ENGLISH LANGUAGE E-PROCEEDING

‘This system is merely a band-aid with a big revolving door, and modeling our entire
system of care on this wasn’t having any meaningful impact in reducing homelessness,
especially among the chronically homeless.’

Apart from that, some of the brand names appear to include examples where they are
written with the first letter in uppercase but in fact some of these brand names are only
capitalized when they are part of a proper noun, e.g. yo-yo in The American Yo-Yo
Association and escalator in Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation. In other contexts, these
brands are deemed to be generic and are only written with the first letter in lowercase.

Another huge proportion of false positives that needs to be considered are brand names
that have more than one sense and where the other sense is not related with the brand
name in any way. For instance, a large number of examples in the CoCA for the word
‘heroin’ refers to ‘the central female character in a story, play, film, etc.’ instead of ‘the
drug diacetylmorphine’ (OED, 2014) produced by Bayer AG. Another brand name that
displays the same quality is Brita, which is mostly used as a person’s name (e.g. an
author or a character in the novel) and Coke when referring to ‘cocaine’ as in:

Steve had been out of rehab for a year after dealing with a coke addiction and losing
his job with the DA’s office.

We also discovered that two Microsoft products, namely Word and Excel, attract a
large amount of false positives as in:

‘Metabolism is the word that biologists use to encompass all the aspects of being alive’

‘I am a tech geek, and they give me everything I need to learn and excel’.

This is possibly because for both products/goods, the names used are generic words that
are commonly used in everyday life. This leads us to note another shortcoming of the
CoCA in which, unlike Sketch Engine, the interface of the CoCA does not allow a
researcher to search for all the different forms of a word in the corpus.

5. CONCLUSION

5.1 General Conclusions

After analysing our findings based on both the OED and the CoCA in Chapter 4, we
combined our findings and generated a two-token testing in order to get an overview of
how both of these instruments contribute to our search for instances of genericization of
the 100 brand names from a linguistic perspective (Appendix F).

43

Status of brand names based on a two-token testing in the OED and the CoCA
45

40
Proprietary in OED &

35 Proprietary in CoCA

30

Generic in OED & Generic in
25 CoCA

20

Proprietary in OED & Generic
15 in CoCA

10

5 Generic in OED & Proprietary
in CoCA

0

Figure 3: Status of brand names (proprietary and/or generic) based on a two-token testing
using the OED and the CoCA

The results in Figure 3 show that according to the two-token testing, drawing on the OED
and the CoCA, the 100 brand names fall into four types of status, two of which are clear
and two seems to be fuzzy. The two types of status that are clear are: (i) brand names that
are considered proprietary names and (ii) brand names that are considered generic. Our
analysis found that 34 brand names fall into type (i), including Tupperware, Kool-Aid, FedEx,
Groupon, and Winnebago. This means that these brand names do not show any evidence
of genericization according to both of our instruments. In addition, we found that 24 brand
names fall into type (ii), including brand names like bubble wrap, dumpster, aspirin,
memory stick, escalator, and cellophane. For these brand names, both of our instruments
show that they are treated as generic terms as they have lost capitalization.

The two types of fuzzy status that we found in our research are: (iii) brand names that are
considered proprietary names in the OED but generic in the CoCA, and (iv) brand names
that are considered generic in the OED but proprietary names in the CoCA. We found in our
two-token testing that 41 brand names fall into type (iii), leaving Lysol the only brand name
that falls into type (iv). This finding suggests that it is more common for a brand name to be
considered a proprietary name in the OED but generic in the CoCA rather than the other
way around. It is most likely the case that the criteria or specification for brand names to be
entered in the database of the OED and the CoCA differ greatly so further research

44

should look into this in detail. For these two fuzzy types of status, where a brand name is
considered a proprietary name in one instrument but generic in the other, the question
remains as to whether these brand names are on the verge of losing their trademark rights.

5.2 Closing Statement

This paper began by questioning the differences in the status of a word with respect to its
genericness and morphosyntactic evidence that show genericization of brand names. In our
research, a brand name is defined as ‘a distinguishing name and/or symbol intended to
identify the products/goods or services of either one seller or a group of sellers, and to
differentiate these goods from those of competitors’ (Mačura, 2009, p. 58). Our research
discovered four different types of status with regards to brand names that are deemed to
suffer from genericization, in which two are clear and the other two are fuzzy. From a
linguistic perspective, whether or not genericization is the case for the two fuzzy types of
status, this is the great paradox of famous brand names. This is because the
companies/enterprises want to become known by every consumer in the world but not so
well known that they become synonymous for the class of products/goods they sell or
services they provide. Our research also looked at the morphosyntactic evidence that
shows genericization of brand names, particularly the demajusculization of brand names in
the OED and the CoCA, as well as the word classes shown for these brand names in the
OED. Lastly, despite awareness of trademarks and intellectual property rights in our
everyday existence, we still find the same cases of genericization happening to brand
names of products/goods and services.

5.3 Limitations of the Study

The study has the following limitations. First, studies of genericization of brand names from
a linguistic perspective are relatively new. Our findings and their implications were
obtained in a single study, thus caution must be taken when generalizing our findings and
discussion to other brand names, especially the ones that are not in our list, or how these
brand names are treated in other varieties of English. Second, even though this study aims
to provide a linguistic perspective on genericization, we concede that a large proportion of
the study is dedicated to the laws and principles related to trademarks and brand names.
This is because, during the course of our research, we came to realize that it is impossible
to approach this topic without considering its legal aspects. Third, we did not incorporate
the visual aspects of trademarks even though we are aware that a trademark can be any
word, slogan, logo, symbol, package design or other element that identifies the source of
the products/goods and services. This is because we felt that brand names do not always
appear with visuals, e.g. in the speech of consumers. Finally, not being a native speaker of
English and not being directly exposed to American spoken language may have created a
slight margin of error in judgments when conducting this research. This uncertainty was
nevertheless minimized with the help of the various American-based studies as well as the
two corpora of English, which give a thorough description and samples of American speech.

5.4 Implications and Further Research

45

It is hoped that this study will pave the way for future research on genericized brand names
in the field of language and linguistics and help provide continuity to the research done by
Moore (2003, pp. 331-357) on the genericization of brand names and by Clankie (2000) and
Mačura (2009) on the vulnerabilities in today’s viral marketing. Next, it also hoped that
brand strategists and intellectual property scholars may also derive some insights into the
workings of related theories and cases discussed in this study. Lastly, we hope the study
will also shed some light on how linguistic or external strategies work together in
combination, which will be useful to researchers in the field.

This research involved genericized brand names; however, as the visual aspect was
not examined in this research, future research should be able to use the framework of this
study to analyse brand names with regards to their visual aspects. This research can also
be extended to examine the trend of using brand names in the media or to analyse other
related components of marketing, such as advertising slogans. Further research can be
done to ascertain if there are differences in the use of brand names between the
advertising of products and the advertising of services.

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48

. Proceedings of the 3rd International Language & Tourism Conference 2019
Sustaining Global Development Goals through
Language, Education and Tourism

Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University Malaysia,
Pagoh Edu Hub, Malaysia 18th-19th October 2019

AN ANALYSIS OF THE USE OF GERUNDS IN ACADEMIC ESSAYS OF UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS

Norazah Md.Idrus*1, Faridah Abdul Malik2

1, 2 English Language Department, Centre for Languages and Pre-University Academic Development,
International Islamic University Malaysia, MALAYSIA.

(*E-mail: [email protected], [email protected])

ABSTRACT
At higher educational institution, students are expected to have acquired a certain level of English
language mastery to fulfill the demands of academic writing. One of the grammatical items that
is crucial in expressing the students’ ideas and opinions is gerund. The use of gerunds in academic
essay helps students to be more precise and concise. However, this poses a problem as students
do not use gerunds as frequently and as correctly as expected. Thus, this study intended to
investigate the use of gerunds and to determine the functions of gerunds used in students’
academic essays. In order to explore the uses and functions of gerunds, data were collected from
students’ academic essays. These data were analysed using textual analysis based on the
framework of Seiss (2008). The findings show that on average, only a minimal of two gerunds
were used in an essay and in total, there were 260 gerunds used in 100 essays. Another finding
revealed that students used all functions of gerunds except It-Replacement function. This study
implicates a better understanding on the use of gerunds (or lack of it) in academic essays and on
the teaching of academic writing at tertiary level.

