Bilingual practices and the social organisation of video gaming activities

Journal of Pragmatics 42 (2010) 3012–3030

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Bilingual practices and the social organisation of video gaming activities Arja Piirainen-Marsh * Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, FIN 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 8 October 2009 Received in revised form 1 April 2010 Accepted 9 April 2010

Grounded in the interactional paradigm for the study of bilingual language use, this paper investigates how players engaged in a collaborative game-playing activity orient to the copresence of two languages in the setting and deploy bilingual resources in organising their action and participation. The analysis aims to demonstrate how a particular kind of ‘bilingual order’ (Cromdal, 2005) is co-constructed in which the players use their native language (Finnish) for interaction with each other, but systematically draw on the language of the game in constructing their turns as recognisable and building their alignments with respect to activities under way. The analysis highlights how a bilingual gaming activity is organised through the participants’ emergent orientations to interactional objects, which include English text and talk, in their own actions. The interaction unfolds through a bilingual medium as the players attend to locally available language resources in co-constructing the sense of particular scenes and events. Codeswitching emerges as a key resource for organising the players’ participation, managing transitions from one type of activity to another, displaying heightened involvement with particular scenes or events, and co-constructing affect while evaluating and enjoying the game. ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Bilingual practices Gaming Language alternation Conversational code-switching Social activity

1. Introduction Recent research on bilingual language use has argued against the view of languages as distinct, bounded systems (e.g. Alvarez-Gáccamo, 1998; Heller, 2007; Auer, 1999, 2007a) and described how ‘‘speakers draw on linguistic resources which are organised in ways that make sense under specific social conditions’’ (Heller, 2007: 1). This approach highlights the permeability of boundaries between both linguistic varieties (‘codes’) and language practices, in particular those associated with bilingual language use (e.g. borrowing, code-mixing, code-switching) (Auer, 1999, 2007a). Recent studies in this area have highlighted the heterogeneity of resources used in meaning-making, on the one hand, and the emergent, interactionally managed choices through which participants achieve a (bilingual) interaction order and orient to contrast between two (or more) co-available languages in specific settings and social activities (e.g. Auer, 1984, 1998; Woolard, 2004; Gafaranga, 2000, 2005; Cromdal, 2003, 2004, 2005; Mondada, 2007). This paper is grounded in the interactional paradigm to bilingual language use and draws from recent research on technology-mediated action (e.g. Arminen, 2005), in particular computer and video gaming activities (e.g. Aarsand and Aronsson, 2009; Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio, 2009a,b) to investigate how players engaged in a collaborative game-playing activity orient to the co-presence of two languages in the setting and deploy bilingual resources in organising their participation and coordinating the actions through which they manage, make sense of, and experience a console-operated video game.

* Tel.: +358 14 2601215; fax: +358 14 2601212. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2010.04.020

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The study is carried out within the conceptual and methodological framework of conversation analysis, applied to interaction in a technologically mediated bilingual setting. This entails a focus on the social and sequential aspects of language choice and language alternation (see e.g. Auer, 1984, 1995, 1998; Li Wei, 2005a,b; Gafaranga, 2000; Cromdal, 2004, 2005) in order to reveal when and how the participants themselves orient to a contrast between linguistic resources treated as belonging to distinct varieties (‘codes’) as meaningful and consequential for the ongoing interaction. In line with previous research in this tradition, this study give priority to the ‘‘sequential implicativeness of language choice in conversation’’ (Auer, 1984: 5) and examines how bilingual resources are mobilised and treated as locally meaningful in the organisation of play activities, in which the distribution of the two co-available languages is structured by technology, more specifically the semiotic structure provided by a video game. While a growing number of CA-inspired analyses of bilingual social activities has demonstrated the diverse functions that code-switching serves in contextualising talk, organising activities and participation frameworks, there is a need for more detailed study of how bilingual talk is organised not only sequentially, but also through the use of multimodal resources in settings involving specific tasks, tools and technologies. This paper aims to contribute to earlier work in this area (Cromdal, 2005; Mondada, 2007) through examining how participants engaged in a video gaming activity deploy available bilingual resources in co-constructing social activity. The data come from interactions where 2–4 Finnish adolescents are engaged with playing a console-operated video game produced in English. The players’ actions are intertwined with the semiotic and material structure of the game, which unfolds in part through English text and talk (e.g. voice over narrative and dialogue). The players attend to the temporally unfolding visual and vocal resources in their talk, and draw on the locally available language resources in their responses to emerging events in the game. It is through such actions that the players co-construct their understanding of and stances towards particular scenes and events. The analysis aims to elucidate how the participants orient to relevant features of the environment, in particular linguistic and other semiotic resources at their disposal, in co-constructing social action. In what follows I will attempt to show, first, how participants attend to the language resources offered by the game as relevant to their own actions, and second, how code-switching emerges as a meaningful resource for organising talk and coconstructing affective stance. The analysis aims to demonstrate how a particular kind of ‘bilingual order’ (Cromdal, 2005) is co-constructed in which the players use their native language (Finnish) for interaction with each other, but systematically draw on the language of the game in constructing their turns as recognisable and building their alignments with respect to activities under way. Participants also recurrently draw on the contrast between the co-available languages for specific interactional ends. Through a detailed analysis of the organisation of bilingual resources in the specific conditions of the gaming activity, it is possible to trace how the linguistic shaping of social action is linked to the sequential and multimodal structuring of the event and the practices through which the participants co-construct the collaborative play activity. 2. Game-playing as social interaction Different discursive activities and their technologies create different types of affordances (van Lier, 2004; Arminen, 2005) for action and for learning. Recent research on the use of computer and video games (e.g. Birmingham et al., 2002; Aarsand and Aronsson, 2009), as well as studies of complex work-settings (e.g. Arminen, 2005; Hutchby, 2001; Goodwin, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2006; Heath and Luff, 2000) highlight the importance of artefacts such as the computer screen as a resource for the organisation of action and alignment in various tasks. Game-playing can be characterised as a complex, technologically mediated social activity where the game provides the material structure and resource with which the players interact through making choices available to them. The game is realised through multiple communicative modes (animation, visual design, music, text and sound), offering a complex, temporally unfolding set of semiotic resources which the players attend to while participating in play (Goodwin, 2000). Players interact with the rule-based system of the game through engaging with the game-world, as represented through the narrative and characters of the game (Burn and Schott, 2004). The processes of interaction and interpretation are shaped by the multimodalities of both the game itself and the activity of interacting with the game. Players’ interpretations of the unfolding visual, textual and other cues offered by the game shape the choices they make in managing the trajectory of the game by using the available technology (e.g. the computer or Playstation). The game is also a resource for talk between the co-present participants. In activities involving multiple players, players plan, organise and negotiate game-play through collaborative action. Further, scenes, events and game-play options engender commentary, responses and affect displays through which the players build intersubjectivity and co-construct their experiences of the game as it unfolds (Aarsand and Aronsson, 2009; Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio, 2009a,b). Game research in different disciplines has examined a wide variety of topics including their use in education (e.g. Squire, 2003; Gee, 2003; Arnseth, 2006), their effects on players’ cognition, attitudes and behaviour (Salokoski, 2005; Bialystok, 2006), their narrative and discursive properties (Wardrip-Fruin and Harrigan, 2006, 2007, 2009; Carr et al., 2006) and their social and cultural implications (Mäyrä, 2002; Flew and Humphreys, 2005). A small number of studies on online gaming have explored the distinctive communicative, cultural, and cognitive practices which are learnt though participating in the technologically mediated practices (see e.g. Steinkuehler, 2006; Thorne, 2008a,b). To date, however, only a few studies have examined everyday gaming activities as social interaction. Schott and Kambouri (2006) describe how players get socialized to the practices of gaming through collaborative play. Emerging studies of informal gaming interactions (e.g. Aarsand and Aronsson, 2009; Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio, 2009a,b) are beginning to show how players attend to the semiotic and linguistic resources of the game and draw on them in building their own actions, and how these practices are consequential

