DOCSLIB.ORG

Grammars of Gaming

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Grammars of Gaming Lea Kropfitsch Grammars of Gaming A Linguistic Inquiry into the Language and Communicative Practice of Online Multiplayer Video Games DIPLOMA THESIS submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magistra der Philosophie Programme: Teacher Training Programme Subject: English Subject: History, Social Studies and Political Education Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Evaluator Mag. Dr. Nikola Dobric, M.A. Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Klagenfurt, April 2018 Affidavit I hereby declare in lieu of an oath that - the submitted academic thesis is entirely my own work and that no auxiliary materials have been used other than those indicated, - I have fully disclosed all assistance received from third parties during the process of writing the thesis, including any significant advice from supervisors, - any contents taken from the works of third parties or my own works that have been included either literally or in spirit have been appropriately marked and the respective source of the information has been clearly identified with precise bibliographical references (e.g. in footnotes), - to date, I have not submitted this thesis to an examining authority either in Austria or abroad and that - when passing on copies of the academic thesis (e.g. in bound, printed or digital form), I will ensure that each copy is fully consistent with the submitted digital version. I understand that the digital version of the academic thesis submitted will be used for the purpose of conducting a plagiarism assessment. I am aware that a declaration contrary to the facts will have legal consequences. Kropfitsch Lea, e.h. Klagenfurt, 09.04.2018 *For reasons linked to data protection it is not necessary to sign the affidavit. Instead, the electronic version should include the abbreviation “e.h.” after the name © Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Studien- und Prüfungsabteilung Version 2018-01-09 i TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................... 1 2. FROM THE VERNACULAR TO THE SPECTACULAR: A theoretical introduction to language varieties and new media .................................................. 6 2.1 Language varieties ....................................................................................................... 6 2.1.1 The pluralization of English and the Internet ....................................................... 9 2.2 Computer-mediated communication ......................................................................... 10 2.2.1 Characteristic features of CMC .......................................................................... 15 2.3 Gaming jargon ........................................................................................................... 18 3 WORLD OF WORDCRAFT: Word-formation processes in gaming jargon 26 3.1 Compounds ................................................................................................................ 29 3.2 Affixation ................................................................................................................... 31 3.2.1 Prefixes .................................................................................................................... 32 3.2.2 Suffixes .................................................................................................................... 33 3.3 Conversion ................................................................................................................. 36 3.4 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. 38 3.4.1 Clippings ............................................................................................................ 39 3.4.2 Acronyms and initialisms ................................................................................... 40 3.4.3 Blends ................................................................................................................. 42 3.5 Loans and neologisms ............................................................................................... 43 4 METAMORPHOSIS OF MEANINGS: Semantic shifting and metaphoric expression in gaming discourse .................................................................................... 49 4.1 Semantic shifts ........................................................................................................... 50 4.2 Linguistic metaphors in gaming communication ...................................................... 52 5 CORPUS LUDORUM: Keywords and linguistic co-text across video game genres ..................................................................................................................................... 56 5.1 Case study 1: Keywords and collocations in MMORPGs ......................................... 58 5.2 Case study 2: Keywords and collocations in MOBAs .............................................. 62 ii 5.3 Case study 3: Keywords and collocations in FPS ..................................................... 65 5.4 Commonalities and particularities across genres ....................................................... 67 5.5 Game developers’ language in patch notes ............................................................... 69 5.6 “Player” vs “Gamer”: Self-referencing and group identity in games ........................ 71 6 CONTEXTUALIZING COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE: Pragmatic and grammatical features of in-game discourse ............................................................. 74 6.1 The pragmatic grammar of gaming ........................................................................... 76 6.2 Deixis and contextual information ............................................................................ 78 6.3 Conceptions of appropriateness ................................................................................. 78 6.3.1 Flaming ............................................................................................................... 