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AMBIVALENT NATURE OF GAMERSВ’ SUBCULTURE SOCIOLECT

E. Erofeeva, T. Erofeeva, M. Kropacheva, E. Litvinova

Abstract

Social space is heterogeneous; it is represented by a variety of different cultures and subcultures. All the variety of subcultures represented in the modern urban space can be divided into groups, depending on the nature of the prevailing activity linking the members of the subculture. Recently many subcultures related to the use of computers have emerged. The entertainment industry offers a huge variety of computer games to a modern person, which predetermines the number of people involved in this subculture. One of the most important features of most subcultures is their sociolect. The subject of our study is the sociolect of gamers. The material of the study is comprised of the lexical units used by fans of computer-based online games like MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). As a result of the analysis of the lexical material it was revealed that other slang systems serve as sources for the formation of the gamer sociolect, primarily programmer slang and general slang. On the one hand we can distinguish a common vocabulary (the core of the sociolect) in the sociolect of gamers. On the other hand the sociolect of gamers appears as not a homogeneous phenomenon: it consists of different "sublanguages", the features of which are determined by the game mode (online / offline), genre variety of games, specific games, etc. Thus there is a single subculture of gamers which at the same time has a heterogeneous character.

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