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for the joint accomplishment of the social activity. There is a need for more studies investigating the detailed ways in which players engage with different types of games. As games and gaming are emerging as one of the key sites through which young people engage in social interaction both locally and translocally, often through plurilingual interactions (Thorne, 2008a; Leppänen et al., 2009), the study of language practices embedded in the structuring of gaming activities can offer important insights into the way social action is organised in these settings. 3. The bilingual organisation of social activities Since the pioneering work by Gumperz (1982), a growing number of studies have investigated bilingual practices, in particular conversational code-switching, in a variety of everyday interactions ranging from dinner table conversations to classrooms, children’s play activities and work-settings. Most of the studies have examined informal interactions in families or peer groups (see e.g. Auer, 1998; Li Wei, 2005b), while studies of professional and work-settings, and other more complex activities, are in the minority (but see Mondada, 2007). Studies in this approach have demonstrated how language alternation is embedded in the structural organisation of interaction and how contrast between co-available languages is employed by the participants as a meaningful resource. Findings show, for example, that code-switching is deployed for specific interactional ends in side sequences, quotation sequences (Sebba and Wootton, 1998), repair sequences (Gafaranga, 2000), directive actions (Guldal, 1997; Cromdal, 2005) and oppositional sequences (Cromdal, 2004), among others. Code-switching has also been found to serve as a key resource for contextualising transitions from one type of activity or topic to another, indexing changes in participant roles and shifts of ‘footing’ (Auer, 1984; Cromdal and Aronsson, 2000; Lappalainen, 2004; Mondada, 2007), highlighting significant features of talk (Sebba and Wootton, 1998) and shifting between different levels of reality in narratives and play activities (Guldal, 1997; Lappalainen, 2004; Bolonyai, 2005). A key issue for sequentially oriented analysis of bilingual language use is the participants’ own orientation to the contrast between the co-available languages or varieties, or to the ‘‘other-languageness’’ of a specific linguistic item (Gafaranga, 2000; Cromdal, 2005). In a study of word repair, Gafaranga (2000) identifies two different types of repair through which word searches are resolved: ‘medium repair’ and ‘other language repair’. Both occur when a speaker, missing the mot juste, draws on another language to move the conversation forward. The difference between the two types lies in the participants’ orientations to the current communicative code. The analysis shows that while language alternation is an important resource for word repair, only some repairs (medium repairs) are treated by the participants as instances of another language and in this sense as deviating from the current medium (Gafaranga, 2000: 329, 336).1 Gafaranga argues that before any investigation of code-switching is carried out, it is necessary to identify the medium that the speakers themselves treat as the oriented to social norm. The analysis of different types of word repair shows that the medium does not necessarily consist of one language, but can also be bilingual. The participants themselves may signal their orientation to a contrasting code or variety explicitly (e.g. through naming) or implicitly, for instance through paralinguistic means (changing their voice quality or manner of articulation; Lappalainen, 2004). It is the analyst’s task to trace those switches and show how they are ‘‘demonstrably relevant’’ and consequential for the activity at hand (Cromdal, 2003, 2004, 2005; Mondada, 2007). In a study focusing on a collaborative, computer-aided text production task in a classroom setting, Cromdal (2005) observes how the participants (two girls), through extensive use of two co-available languages, create a bilingual interaction order, in which the there is a clear division of labour between the two languages so that English is used for producing the text and Swedish for other forms of talk. Similar findings have been reported in earlier studies of children’s play activities (e.g. Green-Vänttinen, 1996; Guldal, 1997). Cromdal shows that participants’ language choice is embedded in the structures of participation in the activities through which the writing task is accomplished. While the interaction unfolds bilingually, the girls coordinate their choices in such a way that a bilingual order is established as part of the process of co-constructing a story in English through a series of oppositional sequences. They proceed with the task in an orderly way so that elements of the story are produced in English, whereas turns displaying opposition or agreement, turns locating sources of trouble and directive actions are produced in Swedish (Cromdal, 2005: 340). The analysis also shows that the bilingual order can be temporarily suspended, and that the participants employ code-switching ‘proper’ (i.e. switches that are interactionally consequential) for specific local ends, for instance to produce a dispreferred action or to bring about a resolution in an extended oppositional sequence (Cromdal, 2005: 344–439). In a study of a complex work setting, Mondada (2007) investigates how code-switching operates as an organisational resource in the work of surgeons in an operating room of a French hospital department. She shows how multiple linguistic resources are systematically organised to make recognisable specific courses of action and manage participation in them. Her analysis also demonstrates how code-switching is employed alongside multimodal and visual resources, the use of objects and instruments and the participants’ nonverbal actions. The participants selectively mobilise all these resources, thus shaping the contextual configurations (Goodwin, 2000) moment by moment. The analysis reported in this paper builds on and aims to contribute to these previous studies by investigating the bilingual organisation of a technologically mediated gaming activity. 1 In ‘other-language’ repair an external observer might recognize another language being used, but the contrast between two languages is not treated as relevant by the participants (Gafaranga, 2000: 339).

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4. Data and analytic approach The data for the present study come from a collection of interactions (c. 13 h in total) where groups of Finnish adolescents are engaged in playing a console-operated video game. The recordings were made in the players’ homes. The participants are boys, aged from 10 to 14, and know each other well. The data analysed for this paper comprises interactions with two different games operated on Playstation 2 and X-box: Final Fantasy X, a Japanese fantasy role-play game, and Halo Combat Evolved, a science fiction ‘‘first-person shooter’’ where action takes priority over storyline. Both games present a variety of English texts, for instance game scores, options for game-play (e.g. commands for game-play actions, choice of weapon or other special features of the game), narrative and dialogue for viewing. In both games also English talk is heard. While the voice over in Halo mainly informs the players about the game’s trajectory (e.g. announcing a new game type), it has a more significant role in Final Fantasy X, where many scenes include dialogue which structure the narrative and provide important information about the characters. The games can be characterised as representing different genres (for discussion of game genres see e.g. Wolf, 2001; Apperley, 2006; Burn and Carr, 20062). Halo Combat Evolved was the first game in a series of three first-person shooter games allowing multiple players to participate in battle simultaneously. The game-play is centred around weapon-based combat, with the player viewing the action through first-person perspective. Final Fantasy X, on the other hand, is an action adventure game in which the players navigate the playable characters through a series of tasks and adventures. The game’s narrative involves a group of adventurers on a quest to defeat a rampaging force known as ‘‘Sin’’. In Final Fantasy X the players’ progress is shaped by not only battle scenes, but also by narrative episodes and dialogue, which set the pace for different scenes. Apart from offering information that the players can use to advance in the game, the narrative scenes also provide opportunities for social interaction between the players. During the interactions, the players are seated side-by-side on a sofa, facing the television screen. Apart from active and intensive game-play, they engage in a range of other types of activities including planning of game strategies, negotiating choices and commenting on unfolding scenes. The data were transcribed following the conventions of conversation analysis (see Appendix A). As both visual information and talk heard through voice over are crucial for the organisation of the activity, an effort has been made to transcribe these in as much detail as possible on those occasions where they are clearly relevant for analysis. However, the transcript is necessarily selective, and can give only a partial view of the multiple semiotic resources available simultaneously at any given point. For example, although music and the soundscape have an important role in creating atmosphere, information on these has only been included in the transcript when addressed by the players. Secondly, while the excerpts analysed below show both the game characters’ speech and the boys’ turns as they were produced sequentially, the visual lines of dialogue are not presented in the transcript to ensure better readability. The reader is invited to bear in mind that the subtitles become visible for the players as the turns are spoken. In excerpts including talk both by the game characters and the players, the players’ turns are indicated by giving their initials in upper case (e.g. P and K). The turns spoken by game characters (e.g. Tidus, Rikku, Lucil) are indicated with their initials using the lower case (t, r, l). Third, features of visual information on display were transcribed selectively when the participants show orientation to it in their talk. The points of departure and analytic stance in this study rely not only on previous work on conversational codeswitching, but also on recent studies of institutional interaction and technology mediated work-settings. Like these studies, the analysis below aims to identify the specific practices through which the tasks and activities, identities and inferences characteristic of the setting are achieved. Detailed analysis of several excerpts from the data sheds new light on the way bilingual language use is shaped by and dynamically adapted to specific circumstances and emerging orientations of the participants. Since the data represent a limited number of interactions with only two different games, the findings are not generalisable beyond the circumstances of these interactions. However, the analysis sheds new light on the way that language alternation is embedded in the social and temporal organisation of a complex activity and serves as the participants’ resource for negotiating their alignments with unfolding events. 5. Orienting to the semiotic field of the game Like all use of technical equipment, managing a video game involves complex inferential and sequential work through which the user interacts with the technology through its interface (Arminen, 2005: 199). The game itself provides the material and semiotic structure which players orient to in their activities. In order to operate the game and make choices which progress the game’s trajectory, the players must attend to the unfolding semiotic resources, recognise relevant objects, characters, actions and events, and make inferences about the kinds of possibilities for action that are available at any particular point in the design of the game. Interaction with the game, then, is ‘‘an emergent property of the interactant’s orientation to the emerging objects of interaction that recontextualise the sense of ongoing action moment by moment’’ (Arminen, 2005: 201). 2 The notion of genre is helpful in characterizing some key differences in the way that the games establish constraints and opportunities for interaction (Burn and Carr, 2006, 16). It is acknowledged that the classification of games into genres is far from straightforward as most games currently on the market involve multiple and hybrid ways of representing their worlds as well as different styles of game-play. The study of the communicative affordances of games (cf. Hutchby, 2001; Arminen, 2005), i.e. how different games create opportunities for action, has barely begun.

