I was interviewed today by Språktidningen, a Swedish monthly magazine about language issues. The article for which I was contacted will be printed in the January edition and deals with the specialized language in gaming culture, and the difficulties for game reviewers and cultural journalists to make games accessible to a wide audience of people of various generations.
This dilemma is further emphasized in a non-English speaking setting, where gaming discourse not only includes a lot of specialized terminology but also a lot of loan words. I think that gaming language must be seen in the context of sub or youth cultural language. This means that specialized jargon has been developed for reasons other than purely technological. Furthermore, many online cultures related to gaming are quite hierarchal and langue plays a big part in maintaining distinctions in these cases. As gaming is moved into the mainstream, these linguistic patterns live on. My contribution to the article, from the perspective of cultural sociology, revolved around the following points:
Dick Hebdige illustrated in Subculture: The meaning of style (1979) that membership in subcultures is signalled through specific uses of mannerisms and argot. Argot is a French, Spanish and Catalan word for “slang” or “secret language”. Argot is used by various groups “to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations”. “The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job, sport, etc”.1
“Notions concerning the sanctity of language are intimately bound up with social order. The limits of acceptable linguistic expression are prescribed by a number of apparently universal taboos. These taboos guarantee the continuing ‘transparency’ (the taken-for-grantedness) of meaning. Predictably then, violations of the authorized codes through which the social world is organized and experienced have considerable power to provoke and disturb” (Hebdige 1979, p. 91).
Cultures such as those characterizing gaming, online piracy, IRC chats, hacking, etc. are often hierachal. The status divisions between n00bs and more established members in online culture in general are one example of this. Bowker and Liu (2001) have written about this in terms of gender differences, and Blashki & Nichol (2005) have illustrated how so called 1337 5p34k (leetspeak) has its roots in gaming culture.
Pierre Bourdieu writes in the seminal article on “The economy of linguistic exchanges” (1977) of “legitimate language”, and of how language is connected to “relations of symbolic power”.
“A person speaks not only to be understood but also to be believed, obeyed, respected, distinguished.” (p. 648)
“Linguistic competence (like any other cultural competence) functions as linguistic capital in relationship with a certain market.” (p. 651)
This is an interesting entry Simon. I was wondering if the perceived difficulties associated with gaming argot can not be also related to the commodity culture of games. Rather than gaming argot being a problem in terms of “the sanctity of language”, it represents a barrier to the total commodification of the medium on a mass scale. Because gaming is a market driven culture, while it does have a sizable hacker element in it, the economy of linguistic exchange is intangibly linked to the economy of the computer game market.
As an aside, Leet is surely an encryption and not a language in itself.
I look forward to the January edition of Språktidningen!
Thanks Jim, for your comment to this entry. I had not thought of the commodity culture aspect, but I really do agree with your idea that gaming argot could function as resistance to total commercialization. Also agree that Leet is an encryption, but it is still often an encryption of terms or expressions that are not immediately accesible to anyone who knows English.
This is really interesting and I’m looking forward to reading the article. How do I get hold of it?
One thing that seems apparent from a lot of in-game chat is that it’s often got many of the same qualities as informal spoken discourse – interactive, often phatic, designed to help cement bonds between gamers – but this depends on the channels being used. Online RPGs like LOTRO and WoW can veer from playful, harmless banter to willy (or wand)waving sub-macho pointscoring in a matter of seconds on public channels, but the kind of discourse on guild or kin channels is often much more supportive.
Anyway, looking forward to reading what you’ve said.
The points you are making on, what I would call, homosociality in in-game chats are very interesting. Language and its uses are, of course, powerful instruments for creating in- and outgroups and for building community. I can also imagine that much of these things are gendered in the gaming context. The article will come out in a Swedish magazine about language. It is here, but unless you read Swedish that is not much help. I also checked out, and subscribed to your blog. Seems interesting!
Thanks, Simon. The blog’s aimed at A level English Language students so it’s probably got more of a linguistics focus than anything else.
We’ve covered language change and the internet/gaming stuff here: http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/2009/02/n00bs-get-pwned.html and here: http://englishlangsfx.blogspot.com/2008/08/serious-pwnage.html
And I can’t read Swedish – I can barely cope with English some days, to be honest – so that counts me out!
http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/words-in-the-news-4-december-2009/