80 7 APPLICATION OF ANGLICISMS: English gaming terminology in non- Anglophone spheres .......................................................................................................... 83 8 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 88 APPENDIX: Gaming Glossary from A to Zerg ......................................................... 93 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................. 109 iii 1. INTRODUCTION Video games as the most intricate media existing in contemporary consumer culture represent a means to entertainment innumerable people have grown accustomed to in the past decades. With a continuously growing network of individuals connected through the Internet and technological devices of mass-communication, the community of people engaging in online multiplayer games in their recreational times is prospering. Provoked by the commercialization of video games and an ever-growing, essentially heterogeneous group of aficionados, players have made progressions in establishing a shared linguistic code expressing newly encountered activities and events in the virtual worlds. When Wittgenstein (1921) declared that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (TLP 5.6), a world which he interpreted as the totality of concrete atomic facts, he could not have anticipated that a century after the publication of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the limits of the world would be expanded to encompass worlds existing parallel to the factual, directed by unconventional truth conditions. These worlds are governed by principles that override our general understanding of the laws of nature, enabling traverse of time and space, from exploring the deep sea to orbiting distant planets. The realistically impossible is experienced in digital spheres where giant apes launch barrels at intruders, geometrical building blocks descend from the skies, and mounting mythical creatures or futuristic vehicles is no less ordinary than using hi-tech weapons or performing magic. The technologically generated realms are inhabited by real-life agents who navigate their physically enhanced digitalized self through spheres created in approximation to the actual world or science-fictional universes. Players of video games interact with the computer-mediated ecosphere by permanently interpreting and reacting to audiovisual inputs, translating their commands to in-game actions, and finally, communicating experiences and events to fellow explorers. Simultaneously, previously not yet encountered happenings and actions need to be lexicalized as foundations enabling mutual understanding and effective interpersonal communication of information. As the digital landscapes exceed the limits of reality, participants are compelled to extend their linguistic repertoire in response to novel and ever-expanding possibilities encountered in video games. 1 Players collectively experience in-game phenomena, display great creativity in coining novel words to refer to game-inherent meanings, and adapt their communicative strategies to the designated settings of distinct video games. This thesis aims to analyze the language variety emerging with the activity of playing video games as a contextually motivated innovation in linguistic production and reception. The variation elicited by
Load more

Recommended publications
  • University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting
    THE EFFECTS OF SELF CONTROL AND SOCIAL LEARNING VARIABLES ON DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN A VIRTUAL WORLD By AMANDA M. ADAMS A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2014 © 2014 Amanda M. Adams To my Mom and Dad, who knew I could do it even when I doubted ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my Chair, Dr. Richard Hollinger, for his wonderful guidance throughout this project. His time, energy and support were a tremendous help. I thank Dr. Lonn Lanza-Kaduce for his time spent proofing my paper and discussing analysis techniques and directions. I would like to thank Dr. Ken Wald for his assistance with creating my survey. I thank Dr. Kendal Broad for her help with proofing and clarifying concepts. I thank my parents for their support and understanding while I worked toward my goal and for never letting me forget why I was here. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. 4 LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS ....................................................................... 9 ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Asheron's Call
    Asheron’s Call: Redefining The Role Of Player Killing Vasiliy Zhulin STS 145: History of Computer Game Design Professor Henry Lowood March 18, 2003 In the past few years, a new genre of gaming matured for the mass market – the genre of Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Games (MMOGs). Games like Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron’s Call, and the others that followed blurred the line between gaming and reality. No longer could the player save his progress at any stage, shut down the game, and return to it later to find it in the same state. The virtual worlds of these MMOGs were persistent – life moved on even if some players were offline. Virtual societies developed, complete with their own politics and history. The designers simply provided some basic rules and framework, and the players themselves did the rest by “living” their virtual lives. One of the pieces of framework provided in MMOGs is the ability to fight other human characters, as opposed to just non-player monsters. Player vs. Player combat (hereafter referred to as PvP combat), or more commonly known as player killing, allows players to battle the toughest opponents in any game – humans themselves. Unfortunately, in the first two MMOGs, Ultima Online and Everquest, the idea of PvP combat was not balanced to satisfy the majority of the players. In Ultima Online, player killers (hereafter referred to as PKs) actually ravaged peaceful players and, after killing them, looted the players’ items from their corpses. Many customers were furious! As Al Giovetti describes, “Ultima was never about player killing, it was about good role playing.