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Collaborative game-playing involves joint procedures through which players display their orientation to emerging objects on the screen, co-construct shared understanding and negotiate how to proceed. These orientations are made public through verbal and embodied action shaped by the semiotic resources made available by the game. The data from game-play activities shows that the players verbally orient to the game for instance through using the game’s vocabulary to display recognition of elements of the game, for instance objects, characters, types of action, game scores, etc. The following examples from interactions where two players are engaged in playing Final Fantasy X show how the players attend to emerging objects and choices in the game by referring to them with terms drawn from the game. Excerpts 1 and 2 come from an active phase in the game where the players are managing a battle scene involving several of the main characters and a monster (‘‘Sinspawn Gui’’). Both players are oriented to events on the screen through their gaze and body. While P is the active player who controls the choices in game-play, the game-playing unfolds as a collaborative activity. Throughout the scene the players talk about options for beating the monster, and comment on the outcomes of their choices. Just before excerpt 1, they have decided to destroy the monster’s head in order to beat it. Excerpts 1 and 2 show how the activity unfolds and how the semiotic resources available through text on the screen shape the players’ turns. Excerpt 1 Participants: P (active player); K (co-player) DI= Display (PS2, video screen) 1

K

8kunnon psyko tuo Ifrit8

2

DI:

ATTACK ((followed by choice of battle features))

P

CHOOSES ATTACK; HELLFIRE

P

8kuole:.8 (0.6)

8a right psycho this Ifrit8 3 4

!

]

8he’ll die:.8 5

K

[suat]$taapi$ olla [may $be $

6

!

P

>HELLFIRE:< ((leans back; stretches arm))

7

(2) FIGHTING

8

"pshiuuu. (.) @"peng,@= ((nasal voice))

9

K

CONTINUES

=(hh) tch (.) äänitehosteet = (hh tch (.) sound effects

10

P

11

K

mm-m? "tuo on niin ai::#to tuo Ifrit. "he’s so re::#al this Ifrit.

12

P

13

K

tuo tekee ihan ihmeellistä [(.) 8liikkeitä8 ((gaze down)) he’s making some strange

14

[(.) 8moves8 [nodding

(1)

15

P

((gaze screen)) nyt se ottaa hirveen rocksterin (0.3) now he’s taking a huge rockster

16

((shifts gaze to K))8(rocksteri)8 ((smiles)) (rockster)

17

K

18

P

19

P

20

DI

21

P

(hhnhnh) (rocksteri) (0.2) eiku (bowsteri) (HH[hHHh)= (rockster)

no (bowster) [=kabong::::, (0.4)

nyt varmaan kuollee tuo pää ((hand movement; pointing towards screen)) now his head is going to die [OVERKILL (0.3) joo [ihan ii"[:sisti] (0.3) yea [just ea[: "sy]

22

!

K

[ou:verkil]li. ((nodding; head back)) [o:verkill. ((nodding; head back))

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23

P

24

K

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ihan iisisti (.) nyt [lähti pää] whiuu easy now (.) now [the head is gone] [>ammuse<] [> shoot it <]

25 26

!

DI

DEMI

P

käyttää ( using (

) Demiä ) Demi

27

P

(0.3) (mikä: äijä)

28

K

heitä jotain ai#:too siihe

29

P

a"ih=

K

=Meteor Straikkia? (0.3) tai kureta=

31

P

älä älä älä nyt älä nyt iske uuel[leen]

32

DI

THE

(wha:t a guy) throw something r#:e:al in o"uch 30

!

=Meteor Strike? (0.3) or cure= no no no don’t (part) hit again 33

!

K

ARMS REGENERATED

[arms] regene8reitted8. ((leans head back)) [arms] regene8rated8. ((leans head back))

The excerpt begins with the co-player’s (K) comment on Ifrit, a new character who has been summoned to fight the monster (line 1). The active player (P) attends to a command menu visible on the screen. He selects the command ‘attack’ and ‘hellfire’, a special ability (or ‘‘overdrive’’) available only for Ifrit. In his next turns he verbally orients to this choice by anticipating the monster’s death and voicing the term ‘hellfire’ twice (4 and 6), first in a neutral tone, then with increased volume and emphasis, which seems to embody his intense engagement with the scene and excitement about its development. At this point the two players display different orientations: while P closely attends to his own choices and the evolving battle scene, K’s turn in line 5 addresses P’s comment referring to the monster’s death in line 4. Lines 8–10 show the players attending to the sounds heard in the battle: P imitates the sounds of shooting, and K responds with laughter followed by a humorous assessment characterising P’s actions as sound effects. In lines 11–21 the players view the scene and comment on events as they emerge on the screen using Finnish. In lines 19 and 21 the player projects a crucial action in the battle: the monster’s head is about to be destroyed. While P speaks, the term ‘overkill’ emerges on the screen (20). This informs the player that he has received ‘Overdrive’ (special energy and power for future battles). The co-player, K, immediately appreciates the success by verbally repeating the term with added emphasis and sound stretch, and nodding his head in backward movement several times (22). In linguistic terms, K’s utterance can be described as a hybrid form: its phonology closely matches that of English, but it is modified morphologically by adding a word-final vowel ‘i’. During further commentary on emerging events, P also attends to text visible on the screen by repeating the term ‘Demi’, again modifying its morphology to fit the Finnish turn (26). In lines 28–30 K instructs P about new choices in game-play using the technical terms ‘Meteor Strike’ and ‘cure’ in modified form to refer to options available in the game (but not visible on screen). P, however, is busy with defensive action in game-play, and instead of responding to K’s instruction, addresses the monster on the screen (31). His game-play actions are successful: the text ‘The arms regenerated’ appears on the screen signalling that the player has gained new power. In line 32 K appreciates this by reproducing the core part of the utterance, displaying surprise through his voice and body (head movement)3. While reading the utterance verbatim from the screen, he modifies it phonologically so that its pronunciation is closer to Finnish than English (the vowels, the ‘g’ sound and the plosive ‘t’). The excerpt demonstrates how players co-construct the game-play activity through orienting to the semiotic field of the game vocally, verbally and through embodied means. The players orient to the visual information and sound scape of the battle scene through vocalisations and responses that embody their emerging stances towards unfolding events (lines 8, 18, 29). Vocalisations, onomatopoetic noises and response cries are one resource through which players sustain joint attention (Aarsand and Aronsson, 2009) and interweave their actions with those in the mediated scene. The participants also draw on and modify language resources provided by texts appearing on the screen. Through voicing expressions or utterances shown on the screen, the players display their recognition and appreciation of the actions and events that they signal (lines 4, 6, 22, 33). In this way players make visible their stances towards the unfolding battle scene and co-construct the game-play and their own success in its management as a joint experience. The collaborative, yet asymmetrical, nature of the activity is also 3 Previous research in CA has shown that surprise is interactionally accomplished through certain kinds of responsive actions, e.g. repeats, ‘oh’ and response cries (see e.g. Wilkinson and Kitzinger, 2006) and is also displayed through prosody (Selting, 1996; Local, 1996).

