An article by Morten Christiansen and Inball Arnon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalm, published last year in Topics in Cognitive Science, was quoted extensively in an Opinion piece on Language and Grammar by Michael Skapinker in the Financial Times. The article, "Foreign managers' phrases find the back of the net: Premier League football bosses are masters of tackling tricky English 'chunks' of speech," was published on May 14, 2018.
According to Skapinker, his interest is in, not the game, but the aftermath. "My particular passion is the manager's post-match press conference -- and especially the way the foreign contingent of Spanish, Portuguese, Frenchmen, Italians and Argentines speak English." Christiansen's and Arnon's journal addresses the heavy reliance speakers, especially those under pressure, have in using patterns of words in a familiar phrase, (referred to as 'chunking') to maintain their fluency. Non-native speakers, who have not acquired these patterns, use them significantly less frequently. According to Skapinker, "This suggests that whether they are learning them deliberately or picking them up by chance, the football managers' use of the game's set phrases is a canny strategy."