    [Show full text]
  • Licensing & Law Who Owns an Avatar?
    Santa Clara Law Santa Clara Law Digital Commons Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 2018 Licensing & Law Who Owns an Avatar? Tyler T. Ochoa Santa Clara University School of Law, [email protected] Jaime Banks West Virginia University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/facpubs Part of the Computer Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Automated Citation Tyler T. Ochoa and Jaime Banks, Licensing & Law Who Owns an Avatar? (2018), Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/facpubs/960 This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. CHAPTER THIRTY Licensing & Law Who Owns an Avatar? TYLER T. OCHOA & JAIME BANKS Leeroy Jenkins is a videogame character of wide internet and gamer culture fame. He first came to popular attention in 2005, in an iconic game scenario in which— while his cohort was diligently planning a complex dungeon battle—he suddenly sprang to life, let out the gravelly battle cry Ah’Leeerooooooy Ah’Jeeennnkiiinnns!, and led his compatriots into a slaughter by dragon whelps. He subsequently noted: “At least I have chicken” (DBlow2003, 2005/2014). The ridiculousness of this event led first to the viral appropriation of the character—crafted into memes about everything from riots and warfare to politics and cinema—and this broader recep- tion led to an increased presence in other videogames and game-related products, from the digital card deck-building game Hearthstone (2014) to third-party t-shirts and allusions in films likeWreck-It Ralph (Spencer & Moore, 2012).
    [Show full text]
  • What Are the Limits of Polysynthesis?
    International Symposium on Polysynthesis in the World's Languages February 20-21, 2014 NINJAL, Tokyo What are the limits of Polysynthesis? Michael Fortescue, Marianne Mithun, and Nicholas Evans Of the various labels for morphological types currently in use by typologists ‘polysynthesis’ has proved to be the most difficult to pin down. For some it just represents an extreme on the dimension of synthesis (one of Sapir’s two major typological axes) while for others it is an independent category or parameter with far- reaching morphosyntactic ramifications. A recent characterization (Evans & Sasse 2002: 3f.) is the following: ‘Essentially, then, a prototypical polysynthetic language is one in which it is possible, in a single word, to use processes of morphological composition to encode information about both the predicate and all its arguments, for all major clause types [....] to a level of specificity, allowing this word to serve alone as a free-standing utterance without reliance on context.’ If the nub of polysynthesis is the packing of a lot of material into single verb forms that would be expressed as independent words in less synthetic languages, what exactly is the nature of and limitations on this ‘material’? The present paper investigates the limits – both upwards and downwards – of what the term is generally understood to cover. Reference Evans, N. & H.-J. Sasse (eds.). (2002). Problems of Polysynthesis. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. 1 2014-01-08 International Symposium on Polysynthesis in the World's Languages February 20-21, 2014 NINJAL, Tokyo Polysynthesis in Ainu Anna Bugaeva (National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics) Ainu is a typical polysynthetic language in the sense that a single complex verb can express what takes a whole sentence in most other languages.
