Massively Multiplayer Online Gamers’ Language: Argument for an M-Gamer Corpus

Authors

Papia Bawa, Purdue UniversityFollow

Abstract

The past few decades have seen a steady, and sometimes rapid rise in the production and consumption of Massively Multiple Online Games (MMOGs), spanning a global arena. Players from a wide variety of demographical, economic, geographical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds congregate under the banner of MMOGs and spend a considerable amount of time interacting and communicating with one another, in the context of playing and socializing through such playing. It is only logical then, to see such players become part of larger and extended socio-communal landscapes, wherein they may appropriate multiple roles in conjunction with their MMOG player roles, such as teachers, learners, family members and workplace cohorts. It is also equally logical for a curious mind to speculate the effects of the communication and language characteristics of such gamers on themselves, and the greater communities they may inhabit, investigate the realms of such possibilities, and appropriate knowledge garnered from such investigations to share. That is precisely what this study and paper is about. In this paper, I report the findings of an investigation of the communication and language characteristics of MMOG players, using 23 participants for interviews and journal writing, as well as multiple online documents. The findings suggest that MMOG players share some unique communication and language patterns, based on which they can be justifiably categorized as a sub culture with their own corpus. Additionally, researcher and practitioner implications are also discussed.

Keywords

MMOG, Video Games, Language, Linguistics, Multidisciplinary, Gamers, Communication

Author Bio(s)

Dr. Papia Bawa has a PhD in Learning Design and Technology from Purdue University’s College of Education. She is also a Professor of Instructional Design in the college’s Masters in LDT Program. As a faculty and professional Instructional designer, she has 17 years of experience in academia. Her research focuses on learner-centered environments, cultural inclusivity issues in online and offline courses, and technology centered curriculum, including game-based learning. She has extensive experience in writing and publishing scholarly articles, poetry and creative non-fiction. She serves as the Managing Editor of The Atrium, Ivy Tech Community College’s refereed journal, as well as a reviewer for several scholarly journals such as Journal of Economics and Finance Education (JEFE), Curriculum and Instruction, Simulation and Gaming, Journal for Research Initiatives, American Educational Research Association (AERA), Educational Researcher, and Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).

Publication Date

11-11-2018

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3119

Recommended APA Citation

Bawa, P. (2018). Massively Multiplayer Online Gamers’ Language: Argument for an M-Gamer Corpus. The Qualitative Report, 23(11), 2714-2753. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2018.3119