Football Terminology of the 1st Half of the 20th Century in the Text

Functioning of football vocabulary in artistic texts has become the centre of attention of Ukrainian linguists over past years. In this research analysis of football terminology of the 1st half of ХХ century in the little-known comedy with afootball plot written by the inhabitant of Lviv Ivan Kernytskyi «Korol striltsiv» (the footballer who scored the most goals) (Krakiv – Lviv, 1943) has been made. In this article an attempt has been made to trace how a Ukrainian writer of interwar period, while writing a humorous play with a football plot, used special football vocabulary which was actively forming in the Ukrainian language in the 1st half of ХХ century. The aim of the research is to demonstrate the variety of functioning of football terminology in the 1st half of ХХ century in the structure of an artistic text on the football theme. On the basis of the analysis of functioning of football terms of the 1st half of ХХ century in comedy by Ivan Kernytskyi it has become possible to find out the following: 1) in this work terminological units from the most important thematic groups of football vocabulary have been used; 2) the largest are the following thematic groups of football terms: names of football actions (kopaty, kopaty miacha, hraty, hraty na vorotakh, hraty na pravomu luchnyku, hraty pryzemno, hraty hostro, favliuvaty, kosyty, rozbyvaty, patalashyty, striliaty bomby, braty miach na nohu, nakynuty hostre tempo, nakynuty vysoku hru, trenuvaty, vyhraty zmahania, pereity do ekstra-kliasy), names of participants of a football match (futbolist, kopun, pravyi luchnyk, strilets, korol striltsiv, pomich, zirka, futbolna zirka, zirka ukraiinskoho sportu, sportova zirka, prymadonna, zmahun, sportovets, sportsmen, suddia), names of football games, battles, tournaments, football institutions (futbol, miach, kopanyi miach, sport, zmahannia, futbolni zmahannia, vyrishni zmahannia, zmahannia za mystetstvo, persha polovyna, mystetstvo, druzhyna, kliub, sportovyi kliub, sportive tovarystvo), names of a football field, football equipment (hryshche, hryshche kopanoho miacha, polovyna hryshcha, krylo, karne pole, vorota, brama, shtantsiata, futbolivky); 3) among the stated terms lexemes used in direct meaning prevail; 4) there are terms which have undergone semantic transformations, first of all, they have gained figurative sense. Observations over functioning of football terminology in the analyzed drama has made possible to find out certain tendencies of formation of national football terminological system during its most intensive period of development; in particular, it has been shown how selection of one, the most used term out of the synonymic row was made and how polysemy was created. Thus, the humorous play by Ivan Kernytskyi is an authentic source of valuable information about development of Ukrainian football discourse in the 1st half of ХХ century.