Gender is among the most influential of the factors underlying differences in spatial abilities, human communication and interactions with and through computers. Past research has offered important insights into gender differences in navigation and language use. Yet, given the multidimensionality of these domains, many issues remain contentious while others unexplored. Moreover, having been derived from non-interactive, and often artificial, studies, the generalisability of this research to interactive contexts of use, particularly in the practical domain of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), may be problematic. At the same time, little is known about how gender strategies, behaviours and preferences interact with the features of technology in various domains of HCI, including collaborative systems and systems with natural language interfaces. Targeting these knowledge gaps, the thesis aims to address the central question of how gender differences emerge and operate in spatial navigation dialogues with computer systems. To this end, an empirical study is undertaken, in which, mixed-gender and same-gender pairs communicate to complete an urban navigation task, with one of the participants being under the impression that he/she interacts with a robot. Performance and dialogue data were collected using a custom system that supported synchronous navigation and communication between the user and the robot. Based on this empirical data, the thesis describes the key role of the interaction of gender in navigation performance and communication processes, which outweighed the effect of individual gender, moderating gender differences and reversing predicted patterns of performance and language use. This thesis has produced several contributions; theoretical, methodological and practical. From a theoretical perspective, it offers novel findings in gender differences in navigation and communication. The methodological contribution concerns the successful application of dialogue as a naturalistic, and yet experimentally sound, research paradigm to study gender and spatial language. The practical contributions include concrete design guidelines for natural language systems and implications for the development of gender-neutral interfaces in specific domains of HCI.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:29:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 SILVAp1-110.pdf: 3967531 bytes, checksum: 3fd29e9971b83c3c26ae79f782019184 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Since its inception the internet has received by advertisers replicas advertising content developed for other media, but over the years the internet has gained space and received the attention of advertisers eager to use their strengths to benefit from the sale of their products. Yet very little is known about the characteristics of specific language of the internet, and the existing literature is few and inconclusive. Based on this framework study compared the advertising videos developed specifically for the internet with other developed originally for television and published on the Internet in order to identify points of parity and convergence between them with regard to language. The work was based on the theories of cyberculture and the Network Society and the studies of Marshall McLuhan and a comparative analysis of the videos investigated in order to understand the technical language, visual and discursive them. The survey showed marked differences between the two groups of videos investigated, especially with regard to interactivity, and maximizing potential viralization viewing. It also identified that in regard to technical language discourse videos showed little differentiation because the technology and the language used in its construction are the same. / Desde sua criação a internet tem recebido por parte dos anunciantes réplicas propagandas desenvolvidas para outras mídias, porém com o passar dos anos a internet ganhou espaço e recebeu a atenção dos anunciantes desejosos por utilizar suas forças à favor da venda de seus produtos. Contudo conhece-se muito pouco a respeito das características de linguagem específicas da internet, e a literatura existente e pouca e inconclusiva. Com base nesse quadro o trabalho comparou vídeos publicitários desenvolvidos especificamente para a internet com outros desenvolvidos originalmente para a televisão e publicados na internet a fim de identificar pontos de paridade e convergência entre eles no que se refere à linguagem. O trabalho baseou-se nas teorias da Cibercultura e da Sociedade em Rede e nos estudos de Marshall McLuhan e em uma análise comparativa dos vídeos a fim de entender a linguagem técnica, discursiva e visual dos mesmos. A pesquisa apontou diferenças entre os dois grupos de investigados, sobretudo no que se refere à interatividade, potencial de viralização e maximização de visualização. O estudo identificou também que no que se refere à linguagem técnico-discursiva os vídeos apresentaram pouca diferenciação embora tenha-se comprovado que os vídeos desenvolvidos para a internet são mais recentes o que evidencia um início do processo de adaptação da linguagem publicitária ao meio internet.

This thesis deals with the language of players of video games, especially computer games. The language sample was taken from written as well as spoken sources - magazines, web reviews and Let's Plays - and is limited to action, strategic and RPG games with some overlap with action-adventures. Researched words are mainly keywords of video game players' vocabulary. The goal of this thesis was to describe the language of video game players from several language viewpoints and briefly describe the slang of the players. The first part deals with introducing the researched material, video games as a whole and their history and also the subculture of video game players. The second part analyses the sample in terms of lexical semantics and word formation, describes the extent of adaptation of loanwords, also stabilization of words, neology and the words' affiliation to slang, terminology and common vocabulary. Then the thesis attempts to briefly describe the slang of video game players. Generally, the slang includes a large number of anglicisms and expressions from informatics (in a large part technical terms), while loanwords are adapted to a varying degree. Many expressions in the slang of video game players can also be considered professionalisms given the existence of professional players and...

This thesis deals with the language of players of video games, especially computer games. The language sample was taken from written as well as spoken sources - magazines, web reviews and Let's Plays - and is limited to action, strategic and RPG games with some overlap with action-adventures. Researched words are mainly keywords of video game players' vocabulary. The goal of this thesis was to describe the language of video game players from several language viewpoints and briefly describe the slang of the players. The first part deals with introducing the researched material, video games as a whole and their history and also the subculture of video game players. The second part analyses the sample in terms of lexical semantics and word formation, describes the extent of adaptation of loanwords, also stabilization of words, neology and the words' affiliation to slang, terminology and common vocabulary. Then the thesis attempts to briefly describe the slang of video game players. Generally, the slang includes a large number of anglicisms and expressions from informatics (in a large part technical terms), while loanwords are adapted to a varying degree. Many expressions in the slang of video game players can also be considered professionalisms given the existence of professional players and...