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Article published In:
Language and Dialogue
Vol. 13:1 (2023) ► pp.81–102

Dialogic interaction between player and non-player characters in animal crossing

A corpus-based study

| Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
| Free University of Bozen-Bolzano

Dialogic interaction is a distinctive feature of Animal Crossing, a social simulation video game developed by Nintendo, yet, little attention has been paid to it from a discourse analytical perspective. This paper aims to explore how AC characters are characterised through language and which discourse strategies are applied to engage players. The analysis, based on a corpus of dialogues transcribed by fans of the game, relies on corpus-linguistics methodologies and can be framed within the context of ludolinguistics. The study shows that emotive language is used to create an active interaction between player and non-player characters (NPCs). Even though NPCs are minimally characterized in terms of gender, age, or social status, the collocational analysis of “I” and “you” highlights two opposite personalities interacting in the dialogues: type A, lexically represented as extroverted, dynamic, and active, and type B, represented as kind, hesitant, and passive.

Keywords: Animal Crossing, non-player characters, player retention, ludolinguistics, corpus linguistics, videogames
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Player retention strategies
  • 3.Materials and methods
  • 4.Analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Keywords analysis
    • 4.2Collocational analysis
    • 4.3Semantic analysis of collocates
    • 4.4Semantic agency of collocates
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Note
  • Ludography
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 20 January 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00136.laz
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