Keywords: Gerunds; Academic Writing; Lexical Functional Grammar; Seiss’ 2008 Framework

49

1. INTRODUCTION

Being able to use grammar is an important aspect of language learning. Students must be able to
master and apply grammar rules correctly and appropriately as grammar plays a significant role
in all aspects of language. Chung (2014) states that language users’ linguistic abilities and their
cognitive abilities are often judged by their “grammatical accuracy and complexity of the language
they produce in academic contexts” (p. 2). He further elaborates that users with underdeveloped
grammatical abilities are often considered as being cognitively incompetent as the users'
grammatical ineptitude will fail them in delivering their ideas and opinions.

Gerunds, being part of grammar, is also important as their uses are extremely common in texts
for academic and professional discourse (Alderson, 2007; Bhatia, 2014; Biber, Conrad, & Leech,
1999; Hinkel, 2013). Furthermore, Hinkel (2013) stresses that gerunds are valuable in English
because they can generalise and can refer to concepts, actions and processes, without which, it
would be a challenge for English language users to convey clear and concise expressions, thoughts
and views. Moreover, gerunds play the nominal role of the language which is crucial in writing
through the aspects of varieties and conciseness. Due to this, the use of gerunds in academic
writing is very important.

Furthermore, Sarani and Talati-Baghsiahi (2015) claim that nominalisation found in academic
writing is unique as they help to feature “density, complexity and abstractness” (p. 209) as
nominalisation is part of the language register. Similarly, the academic essay is rated important
in undergraduate education as reported by Shi and Dong (2015). Supporting Shi and Dong, Åberg,
Ståhle, Engdahl and Knutes-Nyqvist (2016) claim that the academic essay is accepted as a genre
within the larger field of academic literacy. Thus, in the life of a university student, to be assessed
through academic essays is common.

Moreover, gerunds are also one of the essential grammatical constructs in academic essays. They
are important in their use as a linguistic function to convey concepts, actions and processes in
students’ academic essays (Kelu, 2013). Gerunds are also used to elevate the writing skills of
second language learners and consequently enable the students to obtain higher scores as an
indication of the students’ ability in writing skill.

Nevertheless, gerunds have been considered as a very challenging linguistic feature (Biber et al.,
1999; Broussard et al., 2000; Taher, 2015). This is evident in the infrequent and incorrect use of
gerunds in students' academic essays (Okaura, 2014; Schwartz & Causarano, 2007; Yanis, 2007).
Thus, the purpose of the study is therefore to investigate the use of gerunds in students’ academic
essays. This study is relevant in the context of an academic writing course at International Islamic
University Malaysia (IIUM). The findings could significantly help, not only learners but instructors
and curriculum developers alike, in improving the teaching and learning of gerunds. Gerunds are
one of the significant linguistic features which are crucial in producing good academic essays. The
objectives of the study are first to explore the use of gerunds in students' academic essays and

50

secondly, to determine the functions of gerunds which are used in academic essays.
This qualitative study examines the use of gerunds in academic essays. This study is only
concerned with the correct use of gerunds in English for Academic Writing (EAW) students’
academic essays. The use of gerunds is compared against the proposed framework by Seiss (2008)
in her paper titled The English -Ing. This study also focusses on the frequency of gerunds used in
accordance with Seiss’ framework. Hence, only gerunds that were correctly used in academic
essays by EAW students are selected for this study.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

Gerunds, in the simplest way, can be defined as verbs that have been changed to nouns with the
addition of inflexion –ing. In this study, gerunds are defined by the functions they perform which
are in line with Seiss’ (2008) Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) framework.

Gerunds are not popular grammatical items as they do not conform to the common English
language linguistic features and grammatical categories. Newson et al. (2006) claim that gerunds
are “probably one of the oddest constructions in the English language” (p. 303). Previous
researchers who have analysed gerunds will, without doubt, agree that gerunds puzzle them
(Heyvaert, 2008; Pesetsky & Torrego, 2004; Seigel, 1998; Yamada, 2005). This is further supported
by Seiss (2008) when she states that, “this English –ing form is believed to display a mixture of
verbal and nominal properties, thus posing problems for any theory of grammar.” (p. 454).

2.1 Gerunds

Being complicated grammatical items, gerunds are not being used often and are sometimes being
avoided by students. On this issue, Schwartz and Causarano (2007) explain the challenges of using
gerunds among students. According to these two researchers, gerund construction creates
confusion among second language learners. The researchers also elaborate that confusion starts
with the inconsistent placement of gerunds in grammar books. Sometimes, gerunds are not even
given emphasis and there are times when gerunds are simply not visible in grammar books. Not
all books that focus on grammar have a dedicated chapter on gerunds.

Schwartz and Causarano (2007) also elaborate that gerunds, when written in grammar books, are
placed together with infinitives. However, these two linguistic features are not interchangeable
and have no similarities. Thus, this creates more confusion on the understanding of gerunds and
contributes to its lesser use.

However, like it or not, to be a proficient English user, one must be able to use gerunds in all
productions including academic essays. As reiterated by Hammond (1990) in Kelu (2013), “the
process of nominalisation is relevant to the nature of speech and writing” (p. 38). As gerunds are
nominals, it is significant to have gerunds in one’s academic essays. This is because nominals help
create variety in writing style and provide cohesion in academic essays, thus making them of

51

better quality (He, Hui, & Quan, 2009; Kelu, 2013).

2.2 Gerunds and Academic Essays

Academic essays can be defined as any written discourse produced by university students, where
these students express their ideas and views on subject matters related to their academic
discipline which follow the writing convention. As for this study, the academic essays concern the
academic writing produced by undergraduate students for assessment purposes in IIUM’s
academic writing course.

In addition, as proficient English language users have to be both fluent and accurate as mentioned
by Yang and Sun (2015), these three aspects of language which are complexity, accuracy and
fluency (CAF) must be given emphasis. Yang and Sun emphasise that:
… components do not develop in isolation, given that they may either support or compete with
each other. The interaction and interdependence of CAF can be discerned within individual
multilingual learner’s writing of a single language and across individual’s writings of different
languages (p. 302).

Thus, to become proficient and fluent users of English, students must be able to utilise gerunds
accurately in their academic essays as such utilisation contributes towards the complexity,
accuracy and fluency of a language.

Writing academic essays is not an uncommon task assigned to university students by their
teaching instructors. In fact, Gardner and Nesi (2013) have identified the academic essay as one
of the 13 types of writing assignments found in universities in America and Australia and they
have ranked essays as the most accepted assignment. Moreover, Shi and Dong (2015) in the study
they conducted, have identified “nine types of writing assignments such as literature review,
scholarly essay, proposal, case analysis, project, review, summary and responses, creative writing
and exam” (pp. 129-130). Therefore studies by Gardner and Nesi and Shi and Dong have unveiled
similar results which highlight academic essays as the most frequently given assignments at the
university level.

Furthermore, in a different study, Kelu (2013) highlights the advantages of being experienced
essay writers who can use English appropriately. He explains that students who can use
appropriate lexical and grammatical features can meet the demands of contexts, and finally,
promote their academic essays as a valuable contribution to the academic field.

With regards to gerunds, Kelu (2013) also states the benefits of using nominalisations in academic
essays. When using nominalisation (gerunds), writers of the academic essays can densely write
structured essays by compressing information in nominal groups. With nominalisation, the
academic essays can result into one which exhibits “lexical density, abstraction results and
impersonal style” (Kelu, p. 27) in meeting the objectives of academic discourse and in being

52

compact and persuasive.