    [Show full text]
  • Periphrasis in Ontogeny and Phylogeny
    Periphrasis in Ontogeny and Phylogeny Michael Tsai May 17, 2001 1 Introduction Periphrasis may be defined as “the use of longer, multi-word expressions in place of single words”1 [Haspelmath 2000, p. 654]. The term applies in many linguistic domains, from verb conjugation (with temporal auxiliaries) to comparative forms (with more) to interrogatives (with do). A periphrastic expression is composed of free morphemes, while a monolectic expression consists of a single word that may be composed of several morphemes bound together, e.g. through inflection. This distinction applies not just to expressions, but also to whole languages: so-called analytic (isolating) languages contain mostly monomorphemic words and rely heavily on syntax to express meaning, synthetic (inflectional) languages rely more on morphology, and polysynthetic languages can express whole sentences as a single string of bound morphemes [O’Grady 1997]. However, these terms are rough classifications, and many languages contain both analytic and synthetic elements, sometimes even in the same paradigm. The balance between the two differs with the area of grammar under consideration, but it may also differ within the same area of grammar over time. In this paper we will examine the tension between periphrastic and bound forms with respect to two aspects of grammar: tenses and interrogatives. We will examine these from the perspectives of language creation and language change, drawing on evidence from creoles2 and historical linguistics. Results from language acquisition will link these two disciplines and suggest motivations for the diachronic changes and the patterns that emerge. 1Strictly speaking, the boundary between periphrasis and discourse is ill-defined, for it depends upon what languages exist and what linguists know about them.
    [Show full text]
  • Livret Des Résumés Booklet of Abstracts
    34èmes Journées de Linguistique d’Asie Orientale JLAO34 34th Paris Meeting on East Asian Linguistics 7–9 juillet 2021 / July, 7th–9th 2021 Colloque en ligne / Online Conference LIVRET DES RÉSUMÉS BOOKLET OF ABSTRACTS Comité d’organisation/Organizing committee Raoul BLIN, Ludovica LENA, Xin LI, Lin XIAO [email protected] *** Table des matières / Table of contents *** Van Hiep NGUYEN (Keynote speaker): On the study of grammar in Vietnam Julien ANTUNES: Description et analyse de l’accent des composés de type NOM-GENITIF-NOM en japonais moderne Giorgio Francesco ARCODIA: On ‘structural particles’ in Sinitic languages: typology and diachrony Huba BARTOS: Mandarin Chinese post-nuclear glides under -er suffixation Bianca BASCIANO: Degree achievements in Mandarin Chinese: A comparison between 加 jiā+ADJ and 弄 nòng+ADJ verbs Etienne BAUDEL: Chinese and Sino-Japanese lexical items in the Hachijō language of Japan Françoise BOTTERO: Xu Shen’s graphic analysis revisited Tsan Tsai CHAN: Cartographic fieldwork on sentence-final particles – Three challenges and some ways around them Hanzhu CHEN & Meng CHENG: Corrélation entre l’absence d’article et la divergence lexicale Shunting CHEN, Yiming LIANG & Pascal AMSILI: Chinese Inter-clausal Anaphora in Conditionals: A Linear Regression Study Zhuo CHEN: Differentiating two types of Mandarin unconditionals: Their internal and external syntax Katia CHIRKOVA: Aspect, Evidentiality, and Modality in Shuhi Anastasia DURYMANOVA: Nouns and verbs’ syntactic shift: some evidences against Old Chinese parts-of- speech
    [Show full text]
  • Die Sprache Der World of Warcraft-Spielerinnen
