28.4421, Diss: English; Semantics: Catherine L. Cook: ''I Rolled a One and I'm Dead: Person Reference Across the Multiple Worlds of Table-Top Roleplaying Games''

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-4421. Wed Oct 25 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.4421, Diss: English; Semantics: Catherine L. Cook: ''I Rolled a One and I'm Dead: Person Reference Across the Multiple Worlds of Table-Top Roleplaying Games''

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Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2017 11:50:44
From: Catherine Cook [catherine.cook at monash.edu]
Subject: I Rolled a One and I'm Dead: Person Reference Across the Multiple Worlds of Table-Top Roleplaying Games

 
Institution: Monash University 
Program: School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2017 

Author: Catherine L Cook

Dissertation Title: I Rolled a One and I'm Dead: Person Reference Across the
Multiple Worlds of Table-Top Roleplaying Games 

Dissertation URL:  https://www.academia.edu/34845012/I_Rolled_a_One_and_Im_Dead_Person_Referen

Linguistic Field(s): Semantics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)


Dissertation Director(s):
Simon Musgrave
Alice Gaby

Dissertation Abstract:

Theories of reference to person are generally considered to name their target
in some way. With few exceptions, a proper name is assumed to refer to the
entity that bears the name, and a deictic form to the entity it points to. A
problem arises, however, when we take into account examples such as Example 1
below:

Example 1:
Phil: Okay so after Sean was Jacob. Jacob did you do anything?
Jake: I’m moving thirty feet
Jake: Cause I’m gonna turn- oh, actually
Jake: Actually, with my tumble I have to beat its bloody base attack don’t I?
Sam: I’m going there, I’m gonna xxx like thirty feet closer

In this thesis, I investigate person reference across multiple worlds such as
those in these examples using collected data from table-top roleplaying games.
These games present an interesting challenge to traditional reference theories
due to their constant shift in referred entities with little or no shift in
reference terms. During the course of this study, I test several theories of
reference, both general and specific, by applying them to the collected data.
The tested theories include cognitive theories such as mental spaces, theories
of reference such as Rauh’s seven types of deixis (Rauh, 1983), and theories
of specific types of reference such as anaphoric accessibility and
Jackendoff’s (1992) statue rule.

The shortcomings in the tested theories are overcome by way of adapting some
of the more successful elements of several theories to create a new model of
reference for multiple-world contexts. This new model, heavily based on mental
spaces (Fauconnier, 1981), conceptual blends (Fauconnier & Turner, 1998),
cognitive domains (Sweetser & Fauconnier, 1996) and Bühler’s deixis (1934),
introduces a fourth element to the immediate deictic context- that of the
active mental space. This is a somewhat minor adjustment to the basic idea of
deixis, that deictic reference is determined by the place, time and person of
an utterance that takes activity and intent into account. This adjustment
allows for a shift in world focus without losing the immediate context used to
determine a referent.

The new model is presented in two parts. First, a process of interpretation of
reference forms is provided as a step by step process. The second part
concerns later stages of interpretation and focuses on the worlds available
for reference themselves. The available worlds from the data are established
and their use described in relation to the theories that make up the final
model. Cognitive domains, for example, are found to restrict the worlds that
are available for reference during the course of a game event, as well as what
worlds may require more distinct discourse marking when a world change is
required. The spaces available for reference are a combination of distinct
mental spaces, such as the fictional world, non-diegetic spaces such as joke
spaces and rules, or combinations of spaces and entities in the form of
conceptual blends, including character/player blends or joke “versions” of a
character. These blends allow the creation of entities that exists outside the
baseline worlds found in the data, and for reference to several entities
across multiple worlds and spaces within a single discourse event. The final
form of the model is tested and discussed based on a sample of data.




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