Situational language use is a key part of the language of sport, particularly the coaching or managerial aspect. Situational language use can be defined as language use based on external circumstances; for the purposes of this research, these circumstances include result, in-match events, and fluctuations in league position. This paper, as the beginning of an ongoing research program, intends to examine association football managers' situational language use in post-match interviews. Unlike more traditional press conferences, these post-match interviews are a good source to analyze because of their spontaneity, one-on-one nature, and a manager's relative lack of preparation. The research is a corpus-based study of situational language use, using tools from corpus linguistics to discern whether linguistic patterns can be drawn from different pre-interview situations or results. The corpus data is drawn from post-match interviews from the 2013-14 season of the English Premier League, transcribed by hand and tagged depending on the type of language represented therein. Building from a theoretical framework of conversation analysis and corpus-assisted discourse studies, the research seeks to discern linguistic patterns based on match results, in-match events, and changes in clubs' league position.
Key terms: conversation analysis, corpus-assisted discourse studies, corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, interview, situational language use, transcripts, turn-taking