    Die Sprache der World of Warcraft -SpielerInnen Eine Untersuchung der multimodalen Kommunikation im Umfeld von Raid-Gruppen, mit Fokus auf Wortschatz, Gesprächsorganisation und Textformen Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie in der Fakultät für Philologie der RUHR-UNIVERSITÄT BOCHUM vorgelegt von Markus Schäfer Gedruckt mit der Genehmigung der Fakultät für Philologie der Ruhr-Universität Bochum Referent: Prof. Pittner Koreferent: Prof. Wegera Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 01.12.2014 Ohne Unterstützung hätte diese Dissertation nicht vollendet werden können. Ich danke daher: Meiner Doktormutter Prof. Pittner für die langjährige Betreuung und Hilfestellung. Meinem Zweitgutachter Prof. Wegera für die faire und anregende Disputation. Der Gilde Vault of Sages für die enthusiastische Bereitschaft, sich unter die Lupe nehmen zu lassen. Meiner Familie und Freunden für seelischen Beistand und Betreuung meiner geistigen Gesundheit. Inhalt 1. EINLEITUNG ........................................................................................................................................ 1 2. HAUPTTEIL .......................................................................................................................................... 4 2.1. WAS IST EIN MMOG? .......................................................................................................................... 5 2.1.1. Questen, Leveln, Loot: Das Spielprinzip von MMOGs ................................................................. 8
    [Show full text]
  • 381 Karlsen 17X24.Pdf (9.567Mb)
    Emergent Perspectives on Multiplayer Online Games: A Study of Discworld and World of Warcraft Faltin Karlsen Doctoral thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, June 2008. © Faltin Karlsen, 2009 Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Humanities,University of Oslo No. 381 ISSN 0806-3222 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. Cover: Inger Sandved Anfinsen. Printed in Norway: AiT e-dit AS, Oslo, 2009. Produced in co-operation with Unipub AS. The thesis is produced by Unipub AS merely in connection with the thesis defence. Kindly direct all inquiries regarding the thesis to the copyright holder or the unit which grants the doctorate. Unipub AS is owned by The University Foundation for Student Life (SiO) Acknowledgements Thanks to my supervisor Gunnar Liestøl for constructive and enthusiastic support of my work, from our first discussions about computer games long before this project was initiated, to the final reassuring comments by phone from someplace between Las Vegas and Death Valley. Thanks to my second supervisor Jonas Linderoth for generously accepting my request and for thorough, precise and not least expeditious comments on various drafts during the last phase of my work. I would also like to thank Espen Ytreberg, Ragnhild Tronstad and Terje Rasmussen for reading and commenting on different parts of my thesis. A special thanks to Astrid Lied for introducing me to Discworld back in 1998, and for commenting on and proofreading parts of this thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Computer Gaming and Technical Communication: an Ecological Framework Author(S): DOUGLAS EYMAN Source: Technical Communication, Vol
    Society for Technical Communication Computer Gaming and Technical Communication: An Ecological Framework Author(s): DOUGLAS EYMAN Source: Technical Communication, Vol. 55, No. 3 (AUGUST 2008), pp. 242-250 Published by: Society for Technical Communication Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43095345 Accessed: 19-08-2018 18:38 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43095345?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Society for Technical Communication is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Technical Communication This content downloaded from 198.246.186.26 on Sun, 19 Aug 2018 18:38:31 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms SUMMARY ♦ Provides an overview of gaming definitions and genres ♦ Argues that games provide a rich area for research and theory building in technical communication ♦ Details a five-part framework for mapping game activity to technical communication interests Computer Gaming and Technical Communication: An Ecological Framework DOUGLAS EYMAN viously published in the journal, as well as other brief items of interest to the profession.