As mentioned earlier, gerunds are indeed challenging grammatical items and yet, using gerunds
in writing brings many advantages to the writers of academic essays. Similarly, despite being
complex written assignments, the academic essay is a prevalent form of assessment, especially
at the tertiary level. Hence, both gerunds and academic essays pose obstacles to the users, but
their benefits outweigh the challenges. Thus, there are lots to be gained in investigating the use
of gerunds in academic essays.

2.3 Theoretical Framework

As mentioned by Kelu (2013), “nominalisation, as a salient feature of academic written texts,
allows experienced writers to compress more information in nominal groups and make the essays
become more densely structured.” (p. 26). Due to the important role that gerunds play, it is
important to identify what a gerund is, and in which function it falls into, either verbal or nominal.
Because of this, Austin, (2001) LFG proposes a better framework for this study. Austin mentions
that:
Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) is a theory of language structure that deals with the syntax,
morphology, and semantics of natural languages. It is distinguished from other theories by having
several parallel representations for sentences, each with its own architecture and vocabulary, and
subject to its own organizational constraints (p. 4748)

In other words, the LFG framework with both its constituent structure (c-structure) and function
structure (f-structure) analyses and these can help in deciphering what gerunds are and how they
are used in English, specifically in academic essays. In LFG, c-structure is the Constituent analysis
or is also known as phase structure rules. F-structure is the Functional analysis or the
representation of a grammatical function. This grammatical function is composed of attributes,
which include features such as the number and tense or functional units such as subject,
predicate, or object. With these analyses, LFG investigates the simple to the complex structure of
words to phrases that are the syntactic structures and organisation of grammatical function. In
summary, LFG is a grammatical framework that provides both morphological and syntactical
structures on both constituent and functional levels.

So, in this present study, which proposes to identify the use and functions of gerunds, the LFG
approach in relation to the analyses of structures is regarded as a more plausible model or
framework to be adopted. Therefore, on the use of gerunds, LFG is a better framework than a
Minimalist Programme and for this study, LFG theory of grammar is adopted.

According to Kelu (2013), systemic functional grammar never sees grammar in isolation and is
instead seen in relation to social context. Thus, grammar needs to be applied and, in this study,
the use or the application of gerunds are observed through the gerundive constructs with specific
reference to how gerunds are used in EAW academic essays among IIUM students.

53

Thus, for this research, a framework by Seiss (2008) is adopted to identify the use and functions
of gerunds. Her framework, besides being based on Lexical Functional Grammar, is also based on
a study conducted by Malouf (1998) on “a lexicalist treatment of verbal gerunds.” (p. 9). Malouf
(2000) describes gerunds’ mixed behaviour as having the value feature for the case of nouns as
gerunds are a subtype of the noun. He also highlights that even though gerunds have a similar
form as participle due to -ing, the forms of gerunds are different from any verb.

According to a claim made by Seiss (2008), it is challenging to analyse gerunds based on any theory
of grammar as gerunds display verbalisation and nominalisation properties. Seiss concludes her
study with the following statement:
It was found that the –ing form with the accusative or null subject only displays verbal properties.
A simple, straight-forward LFG analysis has thus been proposed for these forms. As the –ing form
with the genitive subject or after negative determiners like no or any really displays mixed
properties, a more complex analysis was needed for those forms. For these cases, Bresnan and
Mugane's (2006) analysis of mixed categories has been applied. This means that actually two
different lexical entries are needed for the different subclasses of the –ing form. This then can
also explain why some verbs can only be matrix verbs to the –ing form with the accusative or null
subject, but not with the genitive subject. (p. 472).

Lowe (2016), in reiterating Seiss (2008), mentions that there are nine functions of gerunds which
are in line with LFG. Both Seiss and Lowe highlight that gerunds have different functions
depending on the sentence construction and the placement of gerunds in the sentence. Gerunds
can function as Subject (Joining the club is objected to), Object (We object to joining the club),
Preposition Complement (We thought about joining the club), Coordination with NP (We object
to joining ourselves and your decision to join), It-replacement (We object to it), Tough Movement
(Joining the club is hard to object to), Topicalization (Joining this club, we don’t want to object
to), Clefting (It was joining the club that we objected to) and Pseudo-clefting (What we want to
object to is joining this club).

To further elaborate on gerunds that function as Object, Seiss (2008) divides the Object function
into four sub-categories which are Poss-ing (possessive), Acc-ing (accusative), Pro-ing (pronoun)
and Det-ing (determiner). This Object sub-categories are placed as the objects of the sentence
but differ according to the lexical items that are used before the gerunds. The sub-categories of
Object function are used in constructions POSS-ing (We object to his joining the club), ACC-ing
(We object to him joining the club), PRO-ing (We object to joining the club) and DET-ing (No
joining this club!).

Seiss (2008) has sub-categorised gerunds that function as Object. This function follows a study by
Bresnan (2001) that ACC-ing form is a verbal form which requires a subject in the accusative case.
In the example given, We consent to him joining the club, ‘joining’ is a verbal gerund because him
is an accusative case. Similarly, for a PRO-ing, in the given example, We consent to joining the

54

club, ‘joining’ is a verbal gerund because club has an anaphoric control on the gerund joining.
Seiss (2008) continues with her analysis for POSS-ing construction as “As the POSS function is
restricted to the f-structure of nominal categories and thus cannot be linked to the subject of the
-ing form directly, POSS has to be identified with the subject of the -ing form.” (p. 468).

Thus, with the nine functions and the four sub-categories of the Object function, Seiss (2008)
claims that her analysis on gerunds is complete and comprehensive and she states that “This
completes the picture of the development of the -ing form from a nominalized verb to a structure
displaying mixed properties to a now purely sentential complement, the ACC-ing and PRO-ing
constructions do not display any nominal characteristics anymore” (p. 471).

Therefore, this study’s theoretical framework is based on an LFG grammatical approach towards
analysing the functions of gerunds by Seiss (2008) and this study focuses on the use of gerunds in
academic essays written by IIUM students.

Analysis of Gerund Functions Production of Use of Gerunds in EAW
Academic Essays
(Seiss, 2008) Academic Essays

Gerunds Being Both Noun and
Verb

Malouf (1998, 2000)

Figure 2.3.1: Theoretical Framework: The Use of Gerunds in EAW Academic Essays

3. METHODOLOGY

This study employed a qualitative design to investigate the use of gerunds found in academic
essays written by students undertaking the EAW course at IIUM. Gerunds, one of the linguistic
features in English grammar were the focal point in this investigation. The documents or the
primary data consisted of a collection of EAW students’ academic essays, forming part of their
course assessment. This data was analysed using textual or linguistic analysis proposed by
Seiss’ (2008) study.

This study focused on EAW students’ academic essays. These essays were written by
undergraduates enrolled in the EAW who were expected to be able to use gerunds in their
writing assessment. This was because the students had attempted the university proficiency
test named English Proficiency Test (EPT) and had achieved the minimum requirement of
passing the examination. Thus, students taking the EAW course can be considered as
competent users of English.

55

A purposeful sampling technique was adopted for this study and was homogeneous.
According to Creswell (2012, p. 208), when researchers choose homogenous sampling, they
“purposefully sample individuals or sites based on membership in a subgroup that has
defining characteristics”. In this study, a homogeneous sampling was used because the
students belonged to the same group; they were undertaking the EAW course and these
students produced academic essays as part of their course assessment. These students can
be considered as competent users of English and they were in an English medium bachelor’s
degree programme. They must achieve a score of at least 50 to pass the EAW course and
individually produced academic essays as part of their written assessment. A standardised
assessment criterion was used when grading the essays.

To determine the use and functions of gerunds, the Seiss’ (2008) LFG framework was adapted
as it was deemed as the most appropriate framework for this study. Figure 3.1 shows the
Seiss' (2008) framework for analysing functions of gerunds.

