Introduction
Sports discourse unconsciously determines the speaking and writing styles of those involved in sports, and in fact, it affects the unconscious of these people and surrounds them; that is why the ways of speaking of these people are also determined by the sports discourse that dominates them, and these discourses also affect their thoughts. The present article aims to sociologically study the conceptualization of sports metaphors in the discourse of developing sports for the disabled.
Materials & methods
This research was conducted using qualitative research method and thematic analysis strategy. The statistical population was 30 disabled athletes (male and female) from Paralympic teams who were selected using judgmental and theoretical sampling in person and voluntarily. In the present study, the interview data were categorized in the coding process into three levels of basic themes, organizing themes, and overarching themes. Then, these themes were drawn in the form of a conceptual model map and the prominent themes of each of these three levels were shown along with the relationships between them.
Discussion & Result
In the metaphors related to men and women, a kind of sexist metaphor is observed, indicating the existence of "sexist language" that exists in the vocabulary of women's interactions and in a way describes the words that are derogatory to female athletes. This form of language use is considered a form of violence against female athletes that is used directly and indirectly every moment and every second in the sports environment, the media, and even by intellectuals, writers, media presenters, and anyone who uses a tool called language.
Conclusion
The results obtained in this article show that gendered language with an emphasis on gender is a social construct that linguistic discourse in conceptualizing sports metaphors in the development of disabled sports in recent years has changed words to de-genderize. Of course, this is a good effort. However, to de-genderize language, only changing words does not solve the problem, but social norms and intellectual foundations about femininity and masculinity must change. Language, like other social processes, is also related to the gender system. In this regard, the discourse of conceptualizing sports metaphors in the development of disabled sports is necessary as models for analyzing, interpreting, and critiquing gender discourse for the de-genderization of language in all areas.