    [Show full text]
  • Warcraft Adventures: Texts, Replay, and Machinima in a Game-Based
    il Exploring cmft III, both for the creator and the viewer.As replay WaruaftAdventures: documentsplayed games, the stories associatedwith d-rem have to do witl cyberathleticperformance in a competitive Texts,Replay, and arera Spectatorswho watch replaysare usuallyintimately farnilia! with the spacesand player actions depictedin Machinimain a them. In order to understandthe popuJarityof digital game spacesas "sets"for animatedmovies that theiy creatorsuse Game-Based to tell Ectionalstories rather tlnn documentplayed games, we must start by trying to understandwhat player- Storywortd spectatorssee-ir both sensesof the term-in replays. One way to tell the story of tJ.reWaroa{t III fnals HenryLowood match revolvesaround a pivotal moment a sfunning rever- sd that led to Grubbys upset win. What did spectators In October 2004 the fourth World CyberGames were held see?After losing the 6rst match in the best-of-threefirrals in San Francisco.Contestants competed in this intema- competition,they observedrouglrly six minutes into t}te tiona.ltoumament, the "videogame Olynpics," for champi secondmatch that units controlledby the two playerswere onship tides in eachof sevencompetitive games. The prize skirmishing near Grubby'smain base.WelcomeTo was per- money w;rs substantial $20,000for fust placeto eachof haps tlreatening to end the match,but after the batde the individua-lwinners in gamessuch as the popular real- intensified,his army fell back. His critica.llyimportant main time stlategy tide WarcraftIII. More tlun seventyplayers hero character(a
    [Show full text]
  • How Disney's Abc Avoided Reporting Electronic Arts Star Wars Game Micro
    University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor Major Papers Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers 2018 HOW DISNEY’S ABC AVOIDED REPORTING ELECTRONIC ARTS STAR WARS GAME MICRO-TRANSACTIONS Rohan Khanna University of Windsor, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/major-papers Part of the Communication Commons, and the Models and Methods Commons Recommended Citation Khanna, Rohan, "HOW DISNEY’S ABC AVOIDED REPORTING ELECTRONIC ARTS STAR WARS GAME MICRO- TRANSACTIONS" (2018). Major Papers. 41. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/major-papers/41 This Major Research Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Major Papers at Scholarship at UWindsor. It has been accepted for inclusion in Major Papers by an authorized administrator of Scholarship at UWindsor. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HOW DISNEY’S ABC AVOIDED REPORTING ELECTRONIC ARTS STAR WARS GAME MICRO-TRANSACTIONS by Rohan Khanna A Major Research Paper Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies through Communication and Social Justice in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Windsor Windsor, Ontario, Canada 2018 © 2018 Rohan Khanna HOW DISNEY’S ABC AVOIDED REPORTING ELECTRONIC ARTS STAR WARS GAME MICRO-TRANSACTIONS by Rohan Khanna APPROVED BY: ———————————————— V. Manzerolle Communication, Media, and Film ———————————————— J. P. Winter, Advisor Communication, Media, and Film May 10, 2018 iii AUTHOR’S DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify that I am the sole author of this MRP and that no part of this Major paper has been published or submitted for publication.
    [Show full text]
  • Examining Place-Making in Virtual Environments
    LIFE IN AZEROTH: EXAMINING PLACE-MAKING IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS A Thesis by JOSHUA MONTANA PIERCY Submitted to the Graduate School at Appalachian State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF GEOGRAPHY May 2019 Department of Geography LIFE IN AZEROTH: EXAMINING PLACE-MAKING IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS A Thesis by JOSHUA MONTANA PIERCY May 2019 APPROVED BY: Dr. Robert Brown Chairperson, Thesis Committee Dr. Kathleen Schroeder Member, Thesis Committee Dr. Margaret Sugg Member, Thesis Committee Dr. Kathleen Schroeder Chairperson, Department of Geography Mike McKenzie, Ph.D. Dean, Cratis D. Williams School of Graduate Studies Copyright by Joshua Montana Piercy 2019 All Rights Reserved Piercy iv Abstract LIFE IN AZEROTH: EXAMINING PLACE-MAKING IN VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS Joshua Montana Piercy B.A., Appalachian State University M.A., Appalachian State University Chairperson: Dr. Robert Brown The goal of this research is to develop a model of virtual place-making through which to better comprehend how place functions outside of the physical world. Most of the place- making research within geography has centered around our physical world, ignoring the incredible variety found in virtual environments. Using ethnographic methods and surveys, players of the massively popular online video game, “World of Warcraft”, are studied and worked with to develop this model. Ultimately, the most important components of virtual place are determined. Virtual place-making occurs similarly to that of the physical world, building upon networks of communication between living creatures, their environments, social traditions, and numerous other personal experiences. Piercy v Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr.
    [Show full text]