The digital world that has been created in today’s society opens doors to possibilities that we could not have dreamed of twenty years ago. One of these possibilities is that children can learn new languages by interacting and communicating with people all around the world. Learning English as a second language is obligatory in Swedish schools. It is a part of the curriculum and as normalized as learning maths or science. However, that does not mean it is an easy task. Many students struggle with second language acquisition and need a helping hand to motivate or facilitate easier understanding of a second language. This essay presents a major influence on many second language learners in Sweden today: World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is a major online game that is played by thousands of children around the world every day, including Sweden. It is a game that involves reading and understanding English, speaking and texting in English and being able to follow spoken and written instructions in English. All these traits are willingly practiced by motivated children all around Sweden today because of one common interest: the interest in the game itself. This essay is a research overview and it aims to bring light to the importance of communication between young learners in the gaming community, how the game contributes to facilitating a place and community where gamers can communicate and practice their gaming skills and second language acquisition. To complete this essay an extensive amount of research about second language acquisition and online games has been gathered and to answer three main questions. The results of this essay show that there is significant research to support the claims that second language acquisition is greatly advanced by participating in massive multiplayer online games and that the communication between players that is a part of these games is a great source of acquiring a second language.

Denna rapport undersöker hur motivationen skiljer sig mellan World of Warcraft: Dragonflight och World of Warcraft Classic i syfte att belysa hur uppdateringar av spel kan påverka spelarbasen. En kvantitativ undersökning utfördes online för att mäta motivation utifrån självbestämmandeteorin och Quantic Foundrys Gamer Motivation Model. Resultaten visar att spelare av Classic känner en högre immersion och att spelet i högre grad uppfyller motivationsbehoven självbestämmande och tillhörighet. Vidare har Classic högre värden på motivationsfaktorerna community och power, medan story värderas högre i Dragonflight. Förslag läggs fram för vidareforskning gällande kopplingen mellan utpekade förändringar i spelet och uppmätta skillnader i motivation mellan spelversionerna. Vidare kan undersökning av frustration, vid sidan av uppfyllda behov, anses vara gynnsam för att få en större förståelse för skillnaderna mellan versionerna.

<p>Contents:</p><p>The evolution of today’s computer influenced society has taken giant steps towards virtual reality, game addictions and the possibility of not having to meet the people we communicate with. What is a reality today?</p><p>To give a more concrete image of our question we’ve chosen the online game World of Warcraft as an example and to describe our connection to an alternative reality. We have performed different investigations, interviewed both gamers and non gamers, all this to give us the opportunity to see if the term reality has started to change in a direction that will allow us to call this alternative world a reality, or if it’s just a world wide phenomena of for example gaming addiction. To do this there is a demand on us to have our own definition of what a reality is, and to do so we have included discussions from philosophers thesis against a discussion of what virtual reality is.</p> / <p>Innehåll:</p><p>I dagens samhälle har utvecklingen gått framåt mycket under senaste åren, detta har medfört virtuella världar, spelberoende och att människor kan kommunicera på annat sätt än fysiskt. Vad är egentligen en verklighet?</p><p>Vi har använt oss av exemplet World of Warcraft, för att beskriva vår upplevelse av en alternativ verklighet. Vi har med hjälp av olika undersökningar, intervjuer och så vidare försökt ta reda på så mycket som vi kan, för att ges möjligheten att utreda om begreppet verklighet har förändrats så mycket att ett onlinespel idag kan kallas för verklighet eller om det endast är ett fenomen, som spridits över hela världen, av exempelvis spelberoende. För att kunna göra detta måste vi dessutom skapa oss en definition av vad vi tycker är verklighet, detta gör vi bland annat genom att se till filosofers teser och att jämföra detta med beskrivningar till vad en virtuell värld är för någonting.</p>

World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft: Chronicle I are in this essay analyzed as motivators for reluctant readers. World of Warcraft: Chronicle I is analyzed from small-scale and large-scale intertextual comparison to Greek and Norse mythology. The aim of this essay is to introduce alternative literature outside the literary canon in the EFL classroom in Sweden. The aim is to connect gaming an outside school activity with reading. The analysis is divided into three parts, the first part focuses on the amount of reading that is done while playing a game like World of Warcraft. The second part focuses on intertextuality in the Chronicle to Greek and Norse mythology. Lastly, how the knowledge of intertextuality in the Chronicle can be used to interact with likeminded people by posting on forums in discussed. The goal is to connect gaming and reading to motivate reluctant readers.

