The Computer Game as an Alternative Artistic Discourse

Abstract

The article aimed to determine the specificity of computer game discourse, its features, key linguistic characteristics, and communicative features. The methodology included the analysis of computer game discourse materials, in particular, dictionary articles, texts of electronic messages, and computer conferences, as well as recordings of fragments of the spoken language of users and users of computer games. The specific feature of computer discourse is the selective combination of features, typical for other types and forms of communication. Computer discourse has some communicative features: electronic communication channel; mediated communication; distance communication; emotionality transmission through emoji symbols; genre heterogeneity; discourse participants' creativity. Computer discourse is characterized by the dominance of English-language lexical bases (barbarisms and semantic translations) and a tendency to unify the norms and rules of communication. Despite such specificity, computer jargon in its functioning and especially word formation is subject to the laws of the Ukrainian language. In particular, affixal, non-affixal, and lexico-semantic are the most widespread modes of word formation in the computer lexicon. At the same time, lexico-semantic can be combined with other known ways. Computer vocabulary is characterized by the use of speech games and means of speech expression. The key tendency in the formation of computer discourse is to reduce the ways of information transmission as much as possible.