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seen in the way that turns are distributed. The active player (P) makes public his understanding of the unfolding actions through turns which comment on and project events in the fighting scene (4, 12, 15, 19, 21, 23, 26) enabling the co-player to maintain shared focus and participate in the meaning-making process (e.g. lines 13, 17, 22). The co-player, on the other hand, offers online advice making suggestions about options available in the game (lines 24, 28, 30). While the players’ turns are mainly constructed in Finnish, they recurrently deploy language resources which are made available by the game locally or through its ongoing relevance as the field of activity. Terms adopted from the game index objects, events or choices available in the local context. These shape the construction of turns such that they can be described as linguistically heterogeneous4. The players’ linguistic choices are interwoven with the processes through which they make sense of and manage actions in game-play. The following example illustrates this further by showing how one of the technical terms used in the excerpt above (‘‘regenerate’’) is deployed later during the same episode in game-play. Just prior to excerpt 2 the players have solved a problem in the battle against Sinspawn Gui by deciding to send the character engaged in the fight (Ifrit) away in order to save his life. Before this action can be completed, however, the player must make a choice to remove the character’s hands. In the excerpt the players comment on the current action and K uses this as an opportunity to ask a question related to events at a later stage of the game. Excerpt 2 1

P

tää ärsyttää kun nyt pitää alkaa tuhomaan näitä hikisiä, it’s irritating to start destroying these damn,

2

(2)

3

ja- (.) @#jajaja[jaja:]ja@

4

K

5

P

MONSTER APPROACHES;

P

MAKES RAPID CHOICES IN DEFENSE

[käsiä] [hands] >käsiä< >hands<

6

!

K

ei[ks tuo sen] pääkin regenereittaa jossain vaiheessa, doesn’t his head also regenerate at some stage,

7

P

[(

8

P

tällä on hyvä

)]

9

K

this is good 10

!

P

8mm8= =e:i? rigenereittaa pää ei re8generei-8 = no:? it does not regenerate the head does not regenerate

11

!

K

jaa miten mulla oli semmonen muistikuva et se 8regenereiddaa?8 oh why was I under the impression that it does 8regenerate?8

P’s comment on lines 1 and 5 displays irritation with the action demanded by the game. While producing his turn, P is making rapid choices in order to defend the character Ifrit against attacks by the monster. These actions momentarily interrupt the progress of P’s turn and occasion a collaborative completion (Lerner, 1991, 1996) by the co-player (4). In line 6 K asks a negatively formulated question which expresses an assumption about future events involving the same character. He chooses the verb ‘‘regenerate’’, modifying its phonology and morphology to fit it into the syntax of his turn. After a brief comment related to another move in game-play, P produces an answer which denies the assumption embedded in the question twice, using the same lexical form (10). In the following turn K acknowledges the answer and comments on his own erroneous understanding, repeating the verb once more, this time with sound play (replacing the plosive ‘t’ with ‘d’). The adjustments to the form of the game term add a playful tone to the sequence, perhaps attending to the possibility of facethreat caused by P’s denial, which exposes K’s lack of expertise. Recent research by conversation and interaction analysts demonstrates how attentional processes can be investigated as forms of public practice (Goodwin, 2000, 2006, 2007; Kidwell and Zimmerman, 2007). Speaker’s direction of gaze, for example, allows co-participants to make inferences about what the speaker is attending to. As the excerpts above have already demonstrated, players attend to the semiotic field of the game through their bodies as well as verbal practices during intense game-play activity. The following example illustrates further how locally available vocal and visual resources offered by the game shape the player’s turn construction, thus making visible the players’ orientation to the semiotic field of the game as the central cognitive artefact (Hutchins, 1995, 1999) which structures their participation in the activity. In excerpt 3 4 Linguistic heterogeneity refers to heterogeneity in linguistic practice, such as the use of more than one language or use of features from different language varieties (e.g. dialects) (Auer, 2007b). Here I use the term to refer to the same phenomenon at local level: use of bilingual resources to construct an utterance or turn in an interactional sequence.

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the same two participants (P and K) are following a narrative scene constructed through a dialogue between two characters in Final Fantasy X. The dialogue unfolds through voice over, and is also presented in subtitles which appear on the screen as the characters speak. In line 5 K formulates a question which begins with a Finnish question word, but is brought to completion in English. From a linguistic point of view the turn could be analysed as including a code-switch triggered by the linguistic environment (e.g. the use of the character’s name). However, from the participants’ point of view, there is no indication of orientation to a meaningful contrast between the two languages. Rather, the bilingual utterance seems to be occasioned by the speaker’s close attention to local semiotic resources provided by the game. Excerpt 3 Participants: P (active player), K (co-player) Game characters: l=Lulu, w=Wakka 1

l

2

P

no matter how dark the night (.) morning always comes ([

)])

GAZE TO SCREEN

3

l

4

w

5

K

[and our] journey begins anew we’re leavin’ once Yuna gets here !

millon se Yuna gets here. when (this) GAZE TO SCREEN

6

P

se >pitää käyä< hakee. we >have to go and get her<.

As noted above, the co-player’s utterance accomplishes a question addressed to the active player (5). During the utterance the speaker’s gaze is directed to the screen displaying attentional focus on the semiotic resources on display. While the game characters’ voice is an audible resource available to the players, the lines in the dialogue, which appear on the screen as the dialogue unfolds, serve as an additional semiotic resource which players attend to. Here the game character’s turn shapes the player’s utterance such that a linguistically heterogeneous turn is produced, displaying the speaker’s cognitive orientation to the game while addressing the co-player. Neither participant orients to a contrast between two distinct codes; rather, the locally available language resources are brought together to accomplish a recognizable first action in question– answer sequence in a way that makes sense in the current environment. The player (P) responds to K’s information seeking question in a sequentially relevant way and closes the sequence. The excerpts above demonstrate how the players attend to and dynamically deploy language resources offered by the game while managing the game. Turns are shaped by textual and vocal elements that inform the players about the game’s trajectory. Players attend to these through their bodies and through lexical and syntactic choices through which they build their own actions such that they are recognisable to the co-participant. Bilingual resources shape interaction at several levels and make visible the players’ orientations and positioning in relation to unfolding scenes, so that their goals and actions can be inferred by the co-participant. In terms of the local ordering of language resources, the excerpts illustrate that while the game unfolds in a language which is not the players’ first language, the players do not orient to a meaningful contrast between two distinct codes in the active phases of game-play. Rather, the interaction unfolds in a bilingual medium, which adjusts to the temporally unfolding semiotic resources available to the co-present participants. In the following I present examples where the participants do orient to a contrast between distinct ‘codes’ or varieties in organising their own action. The next sections focus on codeswitching as an endogenous interactional resource which allows the participants to manage transitions between different types of activity and their participation frameworks, and to build affective stances towards unfolding scenes and events. 6. Organising action and positioning of participants The role of code-switching in organising activities and participation frameworks is well documented in previous research (e.g. Auer, 1984, 1998; Alfonzetti, 1998; Lappalainen, 2004; Mondada, 2007). Several studies have demonstrated how codeswitching serves to recontextualise the sense of what is going on and signal transitions for instance at the level of topic, activity type, participant roles or mode of talk. Often code-switching accomplishes several transitions simultaneously; especially in complex, institutional or task-based settings it may be a crucial resource for signalling participants’ orientations to alternative courses of action, multiple participants and their identities as well as their more specific alignments within any particular activity (Lappalainen, 2004; Mondada, 2007). The following examples illustrate how code-switching, along with embodied resources, is deployed by the players to signal transitions from one type of activity to another and display the participants’ changing alignments with respect to these activities. Example 4 demonstrates how participants deploy codeswitching along with embodied resources in negotiating a transition from a preliminary phase of interaction to actual game-

