Comparison between the Subcategories of Speech Act Produced by

Figure 7 displays the distance between the occurring percentages of subcategories of speech act identified in the speech of the eight participants and those of fluent English speakers.

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Figure 7. Comparison between the percentage of the of speech act subcategories in participants’ speech and those of the fluent English speakers’ speech

4.2.3.1 The Dominant Subcategories of Speech Acts in the Speech of Both Groups As shown in Figure 7, two subcategories of speech act are dominant in the MMORPG interaction are reporting on actions (s6) and expressing excitement or emotion (s14), both of which takes up more than ten percent respectively in the speech of two groups of people.

Reporting on actions (s6), as discussed in previous sections, is an indispensable speech act because the condition of every member in the group play may affect the outcome of the game. As a result, no matter they are familiar with the instance or not and no matter their command of English is good or not, all the people join the group play may produce speech to report the real-time condition of their own characters or of themselves.

During the play, players tend to be more emotional and excited and therefore expressing excitement and emotions (s14) is a way to vent their emotions. In addition, the use of words and the grammatical structure of the expressions are usually simpler.

For example, exclamation words such as “oh” or “wow” and emoticons such as “:)”

0.00%

2.00%

4.00%

6.00%

8.00%

10.00%

12.00%

14.00%

16.00%

18.00%

s1 s2 s3 s4 s5 s6 s7 s8 s9 s10 s11 s12 s13 s14 s15 s16 s17 s18 s19 s20 s21 s22

Participants' speech The other players' speech

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are easier for the players to type really fast during the play, where the players are busy with controlling their avatar to fight against enemies. Therefore, the speech act of expressing excitement and emotions accounts for a relatively large proportion in the speech of both groups of players.

4.2.3.2 The Categories of Speech Acts that Were Only Dominant in the Speech of Language Learners

There are three categories of speech act that are only dominant (higher than ten percent) in the speech of language learners. The first one is seeking factual information (s3). The possible reason is that the participants were comparatively new to the game GW2, and thus they were usually the ones who need to seek factual information from other members.

The second category of speech act is showing gratitude (s12). As found by previous researchers, maintaining relationship with other players are important in the MMORPG worlds, and therefore it is reasonable that participants in the current study expressed their gratitude by saying “thank you” when they were provided the information that they needed and when they were being saved or assisted by other members.

Scenario:

Learner 10: Is this task finished? [s3]

Player 1: yes

Learner 10: Thank you [s12]

In this Scenario, the player resolved the participant’s questions, so the participant showed his appreciation.

The third dominant category is greetings (s19). Participants produced more speech to greet other people than the fluent English speakers did, which might result

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from the fact that participants were usually new to the group. Some of the players have known each other from the past gameplay, but the participants seemed not acquainted with the other players in the first place, which made the participants adopt a more positive attitude to make friend with others before they promised to form a group with the participants. The following Scenario showed this interaction dynamics.

Scenario:

Learner 6: Hello [s19]

Learner 6: R u going to AC?

Player 1: : )

Player 1: They say they got friends wanna join Learner 6: So we r out?

Player 1: No…need two slots Player 1: I’m in their guild.

Learner 6: ok

When the learner greeted the player, the player did not reply by offering greetings but used emoticon smile to show that he or she accepted the participant’s invitation. From the last lines it can be inferred that many players in this group play have known each other or played the game together for a while (because they were in the same guild) and thus they would not greet each other like the participant did.

4.2.3.3 The Subcategories of Speech Acts that Were Only Dominant in the Speech of Fluent English Speakers

As discussed in previous sections, providing factual information (s1) accounts for a large proportion of total speech because producing speech to inform other players of certain facts is important for gameplay coordination. The reason why this speech act is more dominant in the speech of the fluent English speakers might be that

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the eight participants produced more speech to seek factual information so that it is reasonable that the fluent English speakers may provide more factual information when they were answering questions. Another reason is that the players were more familiar GW2 gameplay. The third reason might be related to players’ English ability;

since the players have better command of English, they were more willing to share their knowledge.

Providing perspective or opinions (s2) is essential in the speech of the fluent English speakers. It might result not only from players’ familiarity with the game but also their better command of English. When people have better command of the language, they may feel more willing to speak up to express their own ideas and thoughts.

Giving commands (s10), the most dominant speech act in the speech of the fluent English speakers, however, never occurs in the speech of the language learners. In order to achieve cooperation and coordination in the group play, players with more gameplay experience tend to give commands to others with less experience in the instance. Since participants in the study are relatively new to the game and it is their first time to join the instance play, their role is more passive and they are usually the one listen to others’ orders and commands, which offers them little chance to produce speech to command others.