On the Ground with Tactical
Iraqi
Elizabeth Losh
University of California, Irvine
Mission Game
Skill Builder
Arcade Game
What are the core problems that
Tactical Iraqi is designed to
solve?
A chronic shortage of Arabic speakers among
military personnel
A combat environment in ambiguous urban
warfare settings of occupation and
reconstruction
A resistance to classroom language instruction in
the planned population of learners
A Pre-History of Tactical Iraqi
It originated at the Center for Advanced Research
in Technology for Education (CARTE) at the
Information Sciences Institute of the University of
Southern California. Researchers at CARTE had
previously authored a range of imaginative but
seemingly disconnected distance learning
initiatives that featured computer generated
animated agents, software capable of expressive
speech analysis and synthesis, and programs
organized around the presentation of pedagogical
drama.
Social and Perceptual Realism
What common
rituals make us
more likely to
identify a given
situation as
realistic?
A Pre-History of Embodied
Language Learning
Georgi Lozanov:
Suggestology and
Suggestopedia
The Commercial Market for
Language-Learning Software
The Living Language
series models norms
of politeness in which
interactions are highly
regulated and
proprietary rights to
the physical space is
not contested.
“Knock and Talk” Missions
How do soldiers learn to follow very different
rhetorical rules?
How is personal space negotiated?
How do strategies and tactics differ?
Is there a role for politeness?
The Concept of Politeness
Are there universals about politeness?
What constitutes a “virtual offense”?
Brown and Levinson
Negative politeness is generally the less risky
strategy than positive politeness
“It is safer to assume that H prefers his peace
and self-determination than he prefers your
expressions of regard.”
But many serious games involve restricting the
movement of others to quarantine, question,
search, and sometimes detain them.
What are the norms of
commercial game engines?
Hobbesian Realism as the operative principle in
Unreal Tournament
Virtual Tourism
What are the effects of architectural pastiche?
How is the area of game play constrained?
A Rhetorical History in Classical
Rome:
The Method of Loci / The Palace of Memory
Virtual Iraq
The Rhetoric of Walking
Secondary Literacy
Why present a relatively media poor
environment?
What concepts get ejected
during the design process?
1) Measuring success by “face”-preserving
interactions is deemed too complicated.
2) A female player version with “Major Kate
Jones” is never built.
3) A damaged water plant becomes a damaged
girls’ school.
What do these “cryptohistories” show us?
What would a game based on
face look like?
Multiplayer games and online environments
involve cooperative action based on
reputations earned in raids, from the creation of
impressive digital artifacts, and virtuoso
performances of skill or demonstrations of
strategy.
Is the notion of fame or reputation different
from face?
How are trust-based games
different?
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
The Closed Bag Exchange
Friend or Foe
The Common’s Dilemma
Byzantine Generals and Non Zero-Sum Games
The Trust-Meter in The Thing
(2002)
The Trust-Meter onTom Clancey’s
Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006)
The Trust-Meter on Global
Conflicts: Palestine
(2007)
Trust in the Experimental
Situation
The Value of Information Sharing
Reluctant Players
Cheat Codes
Good Subjects and Bad Subjects
Teenagers Added to the Mix
What about how identity categories
of race, class, and gender relate to
linguistic identity?
Narratives about professionalism and military
labor
John Smith as a cipher
Samia Faris as a cultural hybrid
Language and gender difference
“These guys aren’t going to sit in class learning
Arabic.”
Mainstream Media Coverage
and Secondary Audiences
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Newsweek
USA Today
The Los Angeles Times
The New York Times
National Geographic
Forbes
BBC
National Public Radio
ABC News
The Society of the Spectacle
Showing pervasive problems
being solved
The shortage of Arabic speakers
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among the
veteran population
The difficulty of locating improvised explosive
devices
Ambush! from
BBS, another
DARWARS
project
How is the multi-lingual voice
recognition of “Sergeant John
Blackwell” different from
videogames and simulations?
This life-sized
projection claims to
Speak Farsi,
Pashto, Arabic,
and Korean
Making Things Public
The Debate in the Serious Game
Development Community
Instrumentalism and the question of how a game
functions as a tool for individual action
Functionalism and the question of how a game
reinforces societal norms
Is linguistic competence an absolute good?
How are politics and serious gaming related?
Does the SonicJihad fiasco tell us anything about
that relationship?