Abstract
Serving as a theoretical jumping-off point, this chapter explores theories of play, to the end of relating the concept to gameful L2TL. It starts by focusing on the elements of the definition of play, noting that an absolute definition may be problematic because it does not account for the subjective nature of the experience. It then explores the concept of language play, an important notion for gameful L2TL because of its relationship to development and language awareness. It then explores the work of Roger Caillois, a philosopher of play who argued there were different types: ludus, paidia, agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx. Each is related to gameful L2TL, to digital gameplay styles, and ultimately to L2 learning styles, which leads to discussion of motivation and whether and how different play and learning styles be accounted for in gameful L2TL practice.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Play has been observed in most mammals, birds, reptiles, and, amazingly, cephalopods.
- 2.
If they are learning English and exposed to his work. Other children’s authors in other languages also utilize language play, e.g. Kornei Chukovsky in Russian.
- 3.
A MOO is a digital text-based multi-user dungeon, object oriented, an early precursor to adventure games, loosely based on multiplayer tabletop adventure games like Dungeons and Dragons (Gygax and Arneson 1974).
- 4.
- 5.
Interestingly, Caillois published his first, French edition in 1958, the same year American physicist Higinbotham created what has been identified as the first video game , a tennis-like game on an oscilloscope (the game Pong , sometimes identified as the first arcade videogame, was developed by Atari in 1972).
- 6.
Klug and Schell’s (2006) nine types are competitor, explorer, collector, achiever, joker, director, storyteller, performer, and craftsman. They do not claim to be comprehensive.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Reinhardt, J. (2019). Play. In: Gameful Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. New Language Learning and Teaching Environments. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04729-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04729-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04728-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04729-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)