Co-constructing Jargon in Online Gaming: A Multimodal CA Study of Neologisms in Gaming Interactions

This paper investigates the co-construction of jargon in cooperative online gaming interactions, with a focus on the negotiation of neologisms and their contribution to the accomplishment of multimodal gaming practices. Building on previous research on the language of gaming and of game playing as an interactional activity, this paper aims to shed light on the local production of new meanings and lexical items in the moment-by-moment unfolding of the interaction. This study is carried out within the methodological framework of multimodal conversation analysis (CA) and focuses on the use of naming practices in English and Italian interactions between players of the battle royale video game Fortnite. By discussing two case-sequences and two attendant phenomena – a functional shift in English and a lexical borrowing in Italian – this analysis illustrates how specialized meanings are acknowledged as part of gamers’ common ground and become part and parcel of multimodal packages that constitute gameplay.