Subject Pronoun Without Overt Subject
Object Possessive
Accusative

Determiner

Seiss (2008) LFG Preposition Complement
Framework: Coordination with Noun Phrase

Functions of Gerunds It- Replacement
Tough Movement

Topicalization

Clefting
Pseudo-Clefting

Figure 3.1 Seiss' (2008) LFG Framework in Analysing Functions of Gerunds

According to Seiss, gerunds can function as Subject, Object, Preposition Complement,
Coordination with Noun Phrase, It-replacement, Tough Movement, Topicalization, Clefting
and Pseudo-clefting. The Object function of gerunds and the sub-categories of Pronoun
Without Overt Subject, Possessive, Accusative and Determiner, however, have the same
functions and construction. As such, in this study, the researcher adapted the Object function
of gerunds as the main category and these four functions; Possessive, Accusative, Pronoun
and Determiner were demoted as sub-categories of Object function. Thus, the analysis of
Object function of gerunds was based on the total of the four sub-categories. The results of
this study were reported in numbers and percentages.

4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

56

This study is based on qualitative research design and the data collected are presented in the
form of frequencies and percentages. The samples consisting of 100 students’ academic
essays which were collected using a purposive sampling procedure.

4.1 Gerunds used in students’ essays

From this study, it was found that there were 206 gerunds used in a sample of 100 academic
essays. It was discovered that 10 essays had no instances of gerunds. 1 essay, Sample 46, had
11 occurrences making it the highest number found. On average, 2.6 gerunds were used in
each essay and the median value of these samples was two. In short, gerunds were used
minimally in these 100 samples.

As the framework of this study is adapted from Seiss' (2008) work, gerunds used in this study
were analysed according to Seiss’ nine functions of gerunds and four sub-categories of Object
functions. The findings of this study show that with 260 correct use of gerunds from 264 uses,
EAW students can be considered as highly proficient users of gerunds, but due to the low
number of gerunds used with an average of two gerunds in each essay, this result ma y be
contradictory. This can be concluded that EAW students infrequently used gerunds in their
academic essays but when they use gerunds, its usage is correct.

Students’ infrequent use of gerunds could also be due to their adoption of avoidance strategy.
A study on the learning strategies adopted by learners of English as a foreign language
revealed that non-native speakers may adopt avoidance strategy to ensure that successful
communication takes place (Ljungberg, 2011). Due to the challenges of using gerunds, the
participants in this study may have avoided using gerunds in their academic essays in order
to obtain high scores in their assessment. Ljungberg elaborates that avoidance strategies or
risk-avoidance strategies are used by students to ensure that they have successful
communication. She further explains that avoidance strategy was adopted when students
want to “fit the language user’s available resources in order to ensure success in
communication” (p. 3).

A similar notion is observed by Zhang (2007) in his study on communication strategies used
in a foreign language learning environment. Brown (2007) elaborates that “Avoidance
strategies can be further broken down into several subtypes, such as phonological avoidance,
syntactic or lexical avoidance and topic avoidance” (p. 45). Thus, this could explain the
contradiction of the low number of gerunds use with a high degree of correctness among EAW
students. This could also be an indication that EAW students avoided risks of making errors
while using gerunds and the sub-categories of Object gerunds in their academic essays.

4.2 Functions of gerunds used in students’ essays

57

In reference to the findings of the second research question on the functions of gerunds used
in students’ academic essays, it was found that EAW students used almost all functions and
all the Object sub-categories. The exception was on gerunds that function as It-replacement.

This shows that gerunds used in students’ academic essays were based on the nine main
functions. From the graph, the function with the highest number of was Preposition
Complement function with a total of 112 (43.08%) occurrences. The second most frequently
used gerunds were Object function with 79 (30.38%) occurrences followed by a Subject
function with 45 (17.31%) uses. There were 17 (6.54%) gerunds that functioned as Clefting
and four (1.54%) gerunds that functioned as Topical. However, only one (0.38%) gerund was
found for Coordination with Noun Phrase, Tough Movement and Pseudo-clefting functions.
No It-replacement function was used in any of these samples. In short, the most frequently
used function of gerunds was Preposition Complement while the It-placement function was
not used in any of the samples.

It was evident that the highest number of the function used was Preposition Complement.
There were 112 gerunds which were used as Preposition Complement from a total of 260. This
function made up around 45% of the total number of gerunds used and EAW students used
this function without any errors even though there may be errors in terms of the sentence
grammaticality. This could be due to the exposure of this gerund function in grammar books.
For example, Azar et al. (2003) wrote one dedicated chapter on the use of gerunds with
preposition and another chapter on the use of gerunds with ‘by’ in their grammar book
entitled Fundamentals of English Grammar.

In comparison to other functions of gerunds in this study, another function or application of
gerund found in Azar et al. (2003) is Subject gerund. The writers also emphasize the use of
gerunds as the subject of the sentences. From the findings, Subject gerunds contributed about
17% of the total use of gerunds in EAW academic essays. Therefore, the high number of uses
of this gerund function could be due to the early exposure of this Subject gerund and thus
invoke a sense of familiarity and confidence in its usage.

This illustrates that the number of gerunds used under the Object function from a total of 79. The
sub-categories of Objects were Possessive, Accusative, Pronoun and Determiner. From the graph,
Pronoun sub-category had the highest number of gerunds with 59 (74.68%) items. The second
highest was 10 (12.66%) gerunds under the sub-category of Determiner. Both sub-categories of
Possessive and Accusative had six (7.59%) uses each in those 100 samples and made up the lowest
number of Object function used. In short, Pronoun sub-category was used the most while the
least used was Accusative sub-category.

In addition, in referring to the sub-categories of Object function, the highest used sub-category
was Pronoun. Pronoun sub-category was used 59 times from a total of 79 Object gerunds. This
shows that nearly 75% of all the sub-categories used in students’ academic essays was Pronoun

58

without Overt Subject, followed by Determiner, Possessive and Accusative sub-categories. The
Pronoun without Overt Subject sub-category exhibits the same sentence construction as Object
function. The familiarity and achievement strategy adopted by the EAW students can be the
reason for the highest number of use of this sub-category.

The high use of gerund sub-classified as Pronoun without Overt Subject, according to Aarts (2004),
is because Pronoun has similar complement-taking properties. This is illustrated in LFG, where
gerunds have similar complement-taking properties that can be complemented by any genitival
and accusative forms. This explains why gerunds can be used as a complement to possessive and
pronouns. Not only that, the use of this gerund function which has the greatest number of uses,
could be due to its flexibility and versatility. Referring to Seiss’ (2008), an example on Pronoun
without Overt Subject, “We object to joining the club”, has a simple sentence structure which is
S-V-O. Due to this simple structure, it could be easy for students to construct sentences using this
function thus making this gerund function being the most used in EAW academic essays.

5. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, from the investigation of this study, it was found that gerunds were used minimally
in 100 EAW students’ academic essays with an average of two gerunds. It was also discovered
that most EAW students used gerunds that function as Preposition Complement and none used
gerunds that function as It-Replacement. As for Object function, the most commonly used sub-
category was Pronoun.

The findings of this study can promote the use of nominals and gerunds, to writers of academic
essays. Gerunds being both nominal and verbal, can contribute towards the quality of the writing
at tertiary levels (Cop & Hatfield, 2016; Sweetland, 2015), be it for academic or for specific
purposes. For future studies, it is recommended that a study be conducted based on a mixed-
method research design on larger sample size. This would enable a deeper insight into the use of
gerunds from more angles obtained through data triangulation and cross-analyses.

Biography:

Norazah Md Idrus is a lecturer at the Centre for Languages and Pre- University Academic
Development, International Islamic University Malaysia. She can be contacted at
[email protected]. The title of her abstract is “An analysis of the use of gerunds in
academic essays of university students”.

Dr. Faridah Abdul Malik is an assistant professor at the Centre for Languages and Pre- University
Academic Development, International Islamic University Malaysia. She can be contacted at
[email protected]. The title of her abstract is “An analysis of the use of gerunds in academic
essays of university students”.

