Definition of Sport, Games, and Athletics: Learning Module 1
Definition of Sport, Games, and Athletics: Learning Module 1
What is Sports?
Sport in childhood. Association football, shown above, is a team sport which also provides opportunities to
nurture physical fitness and social interaction skills.
The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities
varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is
provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports
federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports,
and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.
SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:
What is Games?
Ancient Egyptian gaming board inscribed for Amenhotep III with separate sliding drawer, from 1390–
1353 BC, made of glazed faience, dimensions: 5.5 × 7.7 × 21 cm, in the Brooklyn Museum (New York City)
A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun,
and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is
usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of
aesthetic or ideological elements. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many
games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports
or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such
as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).
Games are sometimes played purely for enjoyment, sometimes for 0. They can
be played alone, in teams, or online; by amateurs or by professionals. The players may
have an audience of non-players, such as when people are entertained by watching
a chess championship. On the other hand, players in a game may constitute their own
audience as they take their turn to play. Often, part of the entertainment for children
playing a game is deciding who part of their audience is and who is a player.
Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games
generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help
develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform
an educational, simulational, or psychological role.
Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience
and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the
oldest known games.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Gaming table, circa 1735, wood and ivory marquetry, overall: 78.7 x 94 x 54.6 cm, Cleveland Museum of
Art (Cleveland, Ohio, US)
French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Les jeux et les hommes (Games and
Men), defined a game as an activity that must have the following characteristics:
Chris Crawford
The Card Players, an 1895 painting by Paul Cézanne depicting a card game, in Courtauld Institute of
Art (London)
1. Creative expression is art if made for its own beauty, and entertainment if made
for money.
2. A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive. Movies and books are
cited as examples of non-interactive entertainment.
3. If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a toy. (Crawford notes that by
his definition, (a) a toy can become a game element if the player makes up
rules, and (b) The Sims and SimCity are toys, not games.) If it has goals, a
plaything is a challenge.
4. If a challenge has no "active agent against whom you compete", it is a puzzle; if
there is one, it is a conflict. (Crawford admits that this is a subjective test. Video
games with noticeably algorithmic artificial intelligence can be played as
puzzles; these include the patterns used to evade ghosts in Pac-Man.)
5. Finally, if the player can only outperform the opponent, but not attack them to
interfere with their performance, the conflict is a competition. (Competitions
include racing and figure skating.) However, if attacks are allowed, then the
conflict qualifies as a game.
Crawford's definition may thus be rendered as: an interactive, goal-oriented activity
made for money, with active agents to play against, in which players (including active
agents) can interfere with each other.
Other definitions, however, as well as history, show that entertainment and games
are not necessarily undertaken for monetary gain.
Other definitions
What is athletics?
Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport#Definition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game#Definitions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_(physical_culture)#:~:text=Athletics%20is%20a
%20term%20encompassing,prepare%20athletes%20for%20competition
%20performance.
Activity: 1.1
1. Write a sentence about your experience during childhood playing different kind
of games.
2. In your own words, what is sports?