<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In line with the principle of technological determinism, the linguistic context of computer games influences the (linguistic) behaviour of millions of active gamers. This makes it important to explore gamer communication thoroughly with respect to politeness, too. Indeed, the communication of gamers during games may also affect the users’ off-game communicative situations. The international literature suggests that the quasi-anonymity of online communication and the lack or weakness of sanction make it ruder than offline communication: it involves a higher number of insults or offensive personal remarks. The paper looks at this issue, in particular by a pragmatic – politeness-centred – investigation of a particular kind of online insults. The corpus of analysis is provided by “taunts”, i.e. inbuilt instructions triggering “mocking” remarks of League of Legends (LoL), a multiple-participant online arena game. The authors interpret in-game insults in the framework of speech act theory, the Cooperative Principle (conversational and politeness maxims), face threatening, and a matrix of aims and functions. The paper wishes to be a contribution to cyberpragmatics, a pragmatically-oriented branch of Internet linguistics.</p></abstract>

In line with the principle of technological determinism, the linguistic context of computer games influences the (linguistic) behaviour of millions of active gamers. This makes it important to explore gamer communication thoroughly with respect to politeness, too. Indeed, the communication of gamers during games may also affect the users’ off-game communicative situations. The international literature suggests that the quasi-anonymity of online communication and the lack or weakness of sanction make it ruder than offline communication: it involves a higher number of insults or offensive personal remarks. The paper looks at this issue, in particular by a pragmatic – politeness-centred – investigation of a particular kind of online insults. The corpus of analysis is provided by “taunts”, i.e. inbuilt instructions triggering “mocking” remarks of League of Legends (LoL), a multiple-participant online arena game. The authors interpret in-game insults in the framework of speech act theory, the Cooperative Principle (conversational and politeness maxims), face threatening, and a matrix of aims and functions. The paper wishes to be a contribution to cyberpragmatics, a pragmatically-oriented branch of Internet linguistics.

Politeness and Insult in Computer Games – From a Pragmatic Point of View

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Communicatio

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Politeness and Insult in Computer Games \u2013 From a Pragmatic Point of View"}

In line with the principle of technological determinism, the linguistic context of computer games influences the (linguistic) behaviour of millions of active...

Politeness and Insult in Computer Games – From a Pragmatic Point of View

Published Online: Jan 29, 2021

Page range: 68 - 91

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/auscom-2020-0006

Keywords
Internet linguistics, pragmatics, cyberpragmatics, insult, politeness, speech act, computer games, gamer communication

© 2020 Andrea Balogh et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Politeness and Insult in Computer Games – From a Pragmatic Point of View

Published Online: Jan 29, 2021

Page range: 68 - 91

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/auscom-2020-0006

KeywordsInternet linguistics, pragmatics, cyberpragmatics, insult, politeness, speech act, computer games, gamer communication

© 2020 Andrea Balogh et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Internet linguistics, pragmatics, cyberpragmatics, insult, politeness, speech act, computer games, gamer communication