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playing activity. The example comes from the beginning of a game-session (with Final Fantasy X) where the participants negotiate which of the available options to take before launching on game-play proper. Two options are available here: the players can choose ‘Blitzball’, which is a ‘minigame’ (an underwater sport activity) available for the players at certain points of the game, or they can decide to follow the main story line of the game. This involves operating several playable characters through a series of adventures on their quest to defeat an evil force (‘Sin’). In the excerpt below the players negotiate this choice. Excerpt 4 Participants: P (active player), K co-player DI: 1

Single avatar standing in empty scene. >pitäsko¨ pelata vähän blitzballia<

P

> shall we play some blitzball TURNS GAZE TO

K

2

K

gaze to screen, facial movement

3

P

[vai mennäänko¨ vaan tappaa Si[ni [or shall we just go and kill Sin GAZE: SCREEN, BACK TO

4

K

5

K

6

K

K

[MOUTHING ‘NO’ (in Finnish) [SEVERAL

NODS

8joo8 = 8yea8 = NOD[DING

7

P

8

P

[GAZE !

TO SCREEN;

MOVES

AVATAR

=#let’s kill Sin= GAZE: SCREEN

9

K

=hhhh (uocchhe hh) hh GAZE:

SCREEN

The player’s switch to English (line 8) achieves an action which closes a proposal sequence accomplished through verbal and nonverbal means. In line 1 P makes a proposal, which is received with a display of reluctance (K’s grinning facial expression), followed by a more explicit rejection (mouthing ‘no’). In response to the embodied action P makes another proposal (3) which is accepted by K both verbally and nonverbally (nodding). As soon as the players reach agreement, P turns his gaze to the screen and uses the control to move the avatar on the screen to begin the game proper. He also verbally confirms the outcome of the negotiation in English (line 8). The utterance accomplishes a directive action (formulated with inclusive first-person imperative form) which launches the game-play activity (the target of which is killing Sin) as a collaborative project and invites the co-player to join in5. At this point both players visibly orient to the screen through their body and gaze. The co-player’s vocal and embodied display of affect (line 9) signals his excitement about launching into the game. The code-switch here accomplishes several interactional functions. It indexes the transition from the pre-game negotiation phase to actual engagement with the game and accomplishes a shift in the players’ positioning whereby the players adopt the game characters’ perspective and move into alignment with actions, events, goals and roles the gameworld. It allows the players to reposition themselves as active agents with control over the trajectory of game-play and the actions of the characters in the virtual world. The utterance also verbally enacts the player’s choice and the first move in the game. The following excerpt shows a similar case where code-switching accomplishes a transition from one type of activity to another while following an intensive battle scene. The excerpt begins with P’s comments on a special feature of the game, a type of ‘potion’ which gives the characters extra energy (1, 3, 5). Towards the end of his turn, a text appears on the screen which requires him to choose whether to attack en enemy or not (7). In line 8 the player chooses the command ‘attack’ and enacts his choice also verbally with a vocalisation and a threat directed to a game character in English (‘now you’re gonna die’). Excerpt 5 Game characters: sg = Sinspawn Gui, an evil avatar 5

The player is not animating an avatar at this point, but using his own words. The avatar visible on the screen does not speak at this point.

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w = avatar Wakka a = avatar Auron k = avatar Kimahri 1

P

[VITSI NE AL BHED[GOSH THOSE AL BHED-

2

[W,

3

mikä me< AL Bhed Potions vähän ne on hyviä

A AND K FIGHTING AGAINST SG THROUGH THE SCENE.

what we< AL Bhed Potions they’re so good 4

K

5

P

8nii8 8yea8 TONNI kaikkien ene- 8energiaa8 (.)(saa) A TON of all this ene- 8energy8 (.)(get)

6

DI

(.) SG’s

MAGIC

(DEMI)

WORKS.

WAKKA

GETS A HIT AND THEREFORE

GETS THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF ‘OVERDRIVE’.

7 8

!

DI

ATTACK

P

AU YEAH (.) >NOW you’re gonna die<

AN ENEMY WITH EQUIPPED WEAPON.

CHOOSES ATTACK 9

K

$h(h)h$=

10

P

11

P

(.) MAKES

12

P

kädet pois

SMILES. =va-EKa: pistetään nää, =bu-FI:Rst we’ll put these TWO CHOICES, MARKS SG’S HANDS.

hands away P’s turn in line 8 embodies an important move in the game (selecting ‘Attack’) as well as accomplishes a shift in the player’s alignment. The verbal turn is constructed through an interjection followed by a threat addressed to the monster visible on the screen (‘NOW you’re gonna to die’). The interjection achieves a shift of focus from viewing the game scene to heightened involvement with the action on the screen. It is fitted in the flow of the game activity, signalling the player’s new readiness to begin the attack. The threat (‘NOW you’re gonna die’) provides an account for the speaker’s reaction. It is syntactically addressed to the avatar Sinspawn Gui and seems to embody the player’s excitement over his newly accomplished control in the game: at this point P is in a position to choose the strategy for the forthcoming fight. The coplayer K is also exited: he appreciates P’s exclamation by laughing and smiling (line 9). Before launching the attack, however, P needs to carry out some further moves in the game (removing SG’s hands). When reporting on his own actions (lines 10 and 12), P switches back to Finnish. It is the new possibility of defeating the evil monster Gui that seems to arouse the players’ involvement in this excerpt. Their enthusiasm is verbalized by P in his interjection and threat to Gui. The public display of stance builds a response which can be shared by both parties, and thus allows the players to align with the activity as a shared experience. Animated turns, such as those in excerpts 4 and 5, signal the players’ co-presence both in the physical setting and the fictive setting of the game-world. They can be seen to ‘‘interweave conduct within the physical space with action within the mediated scene’’ (Heath et al., 2002: 17). At the same time they display the player’s own ‘agency’ and their occasional treatment of game characters as active agents (cf. Suchman, 2007) involved in activities which are shared by the players. Animations of game characters’ turns are one type of resource through which the players display their stances towards unfolding events and embody their experiences of them. The excerpts above have demonstrated how brief switches into the game’s language serve to accomplish transitions at the level of activity signalling entry into game-play (ex. 1) and heightened involvement with game-play (ex. 5). In terms of its local functions, code-switching emerges as a multifunctional resource through which players recontextualise the sense of ongoing action and reposition themselves with respect to it. However, code-switching is not limited to actions where players move into alignment with activities in the game-world. The following excerpts show how switches to English can also be used to signal momentary disengagement from the fictive world and to accomplish actions that organise activities in the material setting. Excerpts 6 and 7 demonstrate how the players negotiate a change of roles whereby the currently active player hands over the control to the co-participant. Excerpt 8 shows how a switch to English accomplishes a question addressed to the co-participant, whose focus is not on the game, but on a competing activity.

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Excerpt 6. Game characters: l=Lulu, t= Tidus 1

l

we cross the Moonflow

2

t

gotcha

3

K

eiks sitä mennä se- [e-eiks,]

4

t

5

K

don’t they go th-

[do-don’t,] [Moonflow] baby here we come

eiks ne mee sen "norsun kyyissä sen yli don’t they cross it riding the elephant

6

P

joo (.) Schoopuf yea

7

K

¨ N siisti (0.5) hh Schoopuf (0.3) hh VA¨HA

8

K

REACHES HAND TOWARD

9

P

8mitäh8

10

K

11

P

hh Schoopuf (0.3) hh SO cool (0.5)

P; GAZE

SCREEN

8what8 !

8let me8

GAZE P HANDS CONTROL TO

K

Excerpt 7 1

K

ha:-ach hh (

) (.) HEI tässä tulee tappeluita. HEY there’s going to be fighting

2

niin? tulee, (0.5) tää on hyvä paikka kehittää?

