{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.06947162426614481, 'fraction_numerical': 0.024951076320939333, 'mean_word_length': 4.793201133144476, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 2, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
A Note on Athletes' Use of Self-Talk

Recent studies focussing on self-talk (e.g., Hardy, Gammage, & Hall, 2001; Hardy, Hall, & Hardy, 2002; Theodorakis, Weinberg, Natsis, Douma, & Kazakas, 2000; Van Raalte, Brewer, Rivera, & Petitpas, 1994; Van Raalte, Cornelius, Brewer, & Hatten, 2000) have increased our understanding of this much promoted mental skill. As a result, self-talk can be thought of as a multidimensional phenomenon focusing on athletes’ self-verbalizations, which can serve both instructional and motivational functions (Hardy et al., 2004). Recent research suggests that there are at least four aspects to the content of self-talk (i.e., what is said); it’s valance, overtness, person, and structure (Hardy et al., 2001). Although Hardy et al. (2004, Studies 1 & 2) reported that the majority of athletes’ self-talk is positive (e.g., “you can do this”), said covertly (or internally), and is abbreviated (e.g., “head” instead of “remember to keep your head down”) in structure, sex and sport type differences for the content of self-talk have been found (Hardy et al., 2004, Study 1). Specifically, male athletes were found to use more negative, overt (external) and less covert (internal) self-talk compared to female athletes. Moreover, team sport athletes were found to differ from individual sport athletes in almost identical manner. Post hoc analyses revealed that the significant effect of sex was confounded with the effect of sport type. An additional aspect of self-talk that has recently received attention from researchers (e.g., Gammage, Hardy, & Hall, 2001; Hardy et al., 2001; Theodorakis et al., 2000) is the functions that self-talk can serve (i.e., the reasons why athletes use self-talk). It has been found that selftalk seems to serve two main functions for athletes (and exercisers), a cognitive (instructional) function and a motivational function. Both main functions can be further sub-divided into more focussed functions. Specifically, the cognitive function can be split into cognitive specific and