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UCLA
Anthropology Discourse Lab |
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Lisa Newon (UCLA Anthropology) October 15, 2008, 4 PM. Haines Hall 332
"So Basically What We Need to Do": A Linguistic Ethnography of Expert/Novice Player Interactions in an MMORPG Community of Practice |
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Abstract: This paper is an ethnographic case study examining how the internet provides access to new, networked communities of practice. On the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), The World of Warcraft, "guilds" are membership troops constructed through joint enterprise, mutual engagement, shared repertoire, and community resources. While these groups are maintained through a hierarchical system of expert and novice players, membership requires guildmates to work together in order to achieve common goals, that have both community and individual payoffs.
Through participant observation, I investigate how language and practice shape the group virtually, in the absence of face-to-face interaction. My methods include transcription analysis of recorded voice conversations, which are synced to real-time video capture of the game. Looking at turn structure, turn-taking, deontic modality, hedging, discourse markers, and pronoun choice, I aim to show how community game goals are organized and achieved through the negotiation of authority in expert/novice player interactions. |