P

yea? there is, (0.5) this is a good place to develop? 3

voisit jäähä vähäks aikaa

K

you could stay a while 4

>säähä voisit (iha hyvi)<

P

> well you could (just as well)<

EXTENDS

CONTROL TOWARDS K

ar[vaas kahe:sti] osaisinko enää tapella=

5

K

6

P

!

[it’s now your,-]

7

P

!

=your time (.)8has come8

8

K

9

P

gu[ess twi:ce] if I know how to fight anymore=

REACHES HAND TO TAKE CONTROL

oota mää (.) [nappaan] (0.4) nappaan nuo tavarat tosta (.) 8nopeesti8= wait I’ll (.) [catch] (0.4) catch those things there (.) 8quickly8=

In excerpts 6 and 7 the players negotiate a switch in the situated roles related to the gaming activity through verbal and embodied actions (reaching hand; handing control/taking the control). In excerpt 6 K first expresses interest in the ongoing scene and invokes prior knowledge of the game through asking a question about future events (3, 5). After responding to P’s comment on one of the characters, he reaches his hand towards P as a way of requesting for the control (8). His action is not successful, as is seen in P’s repair initiator (line 9). The code-switch (line 10) accomplishes self-repair: K requests for the control verbally with an English directive. Excerpt 7 shows how the change of roles is negotiated through P offering the control to K with both verbal and nonverbal means (handing over the control) and using code-switching to pursue the offer. P’s first attempt at an offer (line 4) is accomplished through a grammatically incomplete suggestion accompanied with a nonverbal action: extending the control towards K. As K does not respond (e.g. by acknowledging the gesture or shift of gaze), P switches into English. P’s second attempt (line 6) occurs in overlap with K’s response, and is abandoned. K’s overlapping turn (line 5) formulates a response, which does not address P’s offer, but instead comments on his own lack of competence in fighting. K’s downplay of his competence occasions a more forceful offer (line 7). While the code-switch itself can be seen to strengthen the offer, also the linguistic form of the English offer (declarative utterance functioning as a directive) upgrades its pragmatic force (cf. the suggestory format of the first offer). The second offer receives a preferred response as K extends his hand towards P in order to take the control. The actual switch of roles, however, is delayed, as P decides to do further game-play moves (9).

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In excerpt 8 code-switching indexes the player’s (K) momentary disengagement from the game. K is the active player who is engaged in making choices in game-play, while P is momentarily focused on a competing activity: his attention is directed to the microphone which is attached onto the ceiling above the players. Excerpt 8 1

No mitä pistet- (0.6) Fire: sitte

K

Well what do we choo- Fire then GAZE SCREEN; MAKING GAME MOVES: SELECTING ‘FIRE’

2

GAZE

P

UP, TOUCHING MICROPHONE

TURNS GAZE TOWARDS K

3

K

4

K

5

P

LOOKS UP AT MICROPHONE; THEN TO

!

P

whatcha do:ing (man) GAZE: P

6

GAZE: K

BOTH K

TURN

GAZE

TO SCREEN;

RHYTHMIC MOVEMENT OF HEAD FOLLOWING MUSIC

It can be argued that K’s code-switch in this excerpt is occasioned by the interactional trouble caused by P’s non-attention to the game. K is managing a battle scene, making fast choices among options on the screen. In line 1 he is responding to a new choice to be made. Through the words of one of the characters, the screen informs him to choose a ‘‘magic power’’. K displays some uncertainty about the choice to be made, as seen in his question in line 1, but selects ‘fire’. During K’s intensive gameplay actions, P’s attention is directed to the microphone above them. He shifts his gaze up towards the ceiling, then touches the microphone and turns his head towards K. This seems to occasion a change in K’s orientation: he disengages from the game, turns his gaze towards P and switches to English requesting P to account for his competing activities (4). While indexing a shift in the activity, the code-switch may also signal some frustration at the disruption to the game’s progress. After the code-switched utterance, both players turn their attention back to the game. Collaborative game-playing involves a variety of activities ranging from negotiating entry into and transitions between different types of game activity, making rapid choices from available options and interacting with the co-participant(s) in order to build shared understanding. The excerpts analysed above demonstrate how code-switching is drawn upon as one type of resource which enables the participants to signal orientations to new phases in the game and negotiate their positions. Code-switching accomplishes shifts in the participants’ alignments, allowing them to invoke and move between relevant social and situation-specific categories (e.g. active player – co-player) as well as local identities (e.g. actor in the game-world – viewer and commentator of game’s narrative). Embedded in the interactional sequences in which they are deployed, switches accomplish specific local functions, for instance repairing or reformulating actions first expressed nonverbally or through another language. Further, code-switching is one of the resources the participants draw upon in indexing and projecting meaningful events, and building shared affective stances towards them. The following section takes a closer look at the role of code-switching in building affect. 7. Building affective stance Throughout the gaming sessions the players engage in commentary noticing, describing and evaluating the emerging scenes and their details. Game-play activities and narrative scenes provide the context and a resource for actions through which the players display their understandings and build a shared view of what is going on. The last three examples demonstrate how code-switching is used as a resource in collective evaluative activities where the players draw on the game language in order to make public their particular way of experiencing an activity or scene under way. In excerpt 9 the players display their appreciation of an activity which has not yet begun. The example comes from a session where four participants are playing Halo Combat Evolved, a science fiction first-person shooter game where four players simultaneously fight hostile alien forces to defend the world. At this point the players are not yet engaged in game-play, but are making choices from options on the screen, for instance selecting ‘profile’ and ‘game type’. The game type chosen is ‘slayer’, a fast-paced shooting activity. The example shows how participants switch to English to show appreciation of the new activity through overlapping assessments and embodied displays of affect (Goodwin, 1990; Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987, 1992; Goodwin, 1996). Excerpt 9 Participants: 4 active players; R, T, A (one silent player) p=game voice (X-box) DI

SHOWS ENLISTED PLAYERS, GAME SETTINGS AND RULES PLAYERS SELECT PROFILE AND GAME TYPE: SLAYER

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R

!

8wo::ah8 (kh kh xxx) (hhh) BODY MOVEMENT, TURNS GAZE TOWARDS OTHER PLAYERS

2

T

SMILES

3

A

SHIFTS GAZE TO

4

R

R,

SMILES

8hhh [nyt tulee (hyvä)]8 8hhh [this is (good)]8

5

T

!

[(hh) tis ((this)) is] war SMILES

6

R

7

A

8

p

[(war x x]) !

