The constant use of imperatives in gaming language and what effect it can have.

Whilst I babysit three boys aging from 5 to 14, the number one activity they always choose is an online game on their console, with the chosen game 'Call of Duty' a modern warfare game that uses constant imperatives to address the user as a soldier. I saw that the use of linguistics of the spoken language in the game had quite a trembling effect of the spoken language of the three boys, effecting how they spoke to each other and to me, using more imperatives by giving me demands to 'go get food' or 'get a drink quickly!'. This behaviour was affected by how the game speaks to the users as it uses constant imperatives and ordering the user like a soldier and also how the other gamers spoke to one another.

Ching-I Teng, Fan-Chen Tseng, Ye-Sho Chen, Soushan Wu, all in departments of business administration, department of information systems and decision sciences and the department of information and electronic commerce at universities ranging from USA and China in 2012 wrote a blog about 'Online gaming misbehaviours and their adverse impact on other gamers', and found that 'Analytical results indicate that profanity and hoarding of advantageous locations anger other gamers, reducing continuance intention'. Evoking that not only the spoken language of the actual game causes the radical use of imperatives but the use of language to communicate with each other portrays that gendered language is used towards each other as this is more of a male targeted game.

This results in the language used towards one another is more framed around the men trying to accomplish being the 'high ranker' in the game, therefore, taboo language is repeatedly used when a failure has occurred or if the user is mad at one of his team mates resulting in the use of imperatives by ordering them to do a certain action on the game using language like a real soldier. Jennifer Coates a professor of English Language at the University of Surrey Roehampton the author of the book 'Men Talk' written in 2003 includes the theory that 'Men's use of taboo language in telling their stories also performs toughness.' This supports that the language of men towards each other is competitive and that the gamers are constantly trying to sound in power with authority on the game which aggravates others users into using more forceful, authoritative language full of imperatives.

The aggravated speech to one another can also be caused by the competitiveness of just being able to speak as the person giving the orders by using constant imperatives will be seen as the 'front line soldier' and if there is a female playing the men will constantly interrupt them which supports Robin Lakoff's theory that women speak less frequently and lack a sense of humour indicating that the females will not speak as much as men in the game. This is also supported by Ron Normans research in his English language textbook in 2003 that in 20 conversations with the same sex resulted in 22 overlaps and 7 interruptions, however, when its mixed sex in 11 conversations, there were 9 overlaps by men and 0 by women, and 46 interruptions by men and 2 by women. This evokes that only men use authoritative language towards one another as they see them as competition and want to be the dominant male, which can be seen as the case in most situations resulting from this competitive form of society.

Hannah Castle.