Acknowledgment: The authors would like to express their appreciation to their family for the

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support with Paper ID No 148.

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Proceedings of the 3rd International Language & Tourism Conference 2019
Sustaining Global Development Goals through
Language, Education and Tourism

Kulliyyah of Languages and Management, International Islamic University
Malaysia, Pagoh Edu Hub, Malaysia 18th-19th October 2019

“CAN WE DO A TURTLE?” – AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON SEMI-TECHNICAL
VOCABULARY IN MMO GAMING

* 1Hasnyzar Hussin and 2Afiza Mohamad Ali
1, 2 Department of English Language for International Communication,

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM), Pagoh, Malaysia
(E-mail: *[email protected], [email protected])

ABSTRACT

The rapid development of Massively Multiple Online Games (MMOGs) over the years has
enabled players from different geographical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds to meet,
play and communicate with each other online in the context of gaming. Such setting forms a
breeding ground for new language to emerge, particularly the language of gaming. However,
research on gaming language has not done justice to how fast the industry has grown with
arguments on creating an MMO-gamer or M-gamer corpus in linguistics study. This
exploratory study aims to investigate the discourse of gamers through an analysis of semi-
technical words used in gaming genre in relation to English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This
study also seeks to examine the different in-gaming contexts in which these semi-technical
words exist. Data was collected using a qualitative research design, via cyber-ethnographic
hands-on approach, or ‘lurking’, in order to experience the socio-cultural in-game context
itself and also through a self-compiled list of in-game vocabulary related to gaming. Results
revealed varied and peculiar semi-technical words suggesting the exclusive but commonly
shared knowledge of in-game language among gamers. Implications of the study are also
highlighted

Keywords: MMOG; English for Specific Purposes; Semi-technical vocabulary; Gaming
language

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1. INTRODUCTION

Online gaming has penetrated the world of technology, business, media, sports and career
(Welch, 2002; Mozur, 2014; Hollist, 2015). This booming field subconsciously encourages the
exchange of languages through IT mediums (Macià et. al., 2006). This could be bringing in a
new approach of language and linguistics revolution for both English for Specific Purposes
(ESP) and English for Science and Technology (EST). The usage of language in gaming is
needed as the medium of communication in both virtual and real-world. This allows gamers
and whoever involved in the online games field to interact effectively as the language can be
hard to be distinguished and understood by other people (Huizinga, 1938; Kramer, 2014;
Swoboda, 2015). Selective environment and specific technicality and terminology used in the
field calls for the involvement of semi-technicality of ESP or EST. There is a need for the
people of the world, especially to those in the world of business and media or newly
involved with the gaming world, to understand the usage of language in gaming and by
gamers. This is due to the changing trends and the high probability of society in heading
towards the virtual world exposure. In addition to that, understanding language of gaming
helps to prevent misunderstandings that might happen due to the language set differences
and support the legacy invented by the advanced technology. However, there is not much of
official corpora compilation where people or researchers can refer to, either covering all
genres in gaming or not, as there are not much of researches done on the topic of language
use for gamers per se (Swoboda, 2015). Hence the research aims to explore the semi-
technical vocabulary used by gamers and the different contexts where the words are used in
gaming.

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 English for Specific Purposes (ESP)

English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is an ever-growing area demanding and contributing to
great involvement in linguistics revolution and solidarity of all types of communication in
varied communities globally and locally (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Johns & Dudley-Evans,
2001). The topic of ESP mainly focuses on selective communicative environment (Mohan,
1986; Lamri, 2016) for involving communities and learners (Brunton, 2009). For example, the
English in EST, is slightly different and profoundly unique only to the usage of language in the
field of science and technology where the English found in its academic literatures and
lectures are borrowed with extended meanings to reach the preciseness in specific purposes
(Menon & Mukundan, 2010; Li & Li, 2015). Basturkmen (2006) further argues that ESP is
what learners have to learn not for their own personal interest but for their current
involvement that requires them to. Some researchers highlighted that ESP supports and
emphasizes more on the practicality and context of the language per se rather than in-depth
discussion and exposure on grammar and structure of language (Lorenzo, 2005; Basturkmen,
2006; Lamri, 2016). To understand the concept of ESP, Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998)

64

have constructed a list of characteristics in determining the real reasoning and definition of
ESP which has been followed by many practitioners and researchers. It is believed that in
general, ESP can be categorized and recognized by two types of characteristics; Absolute
Characteristics, a set of must-have characteristics, and Variable Characteristics, a set of
flexible and negotiable characteristics, as shown in Table 1 below;

Table 1: Absolute characteristics and Variable characteristics based on Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998)

Absolute Characteristics

1. ESP is defined to meet the specific needs of the learners.
2. ESP makes use of underlying methodology and activities of the discipline it serves.

3. ESP is centered on the language appropriateness to these activities in terms of grammar,
lexis, register, study skills, discourse and genre.

Variable Characteristics

1. ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines.

2. ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of General
English.

3. ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or in a
professional work situation. It could, however, be for learners at a secondary school level.
4. ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students.
5. Most ESP courses assume some basic knowledge of the language systems.

In the area of ESP, the set of vocabulary that is considered as the main principle
especially to both teachers and learners is mainly technical vocabulary and semi-technical
vocabulary (Farrell, 1990). In most ESP literature, there is a very fine differentiation drawn,
although not distinctively, between the core or basic vocabulary, technical vocabulary and
especially semi-technical vocabulary (Mohammad Abadi & Mohammad Abadi, 2012). This
differentiation plays an important role in categorizing ESP’s further characteristics and
structures. ESP fulfils learners’ needs to understand the specifications in terms of language
in their own specific field (Baker, 1988; Dudley-Evans & St. John, 1998; Basturkmen, 2006;
Lamri, 2016). This specifications and technicalities are one of the main reasons of why the
area of ESP is very wide-ranging and includes a lot of sub- areas and many more to come
(Brunton, 2009). Much research was done based on the study of technical and semi-
technical vocabulary, especially in the science and technology field, which helped with the
growth of another sub-area in ESP; ELT, such as medical (Farrell, 1990; Chung & Nation,
2004; Wang et al., 2008) and electronics (Farrell, 1990).

2.2 Semi-Technical Vocabulary

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Chung and Nation (2003) distinguished technicality in a certain set of vocabulary; 1) using
the intuitiveness of an expert or experienced mind in mentioned focus; and 2) comparing
the technical corpus in mentioned focus with other corpus in different focus and calculating
the frequency of the occurrences. They also added that the easiest, non-tactical way of
recognizing technicality of words, mostly in academic and science field, is when the words
itself are based from Latin or Greek (Chung & Nation, 2003). The second approach of
distinguishing technicality was applied in a study by Chung and Nation (2004) who explained
even more that technical vocabulary can mostly be found in a more specialized field with a
higher rate of occurrences of the word in the specific specialist’s field rather than in the
common field of study.
This is arguably slightly different for semi-technical vocabulary where it includes all of the
common or core, computer-based and technical corpora (Mohammad Abadi & Mohammad
Abadi, 2012). Nation (2001), as summarized by Menon and Mukundan (2010), described
semi-technical vocabulary or words as words with extensive range of meanings which usually
owns up either one or more meanings per word to fit in a specific, most of the time
technical, context where the meanings may either shared or even completely detached from
the general, common language. It is also mentioned that technical and semi-technical
vocabulary are a crucial matter especially towards specialists, students and teachers with
specific purposes in the materials of language learning (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Farrell,
1990; Nation, 2001; Chung & Nation, 2003; Chung & Nation, 2004). Semi-technical
vocabulary, slightly different from technical vocabulary, is perplexing at times and contains
varied sections or types of vocabulary (Widdowson, 1983; Baker, 1988; Dudley-Evans & St.
John, 1998; Mohammad Abadi & Mohammad Abadi, 2012) which is also the reason of why it
is an essential study to research on as it plays an important role in ESP (Farrell, 1990).

