The Paris Olympic Games highlighted, among other disciplines, table tennis, notably with the “Lebrun mania” which emerged thanks to the very good results of the table tennis players. Those of the two Lebrun brothers, Félix and Alexis, who are both precocious, talented and develop an attractive and dynamic image, were particularly relayed.
Their notoriety was increased when the oldest of the Lebrun brothers reacted to a tweet from Antoine Griezmann, answering the question: “What does Alexis Lebrun say after each point? Essay? Had tried!? Enough? He’s too strong!” The athlete explains: “Basically, it was “Tcho” and then “Tchosé” then, after that, it went downhill.”
This exchange was taken up in different media, which highlighted its amusing dimension, or even the creativity of the table tennis player. While the conversation may make you smile, these terms are well known to table tennis players, and have even been the subject of explanatory videos. The official WTT channel explains the etymology of CHO, in connection with the Chinese “ball”, and “good ball”.
The PingSunday channel also relays this explanation, but also draws up an inventory of alternative terms, sometimes specific to certain languages (“come on”, “vamos”, “go”). We can consider that the international dimension of competitions creates a favorable situation for language contacts, which can lead to developments, adaptations, and innovations, which explain the “tchosé” of Alexis Lebrun.
To understand exactly these different developments, up to the current form, we could also apply the same methodology as certain linguists do in “historical morphology”, which makes it possible to understand, for example, how “caballus” in Latin became “horse”. But that would require doing some fieldwork in Montpellier and investigating with the Lebrun brothers and their partners! A hypothesis that I would try here would be the transition from “tcho, c’est ça” to “tcho c’est ça”, to arrive at “tchosé”, according to a principle of linguistic economy.
The language of sport as a specialized variety
But beyond the term itself and its possible variants, it is interesting to think about the very existence of such terms, and their use in the context of competitions. According to Artur Gałkowski of the University of Łódź in Poland, sports language can be considered a specialized variety of language that “is characterized by a specific lexicon for the world of sport, used both by professionals and amateurs, but also by ordinary users of the language, members of the communication societies of modern civilization”.
But at a second level, this language is used in a performative dimension of language. Thus, if “saying is doing”, the speeches of athletes in context can have different functions, which have been explained for example as a means of relaxation: “We are a sport under high pressure and that sometimes allows us to release this pressure, testifies Alexis Lebrun. The fact of shouting allows us to be more relaxed.”
The cry of the table tennis player would therefore have a liberating function. But we must not neglect, in addition to the relationship to one’s own stress, the context of the opposition that takes place in table tennis, and the influence that this language can have in the interaction with the opponent.
Influencing the adversary: the performativity of language
In an article entitled “Influencing opponent judgments during competitive sporting interactions: an example in table tennis”, published in 2006 in European Review of Applied Psychology, G. Poizat, C. Sève and C. Rossard identify with table tennis “verbal communications addressed to the adversary or to oneself”especially in the categories “deconcentrate the adversary” And “reduce the feeling of opposing confidence”.
These cries would therefore have the function of drawing the attention of the adversary to oneself, of making him lose concentration, and also of asserting a posture which will undermine his confidence. The authors also relay the results of a study by Greenlees et al. (2005), still about table tennis, which highlights “the influence of the perception of the opponent on anticipations of the outcome of the match”and highlights “the multitude of signals and behaviors that can influence this perception”.
They conclude that with these behaviors “added” what are verbal communications and the expression of emotions in particular, “table tennis players exploit the impact of the social evaluation of the expression of emotions to influence the perceptions of the opponent”.
Thus, what this exchange, and the media coverage of table tennis, highlighted is also the importance of language in the context of sporting interaction: it can help to modify the perception that opponents have of each other, and contribute to winning a match.
Communication in the coach’s relationship with the player
Coming back to the Lebrun brothers, and adding a language component in the context of competition, a key point in their success is the relationship with their coach, Nathanaël Molin. As reported on the Olympic Games website, the relationship between the coach and the player establishes trust which promotes stress and competition management.
Thus, Molin explains, about Félix Lebrun: “I told him something that had been on my mind for a very long time. Just before entering the table, at the end of the warm-up: “You haven’t been preparing for this match for two days, it’s been seventeen years, and your coach has been preparing for this for twenty years, we are ready.”
Through this beautiful example of “Lebrun mania”, it is also the power of words that has been highlighted.
As Guillaume Martinent shows in a 2022 article about the coach-trainee relationship in table tennis, “there is indeed a consensus among table tennis coaches, researchers and sports psychologists that the achievement of performance objectives depends in part on the ability of table tennis players to cope with the stress generated by the competition and to manage their emotions felt during the competition”.
Here too, language intervenes, since “the coach’s communication asserts itself as an essential element (…) during coaching times (pre-match chat, time out, coaching between sets). Ensuring that the players have received, accepted and understood the message according to the wishes of the coach is a particularly salient issue. The close relationship between the player and the coach can be accompanied by work on the acquisition or development of good communication skills.
The synthesis of all this then gives rise to situations such as this: we notice both the cries of encouragement from Félix Lebrun, but also the links with the coach, since every eye is turned towards him (his opponent in the small team final, the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto, doing the same when winning his points).
Finally, through this fine example of “Lebrun mania”, and all the talent of the two brothers and their team, it is also the power of words, and the challenges of communication, which were highlighted. Fortunately, research is looking more and more at these parameters: for example, we are currently carrying out action research on table tennis coaching (“Alive Coaching TT: Linguistic analysis of verbal interactions in the context of coaching, the case of table tennis”), in partnership with the CD95TT, and several coaches and players from Val-d’Oise. The first results will soon be presented at the “Linguistic explorations in the field of sport and physical activity” study days.
