Title: Didn’t You Say That: Digital Discourse, Digital Natives and Gameplay
Author: John Grantham
Year: 2010
Additional: Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 3 (1)
Available at: https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/813/873
Abstract:
Discourse analysis has the potential of providing insight into gameplay dynamics and
team success. However, because of factors such as interrupted sequences, gameplay
discourse does not easily lend itself to discourse analysis. Therefore, in addition to
traditional methods, new and modified discourse analysis methods were applied to a
corpus of 858 discrete gameplay discourse events disclosing discourse characteristics
during collaborative problem solving. Four teams of four digital natives each played
PanelPuzzle, a limited-time span, goal-oriented game, in a virtual environment.
Discourse both reflected and impacted team dynamics. It manifested leadership. To
promote team success, gameplay digital discourse tone was serious, showing little
evidence of fun although players reported enjoying gameplay. Brevity, ill-formedness and
distorted syntax were chief characteristics, but, because it was goal-oriented, it differed
markedly from reported social digital discourse. Digital natives used digital discourse
effectively to communicate, build community, collaborate and accomplish gameplay
tasks. We conclude that gameplay digital discourse constitutes a distinct linguistic
register which prioritizes efficiency over well-formedness. We characterize this register
in a taxonomy and a meta-taxonomy.
Contents:
Introduction
Hypotheses
Independent Variables
Players
Playing PanelPuzzle
Experimental Environment
Analysis Method
Results
Roles/Leadership
Length and Flow
Collaboration and Cheering
Information Sharing
Strategy
Fun, Emotions and Emphasis
Non-Standard Vocabulary
Well-formedness
Discussion
Conclusions