2.3 Computer-Mediated Communication

In general, Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is a type of communication devoid of
any distance limitations and is heavily aided by mediums or tools that are technologically-
based such as computers (Beatty, 2003; Walther, 2011) in order to either mend personal and
professional relationships (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Walther, 2011; Hampton et. al., 2018) or
simply to convey messages (Walther 1992; Walther, 1996; Walther, 2011). Typically, the
communication happens face-to-face where all the contextual cues, either verbal or non-
verbal, can be easily detected, received and instantly responded to (Belludi, 2008). CMC has
grown so far that it also reaches the entertainment field such as online gaming. The
coincidental combination of CMC and games share similar attributes where the interaction
and communication in both are processed by technologically-based and machine-based
mediums (Yee, 2006; Corneliussen & Rettberg, 2008; Swoboda, 2015). Researches in the
field of education, found that the combination of CMC and games gives a unique approach in
the process of interacting, hence giving birth to an instructional learning strategy called
Digital Game-Based Learning (DGBL) (Yee, 2006; Eskelinen, 2010; Olsen, 2011). DGBL is one
of the most recent studies and is a type of learning approach, which takes advantage of the
booming field of technology and how it is applied and researched in the field of education
(Prensky, 2001; Beatty, 2003; Gee, 2003; Prensky, 2005; Schneider & Zheng, 2007; Waters,
2007; Eskelinen, 2010; Suh et al., 2010; Olsen, 2011; Gee, 2016).

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2.4 Online Gaming, ESports and In-Game Language

Online gaming, especially MMO games, have been approached as a part of a competitive
‘sport’. With the combination of technology and sport, ‘eSports’ evolved and is now certified
commercially worldwide and considered as a career choice (Welch, 2002; Mozur, 2014;
Schreier, 2015; Nguyen, 2017; Lofgren, 2017). Various researches have shown and supported
that online gaming is an alternative sport that shares similar attributes with physical sports
such as structural rules implementation and competitive environment. Albeit a complex
twist of reality where the ‘athletes’ are fully virtual, the game play is mostly a mixture of
everything - computing, sports, fantasy, strategy and even economic (Guttman, 1978;
Hemphill, 2005; Jin, 2010; Jenny et al., 2017). This phenomenon brought a new kind of
excitement to both gamers and non-gamers as can be seen in Korea at the World Cup
stadium in October 2014 where the stadium was fully packed with audiences who were
solely there to watch a few players sitting in front of computers with their teams, right in the
middle of the field, playing MMO games against each other (Mozur, 2014; Schreier, 2015).

The field has been made more profound and caught the interest of billion-dollar industries,
giant companies and influential bodies (Gaudiosi, 2015; Schreier, 2015; Rovell, 2016;
Gaudiosi, 2017; Nguyen, 2017; Jenny et al., 2018; Pentasia.com, 2018). In some countries,
the government and non-governmental bodies have stepped into the virtual world and
adopted the industry into their youth programmes which include professional participants
receiving certain amount of salary and allowances (Mozur, 2014; Hollist, 2015; Kolev, 2018;
Nguyen, 2018). This has given birth to eSports associations (Hollist, 2015) such as Korean
eSports Association (KeSPA), Association for Chinese eSports (ACE), Professional eSports
Association (PEA), United Kingdom eSports Association (UKeSA) and International eSports
Federation (IeSF), to name a few. With all these developments, this ESP study on semi-
technical words in gaming proves to be timely, useful and promising. The specifically formed
language set and vocabulary in-game used between gamers will keep on growing according
to the size of the audience it serves even though it may seem hard for others (non-gamers)
to understand the language if it is taken too literally (Huizinga, 1938; Kramer, 2014;
Swoboda, 2015). Some researchers argue that without further explanation, this specific
language set gives the non-gamers an impression that it is a degraded version of the
standard language and a compilation of idiosyncrasy, thus ruining the beauty of language
(Greenfield; 2014; Kramer, 2014).

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Design

This exploratory research mainly uses an ethnographic qualitative research design.
Specifically, the data for this study is gathered and analysed based on the approach of
ethnography of communication (EC) in cyber-ethnography or virtual ethnography setting.

67

3.1.1 Ethnography

Ethnography of communication (EC) is best defined as a qualitative approach where it
studies and focuses on the language in general, language use, cultural factors in
communication and language, and social interaction (Carbaugh, 2008). Cyber ethnography,
or netnography (Kozinets, 2002), has been gaining its popularity in varied fields especially
anthropology and sociology (Kozinets, 2002) in line with the technological advancement.
Both Kozinets (2002) and Browne (2011) added that cyber ethnography as a methodology
and research design, may revolutionize and reconceptualize the traditional approach of the
on-field research methods as it is more conducive and widely ranged. The culture and
communication in cyber ethnography can give a meaning where the set of interactions (or
language) can only be understood by the circle of people who shares similar culture
(Burawoy et al., 1991); in this study, within the world of gamers. The requirements of this
method, as summarized by both Akturan et. al. (2009) and Costello et. al. (2017);

1. The community or focus chosen has to be related closely to the research question(s).

2. The traffic or postings in selected community or focus should be substantially high in
terms of the occurrence and frequency.

3. The number of discrete message posters should be considerably high.

4. The possibility of the focus containing rich and detailed data is high.

5. There are active members of the community or focus in relating to the research
question(s).

Akturan et. al. (2009) also adds that the researcher itself should be familiar enough with the
initial nature and characteristic of the virtual community or focus to allow them to ‘lurk’; a
situation where the researchers observe, analyse and at the same time earning a status in
the community or focus itself (Costello et. al., 2017), better. The duration or period for
‘lurking’ in cyber ethnography is widely varied depending on the researchers themselves
(Costello et. al., 2017).

3.2 Data Selection and Analysis Procedure

Following the cyber- ethnography approach, the data was collected through both a hands-on
approach, or ‘lurking’, where the researcher joins in the games in order to first experience
the socio- cultural context and also through a self-compiled list of data in-game in related to
the topic. To the researcher’s best knowledge as a gamer of nine (9) years and also a
language student, in fulfilling another requirement by Akturan et. al. (2009), the semi-
technical vocabulary that is only peculiar to fellow gamers were identified. The size of the
corpus of number of words for this study depended on the period of this study; seven (7)
months with an average of sixty (60) hours per month

68

The compiled data generally consists of the list of words or terms extracted from the in-
game context and the contexts can be in a form of sentences written or said by the gamers
or even planted on the games interface itself. All of the contexts, which also were used as
examples for the data compilation in this study, were directly gained through the interface
of the games itself or within the conversations between gamers in any in-game interaction
medium such as shown in Figure 1, Figure 2, and Figure 3 below;

Figure 1: (MOBA) Dota 2 dungeon and chat interface.

Figure 2: (MMORPG) Legacy of Discord (LoD) lobby and world chat interface.

69

Figure 3: (MOBA) Mobile Legends map and team chat-box interface.

The interface here is referring to the screen of any medium the gamer or player uses to play
the game. The data mainly represented the language in gaming and consisted of semi-
technical vocabularies which are regarded as abbreviations, terms or expressions; the words
that is dissimilar from normal, layman language context. To find the dissimilarities of the use
of contexts, the meanings were distinguished and compared. The compilation of words or
terms were then screened and properly defined with the help of the official online Oxford
English Dictionary in defining the literal definition of the words as well as related gaming
websites such as genius.com and dota2.gamepedia.com. In such cases of when the contexts
or examples extracted are insufficiently inconvenient for explanations, the column for
meanings in-games or interpretation from gamers after being compared with Oxford
Dictionary, were used as supportive means and replaced as the contexts for the word itself
in order to answer the Research Question 2 (RQ2) of this study clearly. The examples of raw
data showed to the volunteers were as follows;

Table 2: Example of Data

No Word Definition from Oxford Dictionary Definition from Gaming Examples of
Related Websites & Context

Interpretation by Gamers

1. Buff i. (Noun) A yellowish-beige colour. A momentarily increase of “… take tht buff

ii. (Adjective) (of a person or their power during the game. fast... you can

body) in good physical shape with Usually by any means from kill ez & get

well-developed muscles. food, item, and special extra exp”

spells.

