This volume puts forth an original theoretical framework, the ludonarrative model, for studying video games which foregrounds the empirical study of the player experience. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to and description of the model, which draws on theoretical frameworks from multimodal discourse analysis, game studies, and social semiotics, and its development out of participant observation and qualitative interviews from the empirical study of a group of players. The volume then applies this approach to shed light on how players’ experiences in a game influence how they understand and make use of game components in order to progress its narrative. The book concludes with a frame by frame analysis of a popular game to demonstrate the model’s principles in action and its subsequent broader applicability to analyzing video game interaction and design. Offering a new way forward for video game research, this volume is key reading for students and scholars in multimodality, discourse analysis, game studies, interactive storytelling, and new media.

This book investigates the narrativity of some of the most popular survival horror video games and the gender politics implicit in their storyworlds. In a thorough analysis of the genre that draws upon detailed comparisons with the mainstream action genre, Andrei Nae places his analysis firmly within a political and social context. In comparing survival horror games to the dominant game design norms of the action genre, the author differentiates between classical and postclassical survival horror games to show how the former reject the norms of the action genre and deliver a critique of the conservative gender politics of action games, while the latter are more heterogeneous in terms of their game design and, implicitly, gender politics. This book will appeal not only to scholars working in game studies, but also to scholars of horror, gender studies, popular culture, visual arts, genre studies and narratology.

The first significant collection of research in videogame linguistics, Approaches to Videogame Discourse features an international array of scholars in linguistics and communication studies exploring lexis, interaction and textuality in digital games. In the first section, “Lexicology, Localisation and Variation,” chapters cover productive processes surrounding gamer slang (ludolects), creativity and borrowing across languages, as well as industry-, genre-, game- and player-specific issues relating to localization, legal jargon and slang. “Player Interactions” moves on to examine communicative patterns between videogame players, focusing in particular on (un)collaborative language, functions and negotiations of impoliteness and issues of power in player discourse. In the final section, “Beyond the 'Text',” scholars grapple with issues of multimodality, paratextuality and transmediality in videogames in order to develop and enrich multimodal theory, drawing on key concepts from ludonarratology, language ideology, immersion and transmedia studies. With implications for meaningful game design and communication theory, Approaches to Videogame Discourse examines in detail how video games function as means and objects of communication; how they give rise to new vocabularies, textual genres and discourse practices; and how they serve as rich vehicles of ideological signification and social engagement.

Multimodal Approaches to Media Discourses brings together contributions from an interdisciplinary group of scholars on corpus-assisted analyses of multimodal data on austerity discourses in the United Kingdom, which extend and expand on the understanding of austerity but also of the methodologies used to analyse multimodal corpora. The volume demonstrates how the austerity measures introduced in response to global economic and financial crises in recent years can be viewed as being more complexly layered than they appear, not simply reduced to their connections to spending cuts and fiscal debt. The book employs an innovative methodological approach, in which established and emerging scholars from linguistics and computational and social sciences critically reflect on the exact same set of data – multimodal texts and articles from The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph from 2010 to 2016. This framework allows for the exploration of the role of the media in mediating the public’s assessment of austerity and the ideas, actors, emotions, geographies and broader material context which contribute to such perceptions. In so doing, the volume also offers unique insights into systematic analyses to multimodal data which may be applied to other topics and connected with other disciplines. Enhancing our awareness and assessment of austerity in public discourse and of the methodologies to study it, this book is key reading for students and researchers in discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, multimodality, and those working at the intersection of these fields.

This collection showcases the unique potential of stylistic approaches for better understanding the multifaceted nature of pop culture discourse. As its point of departure, the book takes the notion of pop culture as a phenomenon characterized by the interaction of linguistic signs with other modes such as imagery and music to examine a diverse range of genres through the lens of stylistics. Each section is grouped around thematic lines, looking at literary fiction, telecinematic discourse, music and lyrics, as well as cartoons and video games. The 12 chapters analyze different forms of media through five central strands of stylistics, from sociolinguistic, pragmatic, cognitive, multimodal, to corpus-based approaches. In drawing on these various stylistic frameworks and applying them across genres and modes, the contributions offer readers deeper insights into the role of scripted and performed language in social representation and identity construction, thereby highlighting the affordances of stylistics research in studying pop cultural texts. This volume is of particular interest to students and researchers in stylistics, linguistics, literary studies, media studies, and cultural studies.

This book merges recent trends in game studies and multimodal studies to explore the relationship between the interaction between videogames’ different modes and the ways in which they inform meaning for both players and designers. The volume begins by laying the foundation for integrating the two disciplines, drawing upon social semiotic and discourse analytic traditions to examine their relationship with meaning in videogames. The book uses a wide range of games as examples to demonstrate the medium’s various forms of expression at work, including audio, visual, textual, haptic, and procedural modes, with a particular focus on the procedural form, which emphasizes processes and causal relationships, to better showcase its link with meaning-making. The second half of the book engages in a discussion of different multimodal configurations and user generated content to show how they contribute to the negotiation of meaning in the player experience, including their role in constructing and perpetuating persuasive messages and in driving interesting and unique player decisions in gameplay. Making the case for the benefits of multimodal approaches to game studies, this volume is key reading for students and researchers in multimodal studies, game studies, rhetoric, semiotics, and discourse analysis.

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 53rd International Simulation and Gaming Association Conference, ISAGA 2022, which took place in Boston, USA, during July 11–14, 2022. The 15 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: education and training; resilience and sustainability; health; and social justice.

This volume advances the data-based study of multimodal artefacts and performances by showcasing methods and results from the latest endeavors in empirical multimodal research, representing a vibrant international and interdisciplinary research community. The collated chapters identify and seek to inspire novel, mixed-method approaches to investigate meaning-making mechanisms in current communicative artifacts, designs, and contexts; while attending to their immersive, aesthetic, and ideological dimensions. Each contribution details innovative aspects of empirical multimodality research, offering insights into challenges evolving from quantitative approaches, particular corpus work, results from eye-tracking and psychological experiments, and analyses of dynamic interactive experiences. The approaches and results presented foreground the inherent multidisciplinary nature and implications of multimodality, renegotiating concepts across linguistics, media studies, (social) semiotics, game studies, and design. With this, the volume will inform both current and future developments in theory, methods, and transdisciplinary contexts and become a landmark reference for anyone interested in the empirical study of multimodality.

This book offers the first comprehensive study of the many interfaces shaping the relationship between comics and videogames. It combines in-depth conceptual reflection with a rich selection of paradigmatic case studies from contemporary media culture. The editors have gathered a distinguished group of international scholars working at the interstices of comics studies and game studies to explore two interrelated areas of inquiry: The first part of the book focuses on hybrid medialities and experimental aesthetics "between" comics and videogames; the second part zooms in on how comics and videogames function as transmedia expansions within an increasingly convergent and participatory media culture. The individual chapters address synergies and intersections between comics and videogames via a diverse set of case studies ranging from independent and experimental projects via popular franchises from the corporate worlds of DC and Marvel to the more playful forms of media mix prominent in Japan. Offering an innovative intervention into a number of salient issues in current media culture, Comics and Videogames will be of interest to scholars and students of comics studies, game studies, popular culture studies, transmedia studies, and visual culture studies.