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Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-09-19T15:21:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 renatapradoalvessilva.pdf: 1353565 bytes, checksum: 16000b96ef4c2dec50c7d5b4c312188c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-10-04T15:45:49Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 renatapradoalvessilva.pdf: 1353565 bytes, checksum: 16000b96ef4c2dec50c7d5b4c312188c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-10-04T15:46:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 renatapradoalvessilva.pdf: 1353565 bytes, checksum: 16000b96ef4c2dec50c7d5b4c312188c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-04T15:46:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 renatapradoalvessilva.pdf: 1353565 bytes, checksum: 16000b96ef4c2dec50c7d5b4c312188c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-24 / Os MMORPGs são um fenômeno à parte na indústria dos jogos eletrônicos. Possuem um desenvolvimento paralelo, trazendo sempre elementos novos e diferenciados para a cultura dos games. World of Warcraft, lançado em 2004, é o mais expressivo representante do gênero MMORPG, com 11.5 milhões de usuários pagantes no mundo. O jogo é constantemente alvo de críticas devido ao alto grau de envolvimento dos jogadores (fenômeno denominado ―vício‖ ou ―uso problemático‖) que passam, em média, 20 horas por semana conectados. Entender o desenvolvimento deste game e como se dá a participação nele conduziu à verificação da existência de padrões na concepção do jogo que buscam criar hábitos específicos nos jogadores, resultando no alto grau de envolvimento. Partindo da hipótese de que os jogos eletrônicos estão modificando hábitos, comportamentos e até a sociabilidade, uma contextualização bibliográfica sobre o desenvolvimento dos jogos eletrônicos, desde seus primórdios, indicou que o gênero MMORPG sempre encerrou características essenciais para este envolvimento. O detalhamento de World of Warcraft como mídia híbrida - por meio das Matrizes da Linguagem e do Pensamento de Lúcia Santaella, apoiadas na semiótica peirceana -, conduziu a uma análise das dominâncias sonoras, visuais e verbais no jogo, assim como os hibridismos que atuam potencialmente sobre a formação de hábitos. A análise das semioses para produção de envolvimento apontou que o universo do jogo é concebido e modificado para adequar os hábitos dos jogadores aos interesses comerciais dos desenvolvedores. / The MMORPGs are a phenomenon apart in the industry of electronic games. They have a parallel development, always bringing new and different elements to the culture of games. World of Warcraft, launched in 2004, is the most significant representative of the MMORPG genre, with 11.5 million paying users in the world. The title is constantly criticized because of the high degree of engagement of the players (called "addiction" or "problematic use") that are on average 20 hours per week online. Understanding the development of this game and how does the participation in it led to the determination of standards inside the game design seeking to establish specific habits in the players, resulting in the high degree of involvement identified. Assuming that electronic games are changing habits, behavior and even sociability, a bibliographic research on the development of electronic games, since its inception, said the MMORPG genre always ended the essential characteristics for this involvement. The details of World of Warcraft as hybrid media – through Matrix of Language and Thought by Lucia Santaella, supported by Peirce's semiotics –, led to an analysis of dominances of sound, visual and verbal aspects in the game, as well as hybrid forms, potentially acting on the formation of habits. The analysis of the semiosis for the production of engagement pointed that the game world is designed and modified to suit the habits of players to the developers‘ commercial interests.