2. Carry i. (Verb) Support and move A term used when a player is “dude gg. I

(someone or something) from one playing much better than almost die.

place to another. the rest of the team and that Carry me”

ii. (Verb) Support the weight of. player will lead the others to

iii. (Verb) Assume or accept win the game.

(responsibility or blame).

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4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 RQ1. What are the semi-technical vocabulary used by gamers?

A total of 180 distinctive and peculiar in-game words were acknowledged and found
throughout this study. Findings also showed that quite a number of whole terms, words or
semi-technical vocabulary were shortened as either abbreviations or acronyms in order for
the gamers to save time typing or conversing in-game or in real-world while gaming. The
words are listed in Table 3 below. Those semi-technical vocabularies are commonly used by
gamers both in an event of virtual and real world, under the genre of MMO.

Table 3. A Sample of Semi-Technical Vocabulary found in MMO games.

No. Word Abbreviation Word Abbreviation
/ Acronym No. / Acronym

1 Aggro Agg 12 Backpack BR

2 Agility AGI 13 Bait Abbreviation
/ Acronym
3 Area of Attack AoA 14 Ban

4 Area of Effect AoE 15 Battle Rating

5 Assassin 16 Beta

6 Attack ATK 17 Beta-Tester

7 Attribute ATT 18 Bio

8 Auto-fight Auto 19 Blitz

9 Avatar 20 Boss

10 Away-from- AFK 21 Bots
keyboard

11 Back B 22 Buff
Abbreviation
No. Word Word
/ Acronym No.

23 Bug 51 Dungeon
24 Camper 52 Easter Egg

25 Camping CTF 53 Easy Ez
26 Capture the Flag 54 Economy Ele
27 Carry 55 Element EXP
28 Casting 56 Event
29 Character 57 Experience

71

30 Charge Crit 58 Farming FR
31 Cheat 59 Fast travel
32 Cheese 60 Fat FOW
33 Class 61 Feeding
34 Crash 62 Fellowship FPS
35 Creeps 63 Fire Resistance FFA
64 First Blood RrR
36 Critical 65 Flee GM

37 Crowd Control 66 Fog of War GG
GGWP
38 Daily 67 Frag

39 Damage DMG 68 Fragment

40 Damage-per-second DPS 69 Frames Per Second

41 Deag 70 Free for All

42 Deathmatch 71 Frost Resistance

43 Debuff DEF 72 Game Master
DEX 73 Gate
44 Defence 74 Ghosting
45 Demo 75 Glitch
46 Deny 76 Good Game
47 Dexterity
48 Dodge Good Game Well
77 Played
49 Drop

50 Dummy 78 Good Luck Have Fun GLHF

No. Word Abbreviation No. Word Abbreviation
/ Acronym / Acronym
79 Grinding
80 Guild 101 Looking for Party LFP
81 Harass
82 Heal 102 Loot LUK
83 Healer 103 Luck Mag-Def
104 Mage
105 Magic Defense

72

84 Help 106 Mana / Magic Points MP
85 Hit 107 Marksman

73

4.2 RQ2. In what gaming contexts are the semi-technical vocabulary us

In order to understand the in-game contexts of the words easier, th
considered to answer RQ2 for this study. All of the raw data i.e., defini
games related websites and interpretation by gamers, in-game example
4 below;

Table 4: A Sample of Semi-Technical Vocabulary,

Definition / Meaning / Interpreta

No Word Abbreviatio From Oxford From Games
1 Aggro n / Acronym Dictionary Websites & Inte

2 Agility Agg (i) (Adjective) by Gam
Aggressive, violent
3 Area of behaviour. A term used for t
Attack that a mob choo
(ii) (Noun) Problems attack. The party
and difficulties. tank class will wa
all mob aggro an
AGI (i) (Noun) Ability to specific abilities.
move quickly and
easily. Attribute that de
how fast a chara
(ii) (Noun) Ability to deal damages. Im
think and understand high DPS charact
quickly.
An area where a
AoA N/A can land hits.

sed?

he meanings both from websites or avid gamers are being used and
ition or meanings from Oxford Dictionary, definition or meanings from
es of context of the words being used, are extracted, and listed in Table

Definitions, and Contexts found in MMO games.

ation In-game Occurrences of Words by Sub
Genres

s Related In-game MMO MMO MMOFP MOBA General
erpretation Examples of RPG RTS S
mers
Context

the target “Attack the / /
oses to high aggro
y or group’s target!”
ant to pull
nd will have
.

etermines “…Agility is / /
acter can just as
mportant for important as
ter build. others.”

a character “Oi ware with / /
his AoA!!” 74

4 Area of AoE N/A An area where a
Effect attacks or abilitie
affect multiple ta

5 Assassin (Noun) A person who A character/class
murders an important specialized in gan
person for political or pickoffs, dealing
religious reasons. damage to enem
their skills. They
backline damage
to take out fragil
such as marksme
mages. They also
in taking out lone

6 Attack ATK (i) (Verb) Take An attribute that
aggressive military the opponent’s h
action against (a place damage outputs
or enemy forces) with
weapons or armed
force.

(ii) (Verb) Criticize or
oppose fiercely and
publicly.

(iii) (Verb) Begin to deal
with (a problem or task)
in a determined and
vigorous way.

a character’s “The mage’s / /
/ /
es able to skills got big
/
argets. AoE.”

s that is “OI, WE
nking and F**KING
heavy NEED AN
mies with ASSASSIN!!”
are the
ers, chosen
le heroes
en and
o specialize
e heroes.

t will affect “…just focus
health and on atk n crit.
s. Then only u
can beat him”

75

7 Attribute ATT (i) (Verb) Regard A character’s phy

8 Auto- fight Auto something as being mental build-up.
9 Avatar
caused by. consist of 6 attrib
10 Away- AFK
from- (ii) (Adjective) A quality character (ATK, D
keyboard
or feature regarded as a

characteristic or

inherent part of

someone or something.

(i) Short for automatic An action that ca
the players when
want to use their
to fight on their
automatically.

(i) (Noun) A A character that

manifestation of a deity controlled by pla

or released soul in usually customiz

bodily form on earth

(ii) (Noun) An icon
or figure representing
a particular person in a
video game, Internet
forum, etc.

N/A Characters in the
that are online b
doing anything a
players are not t
control it.

ysical and “BR low /
. Usually doesn’t /
butes for a matter...he /
DEF etc). can kill me
coz his att /
high” 76

an be set by “sorry cys,
n players was auto"
r characters
own

is “which avatar
ayers, nice eh to
zable. custom att”

e games “sorry cys,
but are not afk. charac in
as the auto mode.”
there to

11 Back B (i) (Noun) The A command that
rear surface of the used to order oth
12 Backpack human body from the members to retr
13 Bait shoulders to the hips. run away from a

(Noun) The side or A storage for pla
part of something sometimes can b
that is away from the and expanded.
spectator or from the
direction in which it
moves or faces; the
rear.

(ii) (iii) (Adverb) In
the opposite direction
from the one that one
is facing or travelling
towards.

(Noun) A rucksack.

(i) (Bait) Food Exposing a chara
placed on a hook or in an enemy out of
a net, trap, or fishing that a teammate
area to entice fish or him down.
other animals as prey.

(ii) (Verb)
Deliberately annoy or
taunt (someone)

t is usually “Bro the //
her enemies are
reat or to coming!! B!
a fight.
B!!”

ayers and “check the / //
be upgraded ‘backpack’ /
icon. got lvl 8
ring no?”

acter to lur“eI’ll "he bait, yall
f cover, so rape”
e can take

77

14 Ban (i) (Verb) Officially or When the game
legally prohibit admin decides to
(something) player from play
amount of time r
(ii) (Noun) An official or from 1 minute to
legal prohibition. permanently.

