The Gamer Dialect and Some Minor Updates

July 3rd, 2009

A few days ago my latest column ‘Mapping The Gamer Dialect’ went up on GameSetWatch, I can’t imagine that it was terribly popular as I rambled on about the language of the video gaming populace. I’m rather chuffed with it though – nice relevant opener, comprehensive enough to form a basic skeleton of gamer talk and mostly well substantiated. So please take a read.

In the past week or so I’ve finished reading both of the GameSpite books (Year One, Volume One and GS Quarterly Spring 2009) which I thoroughly enjoyed – the best games writing you’ll find anywhere. I’m looking forward to rounding out some rather comprehensive thoughts on the massive Zelda Twilight Princess and possibly squeeze in something out on Super Stardust HD which was out this week on the Playstation Store for $3.50. Good news too, I’ve mostly finished the purchasing side of my gaming backlog, minus a handful of imports and rarities. That’s all the minor updates for now.

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Portals, Goffman, Language and Performance

June 3rd, 2009

My latest Lingua Franca column is now up on GameSetWatch and probably Gamasutra too, if habits prevail. I rarely talk myself up, but I’m very proud of this piece. It’s been stewing away since last November and finally I’ve had the opportunity to apply myself with it. This time around I discuss Portal and the way the tale represents the management of social performance through language. It’s a critique, and worthy of that illusionary word as my methodology combines the sociology studies of Erving Goffman with concepts from the linguistics discipline as well as game narrative. It’s pretty heavy stuff and spans out to a massive 5600 words. The larger chunk of that preposterous amount of text is pure analysis.

I prepped up pretty good for this article. I’ve been studying Goffman’s work for a while now, but I decided to read The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life just in case. I’ll be onto his other works later on sometime. I also went through some old lecture slides from Uni and dug out a few quotes by people like Bourdieu and Foucault that are relevant to the article. I hope to eventually read more of what they have to say too. Here are two of my favourite quotes, worth reading before you approach the essay:

“Language is a guide to “social reality”… it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an additional means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the matter is that the “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The worlds in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached to…. We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.” (Sapir 1962).

“Institutions are powerful to the extent that people have come to interpret them as ‘the way things are (and should be) done’. There are likely to be sanctions for people who deviate from or are unable to interpret what is normal” (Bourdieu 1991)

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The Cultural Implications of Dialects in Video Games

May 20th, 2009

The next entry in my GameSetWatch column was posted a few days ago, you can find the link here;

Column: ‘Lingua Franca’ – Implications Of Dialect In Dragon Quest IV

This time around I look at the use of dialects in video games and discuss the cultural implications that dialects can have on play, as well as suggesting ways to weave this to an advantage. Initially I wasted many words finding my voice for the article, but eventually what I wanted to say came out. I’m weary of a few of the comments I made in the article, one or two which may in fact be generalizations, still the weight of the article is strong. It’s been interesting to observe the feedback from people who have a different interpretation of English dialects to my Australian flavoured opinion.

I’m really starting to find some weight behind this column, as I’m practically plundering the depths of unexplored terrain. It’s similar to a project I’m currently working on now regarding Chinese-Chinese and Chinese-foreigner communication – both fields represent a lack of proper study.

Lastly, I’ve completed the extended introduction of my next column which is a critique of Portal in regards to Erving Goffman’s work on social interaction and institutions. This is a topic that I’ve had on the tip of my pen for almost a year now, I suspect that this will probably be one of my best pieces of writing, it’s shaping up that way already.

You may hear more opinions on Dragon Quest IV in another guest article shortly.

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