[tis ((this)) is] slayer

R’s embodied response in line 1 displays his recognition and appreciation of a new type of game action about to begin. While attending to the visual image and text on the screen, it is also a public display of affective stance towards a meaningful event (Goodwin, 2000). The player displays a particular way of experiencing the activity through his body: the turn is coupled with laughter and body movement, which enable the others to see his excitement over the action about to begin. R also glances towards the other participants inviting co-participation from them. As the co-participants’ responses demonstrate, the vocalisation is heard as the word ‘war’, and understood as a description of the intense competitive game-play that the players are about to launch into. Two of the other players (T and A) align with him through smiling. When R initiates a verbal assessment switching to Finnish (line 4), he ends up speaking in overlap with T, who evaluates the upcoming activity in English, thus orienting to R’s initial vocalisation as a recognisable English utterance and expanding it into an action which aligns with it (line 5). In the following turns R and A continue to build alignment through partial repetition of the English utterance (6 and 7). Language choice and embodied activity here not only display the players’ recognition of a new phase in the game, but also facilitate particular kinds of co-participation. R’s actions enable a particular stance towards the game, one of excitement and pleasure, and a public display of this stance serves as an invitation for the others to join him. As two other participants respond to the invitation, the boys collaboratively build a shared stance and progressively orient to the exciting new activity through mutual orientation of their bodies, smiling and assessments using English. In this case the joint activity also creates a context which enables a novice player to co-participate. A, the youngest and least experienced player and a novice learner of English builds on the local resources of the joint course of action through repeating a part of the turn produced by a more expert player (line 7). Commentary and evaluation of game scenes is accomplished through assessment activities (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987, 1992) through which the players share their views about the characters, events, artefacts, and other details of the game and its fictional world. Assessments allow the participants to take particular positions with respect to emerging events and display their experience of them. As public displays of a particular agent’s affective involvement in the referent being assessed, and his/her experience of events, assessments are also available for evaluation by others, who can judge the assessor’s competence to evaluate the referents appropriately (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1992: 155). The following excerpts illustrate, first, how assessment activities are organised interactively such that the participants not only produce assessments of their own, but also monitor each other’s assessment-relevant actions, and second, how code-switching is used as an additional resource in the affective organisation of the sequence. Excerpts 10 and 11 highlight a frequent phenomenon in the data that occurs especially during those phases of the game which do not require fast decision making in order to accomplish gaming moves. During narrative scenes, which often unfold through dialogue, players often display their engagement with the game through repeating and animating turns spoken by the game characters. Other-repetition as well as animated turns generally involve some kind of commentary through prosodic, embodied and other signals which indicate the player’s appreciation of the target of the commentary (CouperKuhlen, 1996; Piirainen-Marsh and Tainio, 2009a). Often such actions are also embedded in interactionally organised assessment activities which allow all parties to explicitly evaluate some aspect of the unfolding scene. In such sequences code-switching through verbal, prosodic and embodied repetition of a character’s turn draws attention to the character’s speech style or accent, and enables the players to build a particular stance towards it. Excerpt 10 shows how the players appreciate a character’s turn with laughter repetition and verbal assessments. Excerpt 10 Participants: P and K Game character: w=Wakka, y=Yuna 1

w

yo:: sleepy"head

2

P

[HEH=

3

K

[=hh= SMILING

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4

y

5

P

6

K

=hmhmhm=

7

P

=HEHEHE $vähä$ hyvä

3025

=sorry I[’m so sorry] !

[’’yo:: sleepyhe]ad’’ ((mouth twisted to one side))=

SMILES; TURNS GAZE

TO

K

so good

GAZE 8

K

9

P

TO SCREEN

tolla on niin hyvä ääni tolla [#Wa]kalla] he has such a good voice

[Wakka has] [nii] [yea

The scene shows a group of the central characters in Final Fantasy X meeting another character (Yuna), who rushes out of a building. Wakka’s greeting (line 1) comments on Yuna’s late arrival in a humorous tone. Both players simultaneously respond to Wakka’s turn with laughter. In line 5 P repeats the utterance in a way that matches closely the original turn: he reproduces its pitch and prosodic shape and visibly imitates Wakka’s voice quality, twisting his mouth slightly. He also smiles and shifts gaze to K to invite a response. K’s response appreciates P’s action with laughter, which P joins. P then continues with a verbal assessment (7), which occasions a second assessment whereby K upgrades P’s description using a stronger intensifier (‘niin hyvä’) and thus agreeing with his evaluation. Excerpt 11 also shows how other-repetition is employed as a resource for displaying affect in an assessment activity accomplished by two speakers. This time the repetition occurs as a response to a verbal assessment which explicitly criticizes the game character’s voice. The scene shows the main characters, the ‘‘crusaders’’ meeting Wan Kinoc, a leader of a group of warriors who can also command the crusaders. It is WK’s voice that becomes the target of evaluation here. Excerpt 11 Game character: wk=Wan Kinoc 1

wk

it is time at last (1) we must tell the Al Bhed waiting outside

P

to begin the operation at once VA¨hä esko ääni tolla (hh)=

2 3

REal stupid voice this one (hh)=

GAZE 4

K

!

DOWN; SHIFTS GAZE TO

K

=@to begin the operation at once@= ((nasal voice))

GRINS,

PULLS FACE, EYES ALMOST CLOSED

Both players have been watching this scene, sporadically commenting on the events with assessment actions produced by one speaker. Here P’s verbal assessment (line 3) identifies the character’s voice as target of criticism. Mid-turn he shifts his gaze to the co-participant, who immediately responds with his own assessment action accomplished through embodied repetition of the final part of the game character’s turn. The repetition is produced with exaggerated nasal voice and bodily action: facial movement displaying special effort and eyes almost closed. This gives the turn a designedly performed character, drawing attention to and displaying criticism of the character’s voice. Through imitating the character’s voice in an exaggerated way the player can be seen to accomplish mimicry (cf. Couper-Kuhlen, 1996). He not only aligns with, but also upgrades his verbal assessment and thus contributes to the negative evaluation. In both 10 and 11 the players’ turns can be characterised as part of a collection of ‘‘actions which one sees being done as imitations’’ Sacks (1992: 479). The performative character of these turns is accomplished through lexical and prosodic repetition as well as embodied means. In excerpt 10 the imitation has an affiliative function, contributing to shared appreciation of an amusing scene. In 11 the imitation seems to serve as a resource for mockery: doing some action ‘‘in such a fashion as to make it clear that you’re not seriously doing it, but you’re competent at it – and of course treating it in a fairly negative way’’ (Sacks, 1992: 480). Several previous studies have identified citations as a recurrent environment for code-switching (Gumperz, 1982; Alfonzetti, 1998; Sebba and Wootton, 1998; Lappalainen, 2004). Code-switches of this type reproduce a particular way of speaking through citations which imitate the speaker. Speakers can, for example, use a stereotyped accent or a speech style attributed to a particular category of persons as a way of enacting or performing them for the purposes of joking (Holt, 2007; see also Goffman, 1974). Repetitions which copy or imitate the game characters provide one resource through which the player can display his affective stance towards the activities or characteristics of the avatars. This type of code-switching creates a contrast through which the speaker can either align with or distance himself from some (category of) persons through characterising their way of speaking.

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In the final example the players engage in commentary about the game they are playing (Final Fantasy X), evaluating the game’s narrative with a series of positive assessments. After several assessments employing strong, emotive vocabulary, P switches into English to accomplish another upgraded assessment. Excerpt 12 1

P

TA¨A¨ on mummielestä niin hyvin tehty tää tarina THIS is I think this is so well made this story [määon] siis ihan. rakastunu tähän peliin

2

like so in love with this game

[I’m] 3

K

[haa]

4

P

8tää on niin hyvä8 ((almost mumbling))

5

P

(

6

P

=X kakkonenkin voi olla vähä 8hyvä8.

8this is so good8 )=

= X number two might be real 8good8 too 7

K

arvaa ka:hesti hom[maanko sen] guess twi:ce if I’m

8

P

9

K

[going to get it] [ah::::::]

8niin no kuhan se tulee8 (0.6) ["mää niin ku] "mää,8well when it comes out8 (0.6) ["I’m like] " I’m-

10

!

P

11

!

P

it’s like a gif::t (.) from God=

12

K

=mää jonotan vaikka viikon siinä ovella. saakeli että mää saan se

13

P

[8it’s like8]