15 Battle BR N/A It is used to mea
Rating strong players ar
the accumulative

16 Beta (i) (Noun) The second (i) The part of th
letter of the Greek life cycle, followi
alphabet (Β, β), The software in t
transliterated as ‘b’. quite buggy and
crash, resulting in
(ii) (Noun) [as data.
modifier] Denoting the
second of a series of (ii) It is the stage
items, categories, developer of the
forms of a chemical releases the gam
compound, etc. limited-time for
(beta-tester) to t
report for any im
and bugs before
release.

or server “lol he pk too /
o bar the much thts /
ying for a set why ban” /
ranging
o 78

asure how “BR low
re based on doesn’t
e ATT. matter...he
can kill me
coz his att
high”

he software “This sh***y
ing alpha. game feels
this stage is like a beta”
possibly
n the loss of

e where the
e game
me for a
players
test and
mprovement

the real

17 Beta- N/A A person who te
Tester reviewed a game
(Noun) A biography or the Beta stage to
18 Bio short biographical any bugs, test th
19 Blitz profile of someone. and find ways to
the game even m
20 Boss
A term used in ch
players wanted t
bathroom break.

(i) (Noun) An A strategy used b
intensive or sudden to keep on attac
military attack. enemies at a fast
(ii)(Noun) (informal) A
sudden concerted (i) A harder (usu
effort to deal with player character
something. than the usual th
at the end of eac
(Noun)A person who event or dungeon
is in charge of a (ii) Used to addr
worker or player.
organization.

ested and “Any game /
e that is on recruiting /
o look for beta-tester /
he gameplay no?” /
o improve
more. 79

hat when “Guys pause
to take a the game.
. gonna go
bio!”

by players “wait for me,
cking the don’t blitz
t rate. dungeon yet
you won’t get
much exp”

ually) non- “annoying
r or monster dungeon
hat appears boss. Debuff
ch level of me every
n. time”

ress the best

21 Bots (i) (Noun) (chiefly An A.I. controlled
22 Buff in science fiction) a characters.
23 Bug robot.

(ii) (Noun) The
larva of the botfly,
which is an internal
parasite of horses.

(i)(Adjective) (Of a A momentarily in

person or their body) In power during the

good physical shape Usually by any m

with well-developed food, item, spells

muscles.

(ii) (Noun) A
yellowish-beige
colour.

(iii) (Verb) Polish
(something)

(i)(Noun) A concealed An error, flaw, fa
miniature microphone, fault in a comput
used for secret or system that ca
eavesdropping or produce an incor
recording. unexpected resu
behave in uninte
(ii) (Noun) A small
insect

d “I rather play /
with bots...” /

ncrease of “Gonna get / /
e game. them buffs
means from boi. That’s crit 80
s and etc buff.”

ailure or “lul don’t
ter program bother. Wb
auses it to got bug no
rrect or reward oso”
ult, or to
ended ways.

24 Camper (i) (Noun) A person Players who use
who spends a holiday ‘Camping’ strate
25 Camping in a tent or holiday strategical advan
camp.
26 Capture CTF
the Flag (ii) (Noun) (British) A
large motor vehicle with
27 Carry living accommodation.

(Verb) The activity of A type of strateg
spending a holiday as picking a posit
living in a tent. moving from tha
until an enemy c
to you.

N/A A game mode wh
team requires to
enemies’ flag an
back to their bas

(i) (Verb) Support and A term used whe
move (someone or stronger or survi
something) from one regardless positi
place to another character, is lead
others in the tea
(ii) (Verb) Assume fellowship to win
accept (responsibility or
blame)

the “I am so /
egy to gain pi**ed at the
ntages. camper!! /
suddenly //
ambush
liddat”

gy as simple
tion and not
at position
comes close

here the “u free? CTF
o steal lets?”
nd bring it
se.

en a “dude gg. I
iving player, almost die.
ion or Carry me”
ding the
am / party / /
n the game

81

28 Casting (i) (Noun) An object (i) The act of pro
29 Character made by pouring commentary of a
30 Charge molten metal or other replay, using the
material into a mould. broadcasting fun
speak to audienc
(ii) (Verb) Throw watching the gam
(something) forcefully
in a specified direction. (ii) To activate a

(i) (Noun) The mental A character in a v
and moral qualities or role-playing g
distinctive to an controlled or con
individual. a player, typicall
protagonist in a
(ii) (Noun) people in a
novel, play, or film.

(iii) (Noun) A printed
or written letter or
symbol.

(i) (Verb) Demand (an A subclass. Owns
amount) as a price for or skill of movem
a service rendered or boosting, jump, d
goods supplied. teleport, or fly. A
the skills to repe
(ii) (Verb) Formally away for a short
accuse (someone) of time.
something, especially
an offence under the
law.

oviding live “She is /
a game or casting today, //
e in-game the mage will
nctions to be casting the /
ce members spell”
me.

a spell.

video game “zade why u /
game who is stick to
ntrollable by bladedancer?
ly a u don’t want
game's plot. to change

character?”

s a passive “Can
ment someone
dash, charge for
Also have this round?”
el enemy

period of

82

5.0 DISCUSSION

Findings showed that each of the raw words and meanings that are taken from sources
were approved and justified by at least 80% out of the 20 chosen avid gamers. This means,
for each and every word along with its meanings, at least 16 of the avid gamers are familiar
with the words and use them regularly while gaming, in a way signifying that these findings
have fulfilled and approved the approach and theory outlined by Chung and Nation (2003) to
distinguish the technicality of the vocabulary. It is also interesting to note that most of the
avid gamers admitted that these words and the meanings tend to confuse non-gamers and
most were defined very differently from the usual definition or the context used in common
language. This peculiarity of findings supported the previous studies and theories on how
language in gaming often led to confusions and misunderstandings (Huizinga, 1938; Kramer,
2014; Swoboda, 2015) due to the probability of different meanings occurred.

The variety of the words and contexts supported the idea by Nation (2001)
Mohammad Abadi and Mohammad Abadi (2012) where semi technical vocabulary includes
all of the common and technical corpora which hold extensive range of meanings to fit in
certain context. This can be seen for example, in the word ‘dungeon’ which is defined by
layman resources and online Oxford Dictionary (2018) as ‘a strong underground prison cell in
a castle’ and usually being portrayed as a scary place. On the contrary, even though the word
and the pronunciation are the same, it is generally interpreted by avid gamers as ‘a place to
gain or loot money, in-game materials and experience points. Another example is an
abbreviation or acronym commonly used by gamers; ‘GG’ or Good Game, where gamers use
the term in a context of when a gamer wanted to signify a ‘the-end moment’ or game over
towards oneself or others in both losing or winning battle or situation. There are also
examples of words that do not exist in any layman vocabulary set such as ‘rekt’, which is
usually used and expressed in a context or situation when a gamer managed to eliminate or
even humiliate another gamer or enemies in- game. One more example that truly shows the
detachment of meanings in-game from general, common language is the word ‘tank’. ‘Tank’
in the context of gaming refers to an act of receiving focus and damages from enemies, most
of the time on behalf of teammates, and also referring to a character with high defense. This
is totally different from what is defined by online Oxford Dictionary (2018) - ‘a heavy
armored vehicle’ or ‘a large receptacle or storage chamber’.

It is can be seen as of the examples above, that the words after being given its own
meanings to cater the specific needs a purpose would not fit with the common usage in
general English. This peculiar set of words and the context they are used are indeed semi-
technical vocabulary which is part of ESP focus on the selectiveness of the nature of the
language (Mohan, 1986; Lamri, 2016) and based on the absolute characteristics, as listed by
Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998). The size of the corpus found also negates Greenfield
(2014) and Wijaya (2018)’s idea of gaming being not as widely popular as it claimed to be.

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