Playing out loud: Videogame references as resources in friend interaction for managing frames, epistemics, and group identity

Abstract

AbstractThis study examines how friends in their mid-twenties appropriate texts from videogames they have played to serve particular functions in their everyday face-to-face conversations. Speakers use references to the videogames Papers, Please and The Oregon Trail to shift the epistemic territories of conversations when they encounter interactional dilemmas. These epistemic shifts simultaneously rekey formerly problematic talk (on topics like rent, money, and injuries) to lighter, humorous talk, reframing these issues as being part of a lived videogame experience. Overlapping game frames are laminated upon real-life frames, and are strengthened by embedded frames containing constructed dialogue. This study contributes to understanding how epistemic shifts relying on intertextual ties can shift frames during interactional dilemmas in everyday conversation, which is ultimately conducive to group identity construction. (Intertextuality, framing, epistemics, identity, interactional sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, humor, videogames)*