= I’ll queue for a week at the door. damn it to get it se on niin ihanaa ah (.) tää on niin hyvä peli it’s so wonderful ah (.) this is such a good game The players evaluate the game with consecutive assessments which characterise the game in positive terms. P’ initial turn (lines 1–4) offers a positive description of the game’s narrative, which is followed by a more subjective description of his own feelings towards it (‘‘I’m like so in love with this game’’), and a third, more neutral assessment which completes the turn. The player’s affective involvement in the activity is signaled through lexical and prosodic means: increased volume and emphasis, and the choice of intensifiers (e.g. ‘ihan’; ‘niin’) preceding the verb and adjectives. After evaluating the current game, P offers a more tentative assessment referring to another installment of the same series of games (line 6), which neither of the players have experience of. At this point K joins in the activity with a second assessment taking the form of a rhetorical question followed by his own answer, which conveys his enthusiasm about buying the game (lines 7, 9 and 12). P attends to K’s actions through his affective vocal response (line 8) and through code-switching (lines 10–11) overlapping K’s turn. After securing his right to a turn, P upgrades his own earlier descriptions with an extreme case formulation expressing a high regard for the referent (Pomerantz, 1986): ‘‘it’s like a gift from God’’. This utterance seems to capture his affective stance in the strongest possible terms. K for his part expresses heightened involvement through reporting his intention to buy the game (line 12), intensifying the force of the utterance with emphatic prosody, a formulation which maximizes his willingness to make efforts to buy the game (‘‘I will queue for a week’’) and a mild swear word (‘saakeli’). P’s final turn (13) continues to build affect through two more assessments. While the first one includes another emotive adjective (‘wonderful’) preceded by the intensifier (‘niin’) and a vocalisation (ah), the second one offers a slightly downgraded evaluation (‘‘this is such a good game’’), enabling the speakers to exit from the heightened affective involvement built through the assessment activity. In this excerpt the code-switched utterance provides an additional resource for formulating a highly affectively charged assessment, which brings the activity into a recognisable peak (Goodwin and Goodwin, 1987). The public, affective organisation of assessments creates resources for the interactive organisation of co-experience: the players’ enjoyment of the gaming activity. Code-switching emerges as one type of resource through which players not only attend to locally available features of the setting, but also build shared meanings attached to game-playing activities as part of their lifeworlds. 8. Summary and discussion Grounded in previous research within the interactional perspective on bilingual language use, this paper has examined the emergent, locally managed choices through which participants in a collaborative gaming activity accomplish a particular kind of bilingual order of interaction, shaped by the specific contextual configurations that unfold during the technologically

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mediated activity. The analysis has paid particular attention to the ways in which the choice of language resources is organised not only sequentially, but also through the participants’ emerging orientations to the game as the central material and semiotic structure which organises interaction. On the surface of it, the setting presents a clear distribution of languages, with the game unfolding in English and the player’s interaction primarily in their first language (Finnish). A close analysis reveals that the ordering of language resources during the play activity is much more complex. Language practices, including alternation, are intextricably intertwined with the material and semiotic resources in the environment and contribute to emerging courses of action through which the players organise their participation in social play. Bilingual resources are embedded in the organisation of the play activity at several levels. This is visible in the practices through which players coordinate their attention to relevant semiotic features of the setting and the ways in which they build situated interpretations, manage choices during game-play, and co-construct their experience of the scenes and events as they unfold. The analysis showed that the participants systematically orient to the emergent objects of interaction through deploying technical terms, vocabulary and structures drawn from the game in their turns. For instance, they locate and identify meaningful events (e.g. successful gaming moves) by reading aloud and reproducing terms through which these events are signalled on the screen. Through such verbal responses to emerging events, the players recontextualise their interpretations of what is going on moment by moment, and make public their experiences of meaningful events so that they can be inferred by the co-participant(s). The interaction unfolds through a bilingual medium, which consists of heterogeneous resources, including vocabulary, quotations and structures adopted from the game, the choice of which is tied to the players’ emergent orientations to the game as the focal object of interaction and cognitive artefact (Goodwin, 2000, 2007; Hutchins, 1995, 1999). The second part of the paper focused on ways in which the participants draw on code-switching, i.e. orient to a meaningful contrast between co-available languages, as an endogenous resource in organising their activities and positioning themselves in relation to unfolding scenes and events. The findings demonstrate how instances of codeswitching serve specific local functions in organising the players’ participation and achieving particular alignments with respect to action both in the material setting and in the game-world. Code-switching is used in managing transitions from one type of activity to another, for instance in actions through which players move in and out of engagement with the game (Excerpts 4, 8), enact and experience moves in the game (Excerpt 5), and negotiate their situated roles (Excerpts 6 and 7). Embedded in specific interactional sequences, switches carry multiple, more specific local functions, signalling, for example, actions that confirm the outcome of joint negotiation related to future gaming activities, accomplishing repair and displaying players’ heightened involvement during specific gaming actions. Code-switching contributes to the orderliness of the gaming activity also through offering a systematic resource – along with other linguistic and embodied means – for building affect. Throughout the gaming sessions the players engage in collective evaluative activities which unfold through assessment sequences. A player’s vocal response to visual information may be received as an evaluative action, which projects future action and invites particular forms of co-participation (Excerpt 9). Code-switching can serve as the resource through which other participants join in and align with the affective display. On the other hand, players recurrently evaluate scenes in the game retrospectively through repeating, enacting and dramatizing game characters’ talk. This offers a resource for appreciating or (implicitly) criticizing the personality, style or credibility of particular characters (Excerpts 10, 11). Codeswitching also serves as one resource for building a recognizable peak in assessment activities (Excerpt 12), thus allowing the participants to express intense affective involvement with the object of evaluation. Evaluative actions involving codeswitching are particularly common in transitional or narrative scenes; unlike the action scenes involving fast moves to gain success in battle, these scenes provide opportunities for commentary and building shared views. Through its central role in the affective organisation of these activities, code-switching emerges as a key resource through which players collaboratively construct their enjoyment of both the unfolding scenes and events in the game and the game-playing activity on the whole. The analysis has highlighted how a bilingual gaming activity is organised through the ordering of co-available language resources in actions through which the participants attend to and build their understandings of unfolding scenes and events in the game. Findings show that a particular kind of bilingual order is constructed in which the players’ medium (or repertoire) is linguistically heterogeneous and shaped by emergent language resources made available by the semiotic field of the game. This medium cannot be unproblematically categorized as ‘Finnish’, in the sense of a clearly bounded set of resources distinct from the language of the game. Neither is it obvious how the language resources of the game count as a distinct variety of English: in sociolinguistic terms the game unfolds through specific forms of mediated global English, representing a fictional community and including accents and styles identifiable as ‘foreign’. The language practices used in this setting bring into sharp relief the permeability of boundaries between distinct languages, varieties and bilingual practices (Auer, 2007a,b; Heller, 2007). While some similarities with other technology-mediated activities can be identified (cf. Cromdal, 2005), the bilingual order of gaming activities is not structured by a clearly identified task involving the use of another language. Rather the players attend to and assemble specific language resources in ways that make sense locally in the actions through which they manage the trajectory of the game and co-construct shared stances towards it. Their choices are locally accountable and motivated by the contingent features of the technologically mediated social activity, which involves both intense involvement with action-packed gaming activity and co-construction of enjoyment through talk occasioned by the game. In this sense the analysis illustrates how ‘‘speakers draw on linguistic forms which index social experience and which circulate in meaning-saturated social worlds’’ (Heller, 2007: 9; following Woolard, 2004). In particular, the findings highlight how

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language alternation figures in the socially organised meaning-making process and contributes to the intelligibility and orderliness of the mediated activity.

Appendix A

Transcription conventions .

Falling intonation

,

Level or slightly rising intonation

?

Rising intonation

-

Cut-off

"

Change in pitch height: higher than preceding speech

#

Change in pitch height: lower than preceding speech

>

<

Faster tempo

<

>

Slower tempo

:

Sound stretch

underline

Stressed syllable

CAPITALS

Loud voice

8

Quiet voice

8

$ @

Laughing voice @

Animated voice

(.)

Pause, less than 0.3 s.

(0.5)

Length of pause

hh .hh

Out-breath/in-breath

j(h)oo

Laughing production

[

Overlap

]

=

Latching of turns

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Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, Harrigan, Pat (Eds.), 2007. Second Person. Role-playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, Harrigan, Pat (Eds.), 2009. Third Person. Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Wilkinson, Sue, Kitzinger, Celia, 2006. Surprise as an interactional achievement: reaction tokens in conversation. Social Psychology Quarterly 69 (2), 150– 182. Woolard, Kathryn, 2004. Codeswitching. In: Duranti, A. (Ed.), A companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Blackwell, London, pp. 73–94. Wolf, Mark J.P. (Ed.), 2001. The Medium of the Video Game. University of Texas Press, Austin. Arja Piirainen-Marsh is professor of English in the Department of Languages, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research has focused on language use and interaction in a variety of institutional and everyday settings involving participants from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Her current work explores the relationship between linguistic choices, structures of interaction and multimodal resources in formal and informal learning environments.