes he does. He prepares himself well. He makes a dribble run, (silence)… He kicks the ball, In the name of Jesus… (Silence)…. (Screams…), it’s a g-o-a-l’. From this piece who would doubt it was the darkest moment in need of a savior? Ha-ha-ha the author has proudly gathered roses for Steve while, the Liwewe Mwana Liwewe as he calls himself, is still around!

There are also some good commentators in Malawi that are convincing a lot of people in as far as sports commentary is concerned. But perhaps, here are a few things to be looked at when analyzing this genre. Having talked at length as an introduction, including several examples and extracts, the author thinks the tutorial should be broken into chapters. 

Mike Bango (right): ZBS sports commentator
receiving an award 

For now, the talk can surround the language and tone, while the subsequent articles shall cover content, in-commentary analysis, pre and post-match comments, touchline qualities and finally the sports reporting in news programmes. 

The sports reporting in news programmes has been included deliberately to see what makes a good report. The fact that the commentator at the stadium was quick in the mouth, used aesthetic jargons, and tone in the commentary should not make the report also sound like special commentary or after match commentary in the news programmes especially news bulletins.

In Malawi, while Chichewa is considered the mother tongue language, but it should also be mentioned that there are several Malawians that struggle to understand it. A very good example is the people from the Northern region of Malawi. Quote the author correct. He is not mentioning this out of sarcasm or trying to bring regionalism, but the point is that most people in the north, especially those that had gone to school would rather understand English easier than Chichewa. This calls for a serious multilingualism interventions. That is to say the people from North would rather speak English as second to their ethnic language than other local languages and Chichewa for that matter. It is no secret how they struggle to use appropriate words from the Chichewa vocabulary including pronunciations.

This means sports commentary in Chichewa only, leaves out a large population of people from understanding the proceedings at the stadiums ‘comfortably’. Let alone, with the current fashion of using big Chichewa words in the commentary to paint a picture is really causing disturbance. Perhaps that gives the radio stations which combine Chichewa and English commentaries  such as MBC Radio 2 an advantage of commanding large listenership during sports games. 

When the irreplaceable English commentator Steve Liwewe goes missing in the cabins and nobody tries to temporary take the Microphone for English commentary, surely the world of sports audience suffers. It means the non-Malawians, Malawians from other vernacular bound regions, high-school bound students and alumni, high class citizens and the list is endless, suffer. Thanks to Patrick Simango, another MBC sports commentator who does not entirely leave the audience to miss everything. He at times throw in some minutes of English commentary when his partner Liwewe is absent in the commentary box.   

For a short while, understanding must be made of high school students and alumni that struggle to articulate Chichewa. Although some people may brand them as being vanity, contemptuous or other names for failing to keep hold of their mother tongue’ language. But maybe before passing the judgment, consider their living environment as well. Almost a large part of their communication is in English. For instance, at school everything is taught in English or rarely, sometimes, French and Spanish, including out-of-classroom activities. Even mere conversation among the students is in the foreign language. 

Sometimes at home, in trying to inspire them, parents too communicate to the kids in English. Perhaps the only moment, they come across Chichewa is when Anaphiri (commonly used name for a maid in Malawi) is talking to them. And these children are locked in gates with minimal association to non-high school kids. With time, even the maid learns the language and now everybody else in the home goes English in the mouth.  Even at church they attend English service. And now you can judge. But hopefully, articles on communication and community development will shed light more on this trend.         

The point is, let somebody from the congregation or elsewhere challenge Steve Liwewe and begin to do English commentary, not like Liwewe mwana Liwewe but like themselves. Yes, another problem with Malawians is that everybody will want to imitate the other. That is the reason in the introductory paragraphs it was mentioned that the shouting on the different radio stations sounds alike. Let somebody from the journalism training schools come up with the same English commentary version maybe colored in their free styles so long as they maintain principles of language: grammar, good sentence construction, pronunciation, tenses and other aspects in the vocabulary syllabus for communication. 

After all most of the radio stations in Malawi claim to have gone live streaming on the internet. So if the language in most of the programmes is localized who else is listening apart from Malawians maybe including those in diaspora also? Don’t tell the author you expect to have very many cases in the audience like that of the young man in the village explained earlier. Yes, targeting audience segmentation is paramount but sports is among special disciplines enjoyed worldwide. How can people expect to put the name of Malawi sports on the map or help make headlines on the regional and international media if the language therein is always vernacular? Of course thanks can be given to men of print media and few online pages that put the words in English. 

Take the example; it has been so easier for Malawi radio stations to get top sports news from English speaking media due to the same language factor. At several times the author has heard even the radio programmes including an interview recorded by the international media. The point is language universality. Next time try to include a recording of Lionel Messi interviewed by Spain’ local media and testify if you can understand anything and if at all your audience can applause that. Ha-ha-ha leave my star Messi alone his concern is kicking the ball and not the language.    

            

Even the men of Print media, too, have to sleep on the papers and sell them the next day.  Worst still, in Malawi not many online pages; again, give live commentary of games at the stadium. Surfing the Malawi pages, the large part of what they call live commentary is pre-match interviews and analysis, some few notable events in the game and post-match analysis and reactions. Otherwise the rest content is reporting than commentary. 

Just for a while, take your time and have a snapshot of BBC sports page about live sports commentary. Every minute of the game counts to the commentator. The writer gives almost every piece of details of what is happening on the field of play. 

This discussion will be dealt with when looking at the online commentary in Malawi. But the point the author wanted to draw is that in Malawi people depend much on broadcast media for live commentary of games. As such using the more universalized language can help to catch large audience. 

Undoubtedly, the large audience will attract more advertisers including international sports related companies. Who would not want to see companies such as Adidas, Puma, Nike, Pepsi, Sumsung, to mention a few advertising with your stations knowing all English speaking people will get the message. Don’t you know that even the author himself can benefit from such companies? Yes, perhaps he can get a contract to be producing those adverts, who knows? 

For today the author has to take a break. Issues of language and tone have not been fully exhausted. Undoubtedly they will also need another full chapter hopefully the very subsequent one.

But perhaps, unluckily, doing the English commentary is expensive then fellow Malawians try Chilomwe, it has words sounding like English in pronunciation, ‘miyano=me’ nyuwano=new one’, ‘nyuwano=you’, ‘khomuleke=come look’, ‘ophama=Obama’, ‘komuhiye=come here’ Ha-ha-ha please leave the alhomwe alone, already they struggle to differentiate where to use ‘L’ instead of ‘R’ with their weak tongue.