Browsing by Subject "CADS"

This study uses corpus-assisted discourse analysis for a case study of how some game masters (GMs) use address to participate in the construction of player-character identities in the linguistic setting of a tabletop roleplaying game (TRPG). Discourse analysis has been used to study TRPG gameplay before (White, 2011), but it has been rare and in the past decade, the proliferation of TRPG content online featuring gameplay (often called actual-play content) has enabled the use of much larger datasets than before. These datasets in turn enable corpus-assisted research to take place. The basis of this study is the discourse analytic understanding of identity as being discursively constructed, where one not only constructs and uses identities, but can also be cast into them by others (Antaki, 2013). TRPGs are understood as a linguistic setting in which multiple names are often applicable to the same person; the player’s own name, and the name of the character created for the game. These names refer to different identities, and using one or the other is understood to be an instance of momentary casting into that identity. In addition, a model was adapted from previous roleplaying game (RPG) studies regarding layers of rules and goals (Montola, 2008) into layers of speech in order to understand the structure of discourse around the gaming table. For data, a corpus was collected of transcripts of two popular TRPG actual-play series, and data from different GMs was divided into different subcorpora. The address patterns of seven GMs were studied to compare the choice frequencies of address terms in different speech layers and between different genders of speakers and addressees. This analysis was supplemented by close reading of some data points to analyze the potential factors behind certain address term choices. All GMs included in the study were found to vastly prefer address by character name, though the strength of this preference varies between individuals, with no effect from the gender of the speaker. Speech layers were found to be a major factor in the choice of address terms, and the speech layers themselves were found to vary in prevalence depending on the style and content of the game. Only the middle layer, endogenous speech, was found to be necessary to running the game, but speech in this layer was found to have such varied functions that a more detailed typology may be needed. The different aspects of addressee gender could not be properly isolated as variables, but there are signs warranting further study of possible weakening of the preference for character names when addressing participants with nonbinary characters and characters of a gender different from the player.