Contents: The evolution of today’s computer influenced society has taken giant steps towards virtual reality, game addictions and the possibility of not having to meet the people we communicate with. What is a reality today? To give a more concrete image of our question we’ve chosen the online game World of Warcraft as an example and to describe our connection to an alternative reality. We have performed different investigations, interviewed both gamers and non gamers, all this to give us the opportunity to see if the term reality has started to change in a direction that will allow us to call this alternative world a reality, or if it’s just a world wide phenomena of for example gaming addiction. To do this there is a demand on us to have our own definition of what a reality is, and to do so we have included discussions from philosophers thesis against a discussion of what virtual reality is. / Innehåll: I dagens samhälle har utvecklingen gått framåt mycket under senaste åren, detta har medfört virtuella världar, spelberoende och att människor kan kommunicera på annat sätt än fysiskt. Vad är egentligen en verklighet? Vi har använt oss av exemplet World of Warcraft, för att beskriva vår upplevelse av en alternativ verklighet. Vi har med hjälp av olika undersökningar, intervjuer och så vidare försökt ta reda på så mycket som vi kan, för att ges möjligheten att utreda om begreppet verklighet har förändrats så mycket att ett onlinespel idag kan kallas för verklighet eller om det endast är ett fenomen, som spridits över hela världen, av exempelvis spelberoende. För att kunna göra detta måste vi dessutom skapa oss en definition av vad vi tycker är verklighet, detta gör vi bland annat genom att se till filosofers teser och att jämföra detta med beskrivningar till vad en virtuell värld är för någonting.

Online gaming is a relatively modern phenomenon that is not older than 20 years. Most online players speak English in some form, either by talking or writing. The two games, 'World of Warcraft' and 'Counterstrike' have taken over the gaming-world and the gamers' language has found its way right into the dictionary. The aim of the study was to examine how meanings of language change or evolve in the context of online video game playing. In this study, two gameplay videos were transcribed and analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Gaming words were identified through calculating word frequency in terms of types and tokens, and these identified words were then analysed qualitatively. The result contains three categories: Contextual Meaning, New Meaning, and New Words. The concepts of Contextual, New meaning and New Words were compared to dictionary meanings to see whether new meanings were created in the context of the gaming world. Based on the result, the study suggests that game language can influence the overall usage of language in the future.

Vänner möts inte längre bara på fysiska platser utan även online på olika typer av plattformar. Denna studie utforskar var onlinevänner träffas, i vilka aktiviteter de umgås, hur frekvent onlinevännerna umgås samt hur många onlinevänner som även träffas offline. Syftet med studien är att få en större förståelse för var och hur människor möter vänner online. Studien genomfördes med hjälp av en enkätundersökning med 1000 deltagare som spreds via sociala nätverkstjänster och offline, samt genom att analysera tidigare forskning inom relaterade ämnen. Resultatet av studien pekar på att det finns ett stort antal olika plattformar där onlinevänner kan skapas. De vanligaste av dessa är Facebook och World of Warcraft. Främst umgås onlinevänner via textchatt, röstchatt och genom att spela tillsammans. De flesta onlinevänner umgås dagligen och majoriteten av deltagarna träffade 2-5 onlinevänner offline. Studien väckte stort engagemang på sociala medier och kan förhoppningsvis komplettera redan existerande forskning samt bidra med inspiration till framtida studier. / Friends no longer meet only in physical places; they can also meet on various different online platforms. This paper aims to explore where online friends meet, in which activities they socialise, how frequent they socialise and how many online friends also meet each other offline. The purpose of this paper is to get a better understanding of where and how people meet friends online. The paper was realised through a survey with 1000 participants, distributed both on social networking sites and offline. An analysis of already existing related research papers was also made. The result of the survey showed that there are various different platforms where online friends can be made. The most common platforms were Facebook and World of Warcraft. Most online friends socialised via text chat, voice chat and through playing games together. The majority of the online friends kept in touch with each other on a daily basis and met 2-5 online friends offline. The survey was given big attention at social networking sites and hopes to complement already existing research as well as contribute with inspiration to further studies.